"Nothing to be done." pg 2
"Nothing to be done." pg 4
"There's nothing to show." pg 4
"Suppose we repented.
Repented what?
Oh...
Our being born?" pg 5
"It's not the same thing. Nothing to be done." pg 5
"Yes, but while waiting.
What about hanging ourselves?" pg 12
"One is what one is.
No use wriggling.
The essential doesn't change.
Nothing to be done." pg 17
"I don't like talking in a vacuum." pg 29
"Let us not speak ill of our generation, it is not not any unhappier than it's predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all." pg 32
"Will night never come?" pg 33
"He can't bear it. Any longer." pg 34
"He subsides. Indeed all subsides" pg 36
"Time has stopped." pg 37
"Finished! it comes to rest. But - but behind this veil of gentleness and peace night is charging and will burst upon us - pop! Like that! Just when we least expect it." pg 39
"In the meantime nothing happens.
You find it tedious?
Somewhat." pg 40
"But is it enough, that's what tortures me, is it enough?" pg 40
"Do you know what he calls it?...
The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net." pg 42
"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" pg 43
"who from the heights...loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers" pg 45
"I hear something.
Where?
It's the heart.
Damnation!
Silence!" pg 49
"I don't seem to be able.. to depart.
Such is life." pg 50
"That passed the time.
It would have passed in any case.
Yes, but not so rapidly." pg 51
"Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot." pg 51
"I'm unhappy.
Not really? Since when?
I'd forgotten." pg 54
"You don't know if your unhappy or not?
No sir." pg 56
I choose the above quotations to illustrate the general mood which pervades "Waiting for Godot" a play I picked up written by Samuel Becket. The play is completely dialogue and the action, if anything that happens can be considered action, is only built as a deferral to more conversation. The whole premise of the play, of two men waiting for someone who never arrives, seems to point to the absence of action in the play.
Let me go further to explain. But I cannot. Why not? (see above quotation, pg 51) The structure of the dialogue does not allow for an interpretation of a mood. I want to call it despair, but it is not quite that. I also want to call it lost, but it is not that either. When reading the play whenever something is about to be decided or stated they do not. Take for example the quotation above (pg 54) where one of the characters states he is unhappy, the other asks him to clarify by telling him when to which he respond that he has forgotten.
Or take the quotation (pg 56) when one of the characters asks another one "You don't know if your unhappy or not?" to which the other character responds in the negative.
Near the start of the play the phrase "Nothing to be done" repeats itself several times. It seems that from the very beginning Becket is refusing to allow us to say what this play is about. The characters express a frustration at this pervading absence and one of the suggests that they repent, but neither of them can really express what they should repent off (quotation pg 5) except perhaps of being born, or existing, which itself makes no sense.
Now I would not necessarily call this position nihilistic, for even that is a decision on it's final meaning. In a sense it goes beyond nihilism, beyond nothing (or maybe before it??) into undecidability. What I mean by this is that the characters themselves can not really decide on the meaning of their own times, histories, societies, generations and even there own lives. Take (quotation pg 32) the monologue from Pozzo, one of the characters. First he says we can not speak badly about our generation, then he says we can not speak good about it. He pauses and then decides that he can not really decide whether to say anything good or bad and therefore chooses to say nothing.
The threat of having to decide and to live with that decision pervades the text. Although in context Pozzo refers to leaving the countryside in order to go to the market "I don't seem able... to depart." (pg 50) is an expression at the frustration not to be able to decide to go either way. Pertinent to this statement; (pg 43) "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" which helps to enlightenment Pozzo's later quotation.
This determinancy of indeterminancy is found elsewhere in the play. While describing the favourite dance of his slave, Pozzo says (pg 42) "Do you know what he calls it?... The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net." That perfectly sums up the themes I see in the play.
It is not nothingness but the inability to choose and decide meaning which the play's dialogue centres upon. It is 'waiting' and not 'dying' (or perhaps 'waiting to die' and not 'dying') that seems to be the main preoccupation of the plays two main characters, Estrangon and Vladimir, who even contemplate hanging themselves out of sheer frustration about waiting.
"Will night never come?" pg 33
"Time has stopped." pg 37
"In the meantime nothing happens." pg 40
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I am reminded a little of "Seinfeld," which touted itself as being a 'show about nothing.' It would seem that the theme of this play is the concept of being awash in meaningless nothingness.
ReplyDeleteInsofar as the "determinacy of indeterminacy" (well put, by the way) you describe is a poignant concept, the text seems to speak to this reader as an attempt to bring nothingness intentionally to life, so that it becomes in effect the whole topic of discussion in this work. Wherever a concept threatens to be talked about with some depth, it is squashewd by the prevailing nothingness, thus turning the "nothing" into a "something," indeed. Indeterminacy, after all, produces nothing. Well written, Isaiah.