"Waiting for Godot" - Classroom Activity

This blog is a part of my classroom activity…. Click on the below image to have a look at the activity.

Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett.In this play two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. The play is divided into two acts. 

Here are my responses for the classroom activity given above.

1.)     The setting of the play is “A country road, A tree, Evening”. This setting is inspired from two paintings by Casper David Friedrich's “Longing”. In both the setting of the play and these paintings, we find the play of ‘hope’ and ‘despair’ in human life.

2.)     Tree is the important symbol in both the acts. In the first act tree is barren, so it suggests the loss of faith and spiritual degradation among the people after World War 2. In the second act we find some leaves on the tree, it suggests hope. People were lost but there is a little hope to upgrade.

3.)     Night signifies ‘end’ while moon signifies ‘ray of hope’. So 'coming of the night and moon’ can be connected with the different sayings like ‘Every dark cloud has a silver lining’, ‘If winter is here, can spring be far behind’ and ‘Every tunnel has a light’.

4.)     Debris means fragments of something that has been destroyed or broken into pieces. In the play, it can be seen as the chaos and destruction in the society after Second World War. It can be also seen as the thought pollution of human mind.

5.)     “Nothing can be done”. The theme of Nothingness recurs in the play in the behaviour of the characters and also their dialogues.

For example: - Estragon speaks that “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, and it’s awful!” The play looks at the life in microscopic way, if we look from distance we see things are changing but actually “Nothing changes".

6.)     The play is an optimistic play, not pessimistic. The play reflects the meaning of this meaningless life. Nothing is permanent but we have to live till it exists and also have to keep a positive attitude when it vanishes. Again the interpretation and our way of reading the play also reflect our thinking whether it is pessimistic or optimistic. It depends.

7.)     Hat and Boots are represented symbolically in the play. Hat represents the intellectual thinking, while the Boots represent thinking without logic or materialistic way of life.

8.)     Lucky is very obedient. In the second act, when his master is blind he doesn’t leave him. Here we compare Lucky with Uncle Tom from “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. When Tom is taken to warehouse for selling, he thinks of getting a good master rather than freedom. Lucky is so habituated as a slave that now he cannot free himself. Our breathing process is so unconscious that we hardly realise it. Similarly lucky cannot free himself from this unconscious slave mentality.

9.)     Religious perspective: - Godot is ‘God’. Whenever there is rise of darkness on earth, an Avatar is expected to come and solve things. Vladimir and Estragon are also waiting for Godot to come, who has white beard.

Rational perspective- Godot is ‘Death’. The final reality of life.

Practical perspective: - Godot is ‘Object of human desires’. Desires are never fulfilled.

Godot can be anyone and he can also be no one…..

10.)   “The subject of the play is not Godot but waiting”. I do agree with the thought of Martin Esslin. Waiting is something we all do. We can see the flow of time while waiting. Whenever we are waiting for someone, we feel time is not passing and therefore we divert our mind in other things. Similarly, the characters are also waiting and at the end of the play they are still waiting. If the subject of the play was Godot then he might turn up.

11.)   The play can better be read than viewed. The play is written in simple language and short dialogues so we don’t get bored while reading. Every reading will give you more understanding of life. Audio-Visual do help in understanding the play, but as the dialogues are small you don’t get much time to ponder upon them. While reading you can take time to understand the deep meaning of words. I don’t know about other plays, but this play gives immense pleasure while reading.

12.)   The sequence which I liked the most is “Pozzo- Lucky episode in both acts”. First of all this sequence creates humour in this play. Very deeply we can observe the religious discourse, Pozzo can be seen as the religious leader or the so-called messenger of God and Lucky is the blind follower. Vladimir doubts Pozzo while Estragon is looking at the materialistic life. This act makes the play interesting.

13.)   The play do leads us to feel existential crisis. Whenever the word “Nothing” comes we feel, the meaninglessness of our life. It also leads us to think the absurdity of our own existence. We feel existential crisis throughout the play. In both the acts, at last Vladimir and Estragon decides to go, but they don’t move. At that time we do feel where when can we go. Also when the boy informs that God won’t come, we as a audience also feel irritated that waiting was useless as such.

14.)   Vladimir and Estragon tries to hang themselves, but they are not able to commit suicide. First we can say that, they might have thought that we have waited for so many days. Let us wait for one more day and drops the idea to die. Deep down inside there is a curiosity to meet Godot. Second, they might be afraid of Godot, as suicide is one the sins from religious perspective and they won’t get salvation or heaven.

15.)   Waiting for Godot was written after Second World War, it highlights the aftermath political situations of England at that time.

16.)   Act- 1

BOY: - What am I to tell Mr. Godot, Sir?

VLADIMIR: Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw us. (Pause.) You did see us, didn't you?

Act – 2

BOY: What am I to tell Mr. Godot, Sir?

VLADIMIR: Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw me and that . . . (he hesitates) . . . that you saw me. (Pause. Vladimir advances, the Boy recoils. Vladimir halts, the Boy halts. With sudden violence.) You're sure you saw me; you won't come and tell me tomorrow that you never saw me!

The one major which can be highlighted here is, that in the Act 1 Vladimir tells boy “you’re sure you saw US” but in Act 2 it tells him “You’re sure you saw me”. From crowd Vladimir becomes an individual. Also in the first act Vladimir is nice with the boy, but in the Act 2 he gets a bit irritated. This change also highlights the selfish nature of human that how we become individual when we are going to get some advantage.

Open for Interpretation and Discussion…

Thanks