Very Elemental

When asked to describe "Waiting for Godot" the playwright answered that it was very "elemental". There have been a multitude of diverse interpretations of the playing including a historical parable of the second world war, Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian psychoanalysis, Catholic purgatory, generic Christian, homeerotic, late modernist, posmodernist etc etc. It seems like Becket was correct, it is very elemental as shown by the diverse interpretations, readings and understandings of it.

I have decided instead of having an over-arching thesis to the play I will rather analyze a series of quotations taken from the second act alone and extrapolate some of the 'elemental' themes, images and ideas that float around the play. Part of the reason I have decided to this is that it seems that the text really does not allowed for any final or definite meaning, if there was a final and definite meaning Godot would have arrived. Instead since Godot does not, in the end, arrive no major discourse or idea can really capture the play. It is uncapturable, just as Estrangon and Vladimir can not capture Godot's arrival.

"What do we do now, now that we are happy? Wait for Godot." - I choose this first quotation because it seems to me trying to express a base dissatisfaction with satisfaction itself. Somehow, whether it is universally human or culturally constructed, happiness is utterly ellusive and when it comes there seems to be a deep, unconquerable sense of moreness. A sense that people, even after being happy "still haven't found what they've been looking for."

It seems also that the waiting, the waiting for the more and the waiting for something which or someone who never comes, saves us from the incompleteness of happiness. Sure this being happy comes, but it's elusive and vagrant character is always terribly surprising and unsatisfying. It is almost as if we need salvation from the normal and everyday, and we receive that through waiting.

"He's forgotten everything!" - Like happiness memories are also dangerously elusive. The second act begins in the same place but a day after. Despite being the next day the characters can not really remember what happen and whether what they though happened could quite possibly be a dream. This strange relationship with memories, and thus the past, brings out frustration and deferrals but can express something quite profound. Something extremely important we can forget, something tedious and meaningless can stick in our minds. Thus is memory.

Memory is not something we can control. It is a force. It is a strong power that gives and takes away from us in our day to day lives. The nature of memory is that of happiness, we can not control it's comings or going, it's here and theres. It's presence, like happiness, is elusive.

" It's better if we parted.
You always say that and you always come crawling back." - This expresses the very fundamentally human relationality. Many a times, whether for good reasons or bad, we have the small or large temptation just to END a relationship. Whether that is with a friend, significant other, family member, someone in the same association as you there is almost always a trace, a small trace, a whisper of leaving. But almost always there is a return. A return to the relationship. A return to liking the relationship. A return from the world of fantasy where you leave to reality where you stay. It's a return.

Once again the elusiveness of something is challenged, or at least wrestled with. First it was happiness, then memory and now relationships. It seems like all human experience is overshadowed by a threat of absence or leaving. Absence of happiness, memory and friendship. A leaving of satisfaction, an always returning memory and a friendship that sometimes desires being alone.

"I've puked my puke of a life here, I tell you!" - Here is an excellent feeling of disgust with one's own existence. It is likened to puke, to a sickness which rejects whatever you take in. This has a tragic element to it. The idea that one's who existence was not made or influenced by rational, moral or spiritual decisions but rather just came out. The sense that one's growing up, ones adulthood and one's old age can simply come out without any control.

Again the substance of the elements of life being operated by a distant, elusive force is present. Puke is not something one decides, it just happens and it is uncontrollable. It is a disgusting mess and undefeatable.

"To have lived is not enough for them." - Once again the frustration that simple existence is not enough is expressed in despair. In the particular context of the quotation Estragon and Vladmir poetically consider the ways of nature, which insatiable. Just like happiness, it is not enought. Not enough. To simply exist is not enough there needs to be more.

"Say something! (in anguish) Say anything at all!" - The fear of silence, of no communication, no connections with the outside is utter terror. It is ultimately like the fear of death, for in death it seems like there will be only silence. Silence eternally. And in that silence being completely and utterly alone.

"Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot." - The elemental frustration desire of movement. There seems to be no movement. Why? Perhaps in waiting, perhaps in patience, one can really understand why. Or maybe patience is not the answer why but is still required anyway.

"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed... To all mankind they are addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment in time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not." - Besides the elements of human life such as happiness, memory, relationships and waiting there is also this deep impulse to do good and not waste. You can not really separate wanting to listen to the cries and wanting not to waste. Again just like with the other elements this sense of responsibility is so utterly human, and yet elusive as the quotation suggests. Often times we consider the cries are directed towards others OR we waste time with 'idle discourse' when can be doing Good.



"We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?"

Already I have discussed five elements found in waiting for Godot that are both essentially human and, due to their nature, essentially alienating. Happiness, memory, friendship and morality are all things in human life that are beyond humans, beyond their control. I would also add waste into that mix. They come and go almost as they please, leaving us frustrated. So where do Saints come in?

I would suggest that all people have saints. Saints are not simply a specifically Catholic religious phenomenon but are found wherever humans accidently construct a civilization. What are saints? Saints, using what I already have written, can really be those who can flow, flux and be with the forces of happiness, memory, friendship, morality and waste with ease. The rest of us non-saints can not so we look to the saints in order to be like them. We want to flow with those forces and not against them and this seems almost impossible.

Thankfully we are waiting for the impossible. Or Godot. Or God. And while waiting we have that ability to be, to both strive and give up on being like the saints. It is an endless dialogue and dialect.

SPOILER ALERT:

At the end of the play Godot never arrives, and the two characters really do not change. Primarily "Waiting for Godot" is not a play or a story but Beckett's attempt at putting humanity on the page. That sounds like a bit much and it is. Pay careful attention I did not say Beckett succeeded only attempted.

And would Beckett even want to succeed/ believe he can succeed. For success would mean Godot has arrived, and he doesn't. Happiness never arrives, memory never stays, relationships are constantly in the process of leaving, waiting is endless, so is waster and no one is ever canonized.

The fact that the characters are still waiting for Godot is then the defeat of Nihilism, or at least the postponement of nihilism. In my last post I suggested that the play seems to oddly reject Nihilism in favour of waiting. I really do not comprehend what I meant but I think basically Nihilism is not allowed a victory. The waiting is an endless hope that Godot may arrive. There is a fear of nothingness, loneliness and all else but never do the characters doubt Godot will arrive. There's is a "hope against hope".

Happiness will go, memory will fade, life will morph into death, goodness will be delayed and relationships will falter. But Godot will come. Perhaps suicide, but not yet because Godot will come. The forces will remain forces, saints will be saints and sinners, but at the very least you have kept your appointment.

CHAOTIC CONCLUSIVE REMARKS:

I honestly loved this play. I think the simple scenes, lack of plot and yet pervading sense there is something going on behind the scenes drew me towards what the play was about(or not about). I found humour in some parts and oddly placed biblical references and others, and it was this interplay that drew me. I thought: is Godot a typological representative of God? What does it mean that he never comes, or at least what does it mean for someone who has lost faith in God coming as a late modernist like Beckett likely did?

I also loved Beckett's narrative treatment of nihilism: he does not answer it he simply ignores and defers it. It got me thinking about how people in general attempt to counter the threat of nihilism. It also made me consider what a 'hope against hope' and an eternal patience could really answer to nihilism. Can such a thing actually counter nihilism?

I also considered my faith: how would I place in relation to the faith of this book? I think I could only do this by writting the play backwards if you will. What I mean is that I would need to right the play in a sense where Godot has come, but will come again. This is the essence of Christianity: God has come AND will also come again. This is unique to Christianity and is found nowhere else. How will this re-writting of the story change it's themes, characters and purpose?

In previous posts I commented that we read all literature, in some sense, historically and we also read history through the eyes of literature. So how does "Waiting for Godot" correlate with this? Perhaps we can read "Waiting for Godot" up against both Fukuyama's 'End of History' and Lyotard's Collapse on Metanarratives. It can also help understand the social and psychological conditions of those who have lost their faith, whether in Marxism, Christianity, nationalism or some other religious ideals.