The explicit examples of intertextuality in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot are limited to a few references to Greek mythology.

The major intertextual reading is religious. If one considers intertextuality with respect to the Bible, the Jews are awaiting a Messiah who is always expected but never arrives, and Christians await the second coming of Christ and Last Judgement that will appear, like "a thief in the night" at some unknown time in the future. The tree that is the single piece of scenery for the play can be related to the tree in the Garden of Eden.

The relationship between Pozzo and Lucky, and its inversion, is sometimes read as a reference to either Hegelian ideas of master-slaver relations or Karl Marx. Lucky`s `thinking` seems a parody of German philosophy in Beckett`s period and may also refer to the Phrontesterion in Aristophanes` Clouds.