Notesale: Turn your study into money

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THEME AND TITLE

" WAITING FOR GODOT "
BY SHILADITYA CHAKRABORTY

Dostoevsky asked , " DID MAN CREATE GOD TO HAVE A
REASON TO LIVE ? "
...
Beckett's two tramps have
a striking resemblance with two men in Flaubert's
unfinished novel "BOUVARD ET PeCUCHET " OR they can
resemble Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy playing Dante's "
DIVINE COMEDY " , or it may be just like Pascal's
"PENSEES " played by Fratellini clowns
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Jean Anouilh said that " Waiting for Godot " is
the best play since Pirandello's "SIX CHARACTERS IN
SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR "
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But who is Godot in this play called " WAITING FOR
GODOT " ? Godot can be "GOD-OH" , a kind of prayer ;
Godot can be the outside or the society for the prisoner ,
Godot can be friend for friendless , love for loveless , it
can be money for the poor , it can be a man of
compassion who could make our life meaningful
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In "BEING AND
NOTHINGNESS " , Sartre said that we have a choice and
in the midst of nothingness , we can rebuild the world
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Beckett's
model is not like the character of Roquentine from
Sartre's "LA NAUSEE "
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And the
main action of the play is not necessarily regarding Godot
but Waiting
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it
represents uncertainty
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So,
Vladimir and Estragon , if we take them as two thieves
are hanging in this ambivalent, doubtful world where
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neither of them is "SAVED" or "DAMNED"
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So the
action and theme of the play is not Waiting itself but
what they do while waiting
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Waiting is comforting for them
because it gives them a sense of security
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Because Waiting gives them the illusion that
they are doing something which is meaningful and for
that reason sometimes we feel that they don't want
Godot to come because if he comes , their waiting will be
over and the absence of waiting will make them
insecure
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S
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There is a negativity in the word "Waiting "
which exhibits a self-negating impulse and waiting is also
negative by virtue because it has no fixed identity
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But Calderwood suggests that , " NO THAT'S NOT
IT , IT IS NOT WHAT HE IS DOING BUT WHAT HE IS NOT
DOING THAT CONSTITUTES WAITING "
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Thus, Gogo and Didi struggle with their boots and their
hats, eat carrots and turnips , ponders the mysteries of
crucifixion and the enigmas of suicide , talk with Pozzo
and listen to Lucky
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" LET'S GO
WE CAN'T
WHY NOT
WE'RE WAITING FOR GODOT
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The
audience have waited for "WAITING FOR GODOT" and as
the curtain rises , the appointment has been kept and
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"WAITING FOR GODOT " has come
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So, as this nothing
doing constitutes in various forms , the audience realizes
that they have not ceased waiting
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So, if we have been waiting all the day for performance ,
then what we have done all day - work, play etc
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So, the
play is like unarriving Godot to the tramplike audience
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The audience is unarriving
Godot for tramplike play
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"NOT A SOUL IN SIGHT " , This is a convention of realistic
theatre as we have seen in "Henry IV ", When Falstaff
before stabbing the dead Hotspur says " NOBODY SEES
ME "
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So the excessive importance of waiting
nullifies not only what we are doing but also the time in
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which we are doing
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or will it ? So ,
the appointment ,vows , promises are our attempt to
control time and to escape the uncertainties
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But Godot
doesn't appear implies that in their world time refuses to
be shaped
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The uncertainties of
memory suggest that they live almost entirely in the
present
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But their past is lost to memory and their
future is not yet or never to be and their present is
negated
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So , it makes the play the epic of nothingness
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it expresses life to its
barest essential
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And Vladimir and Estragon are groping for meaning
in a meaningless and timeless existence
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For him travelling is a moving form of
waiting - waiting for the fair - and thus it is selfnullifying
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There is no in-betweenness
for Pozzo
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So, he has no longer any destination
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And if Waiting is a
means to end , it can do nothing to bring about the
desired meeting
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But how do we wait faster ? The only
way to speed up waiting is by forgetting that you are
doing it
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As the play goes on , " Waiting " for Didi and
Gogo becomes a pointless habit
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WAITING "
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So
their past has faded with fading memories and their
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future fades as well
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similarly without waited-for and Godot , the
waiting itself is nothing
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The play forced upon us the realisation that
we are not waiting in the theatre only but we are waiting
in our life for a Godot who will never come
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Godot has come afterall -- to tell us
that he will not come
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That means meaning is not
yet
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"LET'S GO " is followed by "
THEY DO NOT MOVE "
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But , in todays
world , in the days of slow crucifixion the things go on
and on without any definite outcome

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