Samuel Beckett - A Tribute

Beckett's view of the human condition in Waiting for Godot

Written in the mid-'50s, in other words shortly after the end of World War II, Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot offers a most perceptive, bitter and yet quite sympathetic vision of the human condition in the trying times Europe was then going through. Vladimir and Estragon, the two principal characters, spend their lives "waiting for Godot" in an almost desert scenery. The characters of the play are very few, five only, plus Godot, the invisible sixth, who is all the same omnipresent due to the continual reference to him by Estragon and Vladimir. In a dramatic environment where the animate element, as well as the non-animate, appear reduced to the absolutely functional, an entire existential reasoning is amply presented to the audience.

To blind Pozzo's question, in Act II of the play, about who Vladimir and Estragon are, the former replies: "We are men". And indeed, they are the sole representatives of the human kind "in this place" (the theatre stage) and "this moment of time" (both actual and dramatic), who are able to answer to Pozzo's call for help. A little earlier, Vladimir had stated that "to all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help, still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at his moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not". In spite of its bitter, almost sarcastic exaggeration, Vladimir's statement contains one and undeniable truth: he and Estragon are actually "all mankind" in the dramatic universe, looking on a scene of utmost human misery. They can also be considered as representatives of "all mankid" in the sense that they must, as Vladimir suggests, "weigh the pros and cons" of an action before proceeding to it, so that they constitute "a credit to our species". Critic David H. Hesla explains that "the action they are about to take is an expression of their will that the act should become a universal law". And to be of moral worth, the act in question must not be "an act rising out of inclination", but one motivated by a sense of duty. In other words, to be a worthy representative of the human species, one has to think before acting.

Vladimir does think; and so does Lucky. But while the former preserves his human quality all through the play, the latter loses his ability to think (indicated by the symbolic loss of his hat) and then becomes deaf and dumb. It is important here to note that both Pozzo and Lucky lose at least one of their senses (Pozzo becomes blind) while Estragon and Vladimir remain intact to the end. Pozzo and Lucky's presence on stage is interrupted, while Estragon and Vladimir are almost continually present; they never abandon the stage together. This may signify that Vladimir and Estragon represent the historical coherence of humanity (and especially Vladimir, since he is the one to have memory), the "mankind" that is always there to witness the facts and define the place, the time and the general conditions of its existence. And if Estragon refuses to remember, this is because he wants to distance himself from all the suffering he has gone through: "All my life I've crawled about in the mud!". These expreriences he tries to exorcise through his persistent, childishly stubborn denial of memory: "Recognise! What is there to recognise?"

This denial of memory corresponds to a symbolic suicide of the conscious part of oneself, and at the same time to the refusal of accepting oneself as an organic part of perceptible reality. Existence thus becomes a paradox, and a tragic one too; the fact itself of being turns into an element of sheer dramatic irony. Vladimir, the only one who does not reject the past, condescends to accept the paradox of his own existence and live with it, while Estragon (whose very name might be suggesting this estrangement from his own self) declares that "we are all born mad. Some remain so". The uncertainty of being, the feeling that the world we live in is, as Ionesco remarks, "illusory and fictitious" (and so memory of the past is not a safe indication to rely upon in order to define oneself) is reflected in the fluidity characterising the dramatic reality: "Everything oozes".

The miniature world Beckett illustrates here, despite its exemplary outward sobriety, is in fact characterised by a complicated network of inner relationships, thus offering a multiple system of interpretation levels: human solidarity (represented by Vladimir) may perfectly co-exist with cruelty (of Pozzo, and later Estragon, to Lucky). Sympathy, understanding, and even affection (between Vladimir and Estragon) appear on stage beside ruthlessness and inhuman exploitation (of Lucky by Pozzo). The human image presented is a sad one, most of the times subjected to suffering, constantly haunted by the vanity of expectation: "alone, waiting for the night, waiting for Godot, waiting for... waiting". And yet there may occasionally be some, even momentary, relief: "You must be happy too, deep down, if only you knew it". Happiness, in its turn, is not something to last: "What do we do now, now that we are happy?" The answer to this question is, invariably and inevitably, "waiting for Godot". Godot, for his part, being someone or something unknown, abstract and intangible, ends up becoming identified to the very idea of waiting, becomes the essence and notion of expectation itself. What is important here, however, is the fact that, even in vain, Vladimir and Etragon never despair of waiting, no matter what for and whatever the outcome. As Vladimir affirms, "We have kept our appointment... We are no saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?"

One final element of human nature appearing in this play is that of the need to comment upon reality while interpreting it at a different level. This can be best achieved by playing, both in the literal sense and that of impersonating and performing a role; as Shakespeare had already remarked, "Life is a stage, and all the men and women merely players". When Vladimir and Estragon "play at Pozzo and Lucky" they do nothing but subvert the given dramatic reality itself. Playing is also invaluable as an aid for co-existence and communication: "That's the idea, let's abuse each other". This is more or less expected within a system of human interaction where attitudes are generally governed by official or unofficial rules, exactly as in a game. The idea of life being viewed as a dramatic event, a tragi-comedy where the actual protagonists are life and death, is reinforced by the analogue and antithetic pairs of characters (Vladimir and Estragon, Lucky and Pozzo) producing a clownish effect, by stereotyped phrases ("waiting for Godot" repeated all through the play) and gestures (the incidents of Vladimir's hat and Estragon's boot in Act I) as well as the pet names "Didi" and "Gogo" Estragon and Vladimir, respectively, call each other.

The mirroring process in Waiting for Godot & Endgame

Though preserving the main outward, or formal, characteristics of what is called "traditional" theatre (scenery, characters, dialogue, stage directions, division into acts), Samuel Beckett's plays have in fact nothing to do with what is usually considered as a dramatic event involving, among other elements, a set and complete plot. The traditional means are only used to create a symbolic world with no beginning, middle or end. The dramatic situations presented decompose in a process of gradual self-annihilation. What awaits at the "end of the game" is more or less what everything started from. The pieces of the puzzle fall apart and each one meets face to face its own barely inverted, or just slightly deformed, reflection.

Waiting for Godot, Beckett's best known and most discussed play, offers an eloquent example of this "mirroring process". Based upon a system of parallel or antithetic dualities (two acts instead of three, the pairs of Vladimir and Estragon, Lucky and Pozzo, the boy and his brother, the doubt of Godot's coming or not coming), the play consists of two parallel sections separated by the falling of the curtain between them, like a line drawn vertically in the middle of a horizontal line representing the action (or, rather, the "non-action") taking place. This vertical line could be seen as the mirror in which one of the two sections is reflected - though nobody can tell which one of the "acts" of the play is situated outside the mirror and which one inside it. Despite a number of indications concerning a certain evolution which has been realised in the second act ("next day" - the stage direction - the flowers on the tree, Estragon's unpleasant adventure, Pozzo's blindness), the viewer or reader is still left wondering whether anything has actually changed. The indefinite time and place (in the course of history and the geographical chart respectively) makes it almost impossible to tell for sure which day is the "next" or the preceding. All the characters' (expect for Vladimir) lack of memory contributes greatly to this intemporality and uncertainty, which end up being existential and project themselves onto the audience; the viewers thus may recognise their own (senti)mental void, which the "mirroring" technique focuses their attention on while watching. The repetition device, in its turn, is also responsible for this internal "mirror" effect: almost every word, phrase or gesture in the play is either boldly repeated or related in various ways to something said or done previously or later on, but always inside the dramatic limits offered. Nothing concrete exists even within these limits: "But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? Or Monday? Or Friday?... or Thursday?" Another element relevant to the "mirroring process" in Waiting for Godot is the fact that Vladimir and Estragon attempt to "play at Pozzo and Lucky", thus reflecting, in a distorting way, a reality already constructed before the viewer's eyes. The endings of the two acts of the play, finally, are absolutely identical: "'Well, shall we go?' 'Yes, let's go' - They do not move".

In Endgame the introspective disposition is much clearer, though the symbolic characters and objects forming the dramatic universe are rather obscure and transcending to multiple levels of interpretation. Duality is present here as well - two dustbins, two windows, two people inside the dustbins, two others outside them. Endgame is a play which literally "turns in on itself" inviting the spectator or reader to a macabre, as well as humorous, interior game with vague possibilities of reaching an end - which, if not a real end, is at least a shattering act of self-knowledge, the ultimate confirmation of its own theatricality by Hamm's monologue (Hamm's name also refers to the theatre, "ham actor" being an unskilful performer): "Me to play... Old endgame lost of old, play and lose and have done with losing... Since that's the way we're playing it... let's play that way... and speak no more about it... speak no more... Old stancher!... You... remain". Repetition is predominant in this play as well as in Waiting for Godot: the phrases "Me to play", "lost endgame", the use of terms referring to card games ("I'll call"), the stereotyped movements of Clov handling the ladder, all contribute to the creation of an atmosphere where actual and dramatic (un)reality are confused; as Hamm remarks, "The end is the beginning and yet you go on". The most important element to note here is that the theatricality mentioned above is constantly brought to the audience's mind, with words such as "underplot", "exit" used in the actors' lines, and through the intermingling of stage directions and the characters' repliques: "[Clov stoops, wakes Nagg with the alarm. Unintelligible words. Clov straightens up]. CLOV: 'He doesn't want to hear your story'. HAMM: 'I'll give him a bon-bon'. [Clov stoops. As before]. CLOV: 'He wants a sugar-plum'. CLOV: 'He'll get a sugar-plum'. [Clov stoops. As before]".

Both Endgame and Waiting for Godot present a dramatic universe where everything is more or less autonomous: nobody has any roots to go back to, nobody comes from anywhere or goes anywhere, nothing can be said for sure to be representing either anything different or simply itself. The multiple significance of symbols is sometimes almost equivalent to no significance at all: it has been suggested that the scenery in Endgame, the dark subterranean refuge with the two inaccessible windows may represent a human scull seen from inside, the windows standing for the eyes; it has also been said that the scenery in Waiting for Godot, the road and the tree, remind visually of a cross (obvious reference to the name of Godot, meaning perhaps "miniature God" - or even the pet-name of God), each possible interpretation leading to a different angle of consideration. Yet, all possible answers do nothing but reinforce the impression that there is nothing to be explained, and that each and every object or character, despite the apparent obscurity, does actually have a kind of inner light to radiate. The world of Waiting for Godot, as well as that of Endgame, is one of utmost sobriety, which causes the viewer's or reader's attention to be focused upon every single detail presented on stage, either already existent or new. And this, finally, renders the existence of an outward universe, a preceding or following plot and a "moral" conclusion rather unessential, if not absolutely unnecessary. This, of course, does not mean that one is not free to extract one's own conclusions according to the impressions one has formed while watching or reading through Endgame or Waiting for Godot; and what actually matters is that although very few things are said or shown to the audience, there are infinitely more to remark and contemplate long after one has read the plays or seen a performance of them.

The quest for an end as the only reality in Endgame & Murphy

Beckett's world is a suffocating one, trapped within the uncertainty of its own limits and the continual existential anguish of whether characters, objects, time and place are what they seem (or have determined themselves) to be, or not. His plays, in particular, follow a circular line of process where words or actions are literally re-cycled, in a desperate course that never ends. This is apparent mostly in Waiting for Godot, where each of the two parts of the play has an ending identical to the other one's, leaving behind an impression that this is only a sample of what will be going on for hours or days or years on end after the falling of the curtain, or even for eternity. A similar process is more or less adopted in Endgame, where repetition plays a role of utmost importance as well, bur here we are able to remark a new element, the word "end" in itself, which stands for a kind of promise (though, finally, vain) that this time there is going to be an a certain way of concluding the drama. Murphy, for its part, being a novel and not a play, does have a concrete beginning and ending, but the recycling of experience and memory is a notion which actually determines the best part of its story.

The "infinite cycle of experience" constituting the main ingredient of most of Beckett's works depends, as the term "experience" in itself implies, on the past life of each character, which is unknown to the audience and only hinted at through various limited references, such as names of places ("Macon Country" in Waiting for Godot, the "Como Lake" in Endgame). Experience traces a spiral orb in the context of dramatic convention, a series of concentric circles whose peripheries coincide, thus fusing past, present and future into an intemporal circular line, a spire similar to the image of a snake chasing and biting its own tail. There are different levels of experience, each represented by a different character, which are finally all absorbed in a common and neutral level of present action. Co-existence, either in ample countryside (Waiting for Godot) or in a small secluded basement (Endgame), of different human beings, as well as co-habitation, in the same unique form, of mind and body (Murphy), is by definition an incontestable factor of common fate. Experience could be described as some kind of vicious circle because infinitely projected upon fragments of present and future time. There may practically be no end to this procedure, as the notion of present is continually crushed between past and future and finally attributes its intemporal quality to both. Past and future can contain no actual reality, because facts which have already happened or will (or, rather, are likely to) take place belong to the spheres of theory and not to those of action. To repeat the same movements or phrases, like in Endgame and Waiting for Godot, signifies to perpetuate this abstract, theoretical or probable aspect of reality. This perpetuation is infertile and suffocating, and, at the same time, as dangerous as a spider's web. The only virtual prospect in this labyrinth is, therefore, to get out of it. But how?

Murphy, in the homonymous novel, is relieved from his torment of being torn between his physical and spiritual aspects through death, which liberates mind from body (not soul from body, because Murphy's soul is actually identified with his mind) and at the same time annihilates both mind and body through the refutation of the living system parts of which they both were. In Endgame there is in fact no end of game, of any game, because as life goes on the uncertainty of being (viewed, as well as the communication with others, as a game) will continue to impose itself upon everybody. In Waiting for Godot, finally, the desperate "quest for an end" will eventually end up in an ironical repetition of the beginning, which, in its turn, could be the exact imitation of a previous ending, and so on, and so on.