English Literature

HOPE FOR SALVATION, AN EVASION / RELIGIOUS PLAY One of the approaches to "Waiting for Godot" is to regard it as a religious play because there are ample references to God, Christ and hope of salvation. The two tramps are waiting for Godot who is variously interpreted by the critics. Some critics opine that it is a religious drama and the tramps are waiting for salvation. They hope that one day Godot will come and they will be 'saved'. But this period of waiting is full of sufferings and torments. Man wants to escape from these sufferings and the only rescue which he finds in the panorama of this world is the hope of salvation. The play "Waiting for Godot" has a universal appeal. The tramps represent all humanity. Their sufferings are the sufferings of all human being, no matter in which country they live in or what religious beliefs they have. They reflect modern man's loneliness, absurdity, forgetfulness, illusions, deferred hope, meaninglessn...

Beckett is considered to be an important figure among the French Absurdists. "Waiting for Godot" is one of the masterpieces of Absurdist literature. Elements of Absurdity for making this play are so engaging and lively. Beckett combats the traditional notions of Time. It attacks the two main ingredients of the traditional views of Time, i.e. Habit and Memory. We find Estragon in the main story and Pozzo in the episode, combating the conventional notions of Time and Memory. For Pozzo, particularly, one day is just like another, the day we are born indistinguishable from the day we shall die. It is very clear from the very word "Absurd" that it means nonsensical, opposed to reason, something silly, foolish, senseless, ridiculous and topsy-turvy. So, a drama having a cock and bull story would be called an absurd play. Moreover, a play having loosely constructed plot, unrecognizable characters, metaphysical called an absurd play. Actually the 'Absurd Theatre...

"Waiting for Godot" is an existentialist play because it has clear tints of existentialism in it. If we study the term existentialism we would come to know that it is a philosophical doctrine which lays stress on the existence with his concrete experience and solidities. However, "Waiting for Godot" is an existentialist play for it embodies Christian existentialism. Christian existentialism stress the idea that: "I God only, man may find freedom for tension." For Christian, existentialism religious leads to God, whereas according to the Atheistic Existentialism, it is based on the idea of Jean Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger who state that: "Man is alone in a godless universe." The comparative study of both philosophies helps us to prove "Waiting for Godot" as a Christian existentialistic play. We know that man is confronting the problem of his existence as a being. He is striving for his survival and to con...

"Waiting for Godot" is not a play to which traditional ideas of plot, action, structure etc. do apply. To a certain extent, Beckett has deliberately discarded or parodied such conventions. There is double-structure in "Waiting for Godot" linear and cynical. The structural devices can be seen in dialogues, characterization and bringing out of the themes. In cyclical structure, there is no change, no movement, development, nothing happens but linear things have their ways of changing. The major structural devices are parallels. The two acts are bold experiments in use of parallelism, which is saved from the monotony by an admixture of contrast in it. Repetition or paradigm is primarily dominant in the play. In each act Vladimir asks Estragon how he spent the night, in each act Vladimir offers to embrace Estragon and latter does not, at first, kindly take this gesture. Every now and then, Estragon says: "Let's go." Vladimir patientl...

Tragic-comedy is a play which claims a plot apt for tragedy but which ends happily like a comedy. The action is serious in theme and subject matter and tone also sometimes but it seems to be a tragic catastrophe until an unexpected turn in events brings out the happy ending. The characters of a tragic-comedy are noble but they are involved in improbabilities. In such a play tragic and comic elements are mixed up together. Fletcher, in his "Preface to the Faithful Shepherdess", defines a tragic-comedy as: "A tragic-comedy is not so called in respect to mirth and killing, but in respect it wants death which is enough to make it no tragedy. Shakespeare's 'Cymbeline' and 'The Winter's Tale' may also be categorized as tragic-comedy." The English edition of "Waiting for Godot", published in 1956 describes the play as a "tragic-comedy" in two acts. There are many dialogues, gestures, situations and actions that are stuff of p...