Waiting for Godot – Samuel Beckett

Waiting for Godot- Samuel Beckett

Hey everyone!! Today is a special day… (No I am joking.), I’m not going to talk you about a novel but about Theater!! Moreover, it fits to one of the topics we saw in LELE… The Nonsense Drama! You know, it’s a Drama where all the logic and the rules of the languages are not applied….

Waiting for Godot is a play written by Samuel Beckett in 1953 in Paris. Samuel Afficher l'image d'origineBeckett was born in 1906 and died in 1989. It’s the first play of Beckett, who wrote a lot of novels before that. Although Beckett is an Irish man, he wrote this play in French!! He’s one of the most famous Nonsense playwright who give birth to this genre. It was a real success and it’s really well-known at this time. There is only 2 act in this play.

But… What is the story?

It’s the story of 2 characters who are called: Vladimir and Estragon. We know that they are waiting Godot, for a long time already, and they are persuaded that this man will coming. He gave them an Appointment, but we don’t really know when and where… Waiting for Godot, they are talking of a lot of things, of the life, of Godot..

At the middle of the first Act, 2 characters are coming: Pozzo and Lucky, they are pretty strange: Actually, Pozzo is holding Lucky with a rope, and treats him like a horse, because Lucky is holding all the Pozzo’s objects. Pozzo discuss with the 2 main characters and they are talking him that they are waiting Godot.

In the 2nd Act, it’s the next day, and Godot is still missing. A boy said to the main characters that he works for Godot but he don’t know if he going to coming.

Will manage them to find Godot?

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I really liked this play! In fact, I never read a Nonsense play in French and I found it really funny, strange and it wasn’t hard to understand!

At the beginning, I was like: “What? What are they saying? It’s so illogical!”, but I remembered that it was a Nonsense Theater! But, after, we understand better what the main characters are saying (even if there isn’t logic).

We find a lot of elements of Nonsense like neologism (a knouk > a slave), nonsense tautology…

The fact that they are talking of everything and anything, and are changing all the time the subjects of the conversation, make the play really funny and interesting.

For instance: As they are in front of a tree, they decided to hang themselves. They are saying that it’s for spend their time! If Godot is coming they are safe! And as they have no rope, they are talking of another things.

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And during the play, at any moment, when one of the two characters wants to move, the other said : “ we can’t” “We’re waiting for Godot”. And they stay in the same place…

According many people, Godot is a sort of religious character. Indeed, the name Godot is made of God, but there isn’t a really specific explanation at this time… We can suppose that Vladimir and Estragon are waiting a saviour…

It can be really strange at time, and it’s REALLY REALLY different than the others genre like the novel…

Oh, I forgot to say that it’s a really short play to read (I read this in only 2 hours!).

I advise you to read Waiting for Godot!! Have you already read that? 🙂

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