Discussion Topic
Plot and timeline of "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett
Summary:
The plot of "Waiting for Godot" revolves around two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who wait for someone named Godot, who never arrives. The play is set over two days, with the characters engaging in various conversations and encounters, highlighting themes of existentialism and the passage of time. Despite minor changes, the essential situation remains unchanged from one day to the next.
When does the action in "Waiting for Godot" take place?
"Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett is an essentially abstract play that does not locate itself in a specific time or place. The physical environment, which consists of an empty stage with a single tree, gives us no clues about period. Although Lucky appears as a slave, and one could say that this might indicate a period before the abolition of slavery, in fact, the slavery is meant as psychological rather than literal; there are no indications in the stage directions that this play should be done using period costumes, and there are no explicit linguistic markers or culture references that try to give the play a period flavor. Instead, it is intended to exist outside time. The characters have been waiting for so long that all days blend together. Thus we should describe the play as dramatically set outside ordinary time, within abstract, imaginary, or absurdist time....
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The temporal confusion in the play is scene in the following excerpt:
VLADIMIR: He said Saturday. (Pause.) I think.
ESTRAGON: You think.
VLADIMIR: I must have made a note of it....
ESTRAGON: But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday?
(Pause.) Or Monday? (Pause.) Or Friday?
What is the plot of 'Waiting for Godot' by Samuel Beckett?
This outstanding play by Samuel Beckett is "about" the desire (some would say "need") of all humans for a purpose and direction in their lives. For those majority of us, the "purpose" of our lives is to love, honor, and obey a "deity," a "maker" who created us for a purpose, whether that purpose is known to us or not. Like a physical invention (philosophers have used a paper cutter as an invention whose "need" or purpose came before its creation), the prevailing view is that -- we were invented. Existentialists, however, suggest that our existence preceded our "essence," and that we "invent" a purpose by making choices. Returning to the play, we realize that Gogo and Didi are hoping for, wishing for, waiting for Godot, a non-character who, if he would appear, would give them purpose, orders, directions (in both senses of the word.) The play, then, follows the two universal characters through their daily lives while they wait, performing basically meaningless acts to "pass the time". The impact of the play's message is made frighteningly clear when at the end of the play, this exchange -- "Let's go." "Yes, let's go." -- is followed by the stage direction: "They do not move." In every good production, the audience is frozen in place for several minutes, because we, too, are "waiting for Godot," for purpose and meaning.