This sounds way more profound than it is. Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed.
Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Estragon, with no notion of how to act, resorts to the same play-acting. What distinguishes Vladimir, though, is his complete lack of awareness at his own state of pretend.
Estragon is quite aware "We always find something […] to give us the impression we exist" 2. Nowhere is this more true than at the end of Act 2, when Vladimir is at his most lucid and logical.
Conversing with the Boy, Vladimir realizes that the kid will come back tomorrow having forgotten this interaction. For at least this one moment, Vladimir grasps the magnitude of his predicament and, in a rush of genuine, human emotion, lunges at the Boy.
Of course, he goes right back to his old self moments later "We have to come back tomorrow […] to wait for Godot," he tells Estragon , but at this one instant of clarity, Vladimir represents our logical frustration and anger.
He lives in a hell of his own making. According to Vladimir, the act of waiting for Godot prevents him from choosing another action. Why do they have to come back tomorrow? Because of… global warming? But what Vladimir fails to realize is that the act of waiting for Godot is a choice in itself. Notice that he is the character—not Estragon—who insists that they stay put.
His rationale is that, once the appointment is made, he has to keep it; but as we see twice through his interaction with the Boy, Vladimir always chooses to renew his appointment with Godot. In this way he is self-damning; he ends every day of waiting by committing to do the same the next day. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By Samuel Beckett. Previous Next.
Lucky entertains them by dancing and thinking, and Pozzo and Lucky leave. After Pozzo and Lucky leave, a boy enters and tells Vladimir that he is a messenger from Godot. He tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming tonight, but that he will surely come tomorrow. Vladimir asks him some questions about Godot and the boy departs. After his departure, Vladimir and Estragon decide to leave, but they do not move as the curtain falls.
The next night, Vladimir and Estragon again meet near the tree to wait for Godot. Lucky and Pozzo enter again, but this time Pozzo is blind and Lucky is dumb. When Vladimir returns, the two embrace and then they try to decide what they are going to do while waiting.
During the embrace, the tender, fraternal rapport of the moment is suddenly broken by Estragon's mundane observation that Vladimir smells of garlic. This technique is typical of Beckett's method of deflating man's pretensions by allowing the absurd and the vulgar to dominate the action.
The eternal question returns: what to do while waiting? Estragon suggests that perhaps they could hang themselves. That would certainly put an end to their waiting. Hanging also has another incentive: it would excite them sexually and cause each to have an erection and an ejaculation.
But the matter of hanging creates some problems. Vladimir should hang himself first because he is the heaviest. If the straggly tree does not break under Vladimir's heavier weight, then it would be strong enough for Estragon's lighter weight. But if Estragon went first, the tree might break when Vladimir tried it, and then Estragon Gogo would be dead, and poor Vladimir Didi would be alive and completely alone. These considerations are simply too weighty to solve.
Man's attempts to solve things rationally bring about all types of difficulties; it is best to do nothing — "It's safer. They will make no effort to change their rather intolerable and impossible situation, but, instead, they will hope that someone or some objective event will eventually change things for them. Having resolved to wait for Godot, they then wonder what he might offer them and, even more important, "what exactly did we ask him for?
Maybe he is at home thinking it over, consulting friends, correspondents, banks, etc. The tramps' entire discussion about Godot indicates how little, if indeed anything at all, they know of this Godot. The fact that Vladimir can't remember what they asked of Godot indicates that they are unable to understand their own needs. They rely on someone else to tell them what they need.
Similarly, the request and the possible response are discussed in terms of a person requesting a bank loan or some type of financial transaction. A philosophical question then begins to emerge: how does one relate to Godot? If he is God, can one enter into a business contract with this person? And if so, where is He? If Godot or God has to consult many outside sources before replying or appearing, then Vladimir and Estragon's condition is not very reassuring.
And, if, as it now begins to become obvious, Vladimir and Estragon represent modern man in his relationship with God Godot , then the modern condition of man is disturbingly precarious. What, then, is man in this modern world? He is a beggar or a tramp reduced to the most dire circumstances: he is lost, not knowing where to turn.
He is denied all rights, even the right to laugh:. Furthermore, they are reduced to crawling "on [their] hands and knees. But in Beckett's dramas, a character's physical condition is correlated with his spiritual condition; all outward aspects of the two tramps reflect man's inward condition.
In a feeble attempt to assert their freedom, Estragon murmurs that they are not tied, but his assertion does not carry much conviction. The assertion, however feeble, that they are not tied might suggest man's revolt from God, because as soon as the idea of revolt is verbalized, they immediately hear a noise as though someone is approaching — Godot or God — to chastise them for heresy.
They huddle together in fear:. After the discussion of whether or not they are tied has occupied their thoughts, Vladimir gives Estragon their last carrot to eat.
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