Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" a Tragic Come
Samuel Beckett called his play a Tragic Comedy. Do you agree with this classification? If not, how would you classify this play? Do you think this play contains more elements of tragedy or comedy?
Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ has been known as one of the masterpieces of tragicomedy for generations through the ages. The play blatantly alternates between phases of utmost despair and pity and moments of raucous humour, taking the audience on an emotional roller coaster. Beckett was responsible for introducing the concept of ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ and its immediate popularity due to its vicissitudinous nature, which plays upon the human emotions of despair and humour simultaneously.
The entire play is pervaded by a sense of despair and tragedy. The tragic elements are seen in the circumstances of the characters, their physical disabilities, their lost sense of time and utmost futility, their doomed existence where “Nothing happens and nothing can be done,” and the empty stage. The comic elements revolve around the games the characters invent, their interactions with each other, and the vaudevillian routines.
Waiting for Godot is primarily about hope, waiting and meaning in our lives. The characters are comical and their dialogue is filled with non-sequiturs and “blather,” seeming nonsense. The movement of the plot is arbitrary: there is no identifiable beginning, middle, and end – no “Freytag’s pyramid” to help us get a grip on the plot.
The beginning of the play sets the tone of the play on a rather bleak and tragic note. We see a lone barren tree and two homeless tramps, the characters of Vladimir and Estragon, onstage. The circumstances surrounding the characters emanate an eerie feel and leave the audience feeling utterly bewildered and perplexed by the purpose of the characters.
Vladimir and Estragon are homeless tramps with no apparent purpose in life while Lucky is portrayed as a slave to Pozzo, treated no better than an animal and quite ironically considered to be the most intellectually vacuous creature; though he has a past that suggests that he could sing, think, recite, and sing. The overall image of Lucky is that of a helpless victim, akin to a tortured prisoner who despite his intelligence cannot do better in life than to be a beast of burden. A rather intriguing character is introduced in the form of a nameless boy, who is known only as “a boy,” who brings into play feelings...