VLADIMIR: When I think of it . . . all these years . . . but for me . . . where would you be. . . . You’d be nothing more than a little heap of bones at the present minute, no doubt about it.

ESTRAGON: And what of it?

VLADIMIR: It’s too much for one man.

(Act 1)

The meaning of “it” in “it’s too much for one man” seems to refer to the idea of being responsible for another person’s existence. While Vladimir is generally very affectionate with Estragon and desires reciprocation, he seems unwilling to take on this deeper kind of responsibility for him. Vladimir’s vehement refusal to hear Estragon’s dreams can be understood this way; he wants to keep Estragon’s inner life at bay to avoid making intimate contact with another being’s suffering. But he also needs Estragon to keep him from being alone—hence why he never lets his companion sleep for too long. 

POZZO: An hour ago roughly after having poured forth even since say ten o’clock in the morning tirelessly torrents of red and white light it begins to lose its effulgence, to grow pale pale, ever a little paler, a little paler until pppfff! finished! it comes to rest. But—but behind this veil of gentleness and peace, night is charging and will burst upon us (snaps his fingers) pop! like that! just when we least expect it.That’s how it is on this bitch of an earth.

(Act 1)

Pozzo talks about the ephemerality of the beauty of the sky in daylight, gradually growing pale before suddenly descending into darkness. Of course, there is some symbolism at play here. Nightfall is commonly equated with endings, particularly death. Here, Pozzo seems to be complaining about the shortness of human life and how quickly and unexpectedly people can meet their end.

LUCKY: Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown . . .

(Act 1)

Lucky’s difficult and iconic speech is a jumble of lucidity, academic jargon, humor, and profanity. The speech can be divided broadly into three parts: the first is about the indifference of God, the second describes human activities, and the third talks about the earth. The speech starts off relatively clear, only becoming more and more incomprehensible as it goes on. The early part of the speech is the clearest. Here, Lucky talks about apathia, athambia (sometimes translated as imperturbability), and aphasia—describing a God who is unfeeling, unmoved, and unable to communicate. The phrase “loves us dearly with some exceptions” brings to mind the inequality of suffering experienced by people, echoing the classical theological problem of evil. A few phrases like “for reasons unknown” are repeated frequently throughout the speech, indirectly asserting the theme of uncertainty in the play.

Some words and phrases in the speech are straightforwardly comedic, as if Beckett is lambasting human pretension, especially the kind often found in academia. Quaquaquaqua, as Beckett reveals elsewhere, is a corruption of “quaquaversal,” intended to characterize God as having a kind of omnidirectional omnipresence—but instead, we’re left with a series of duck quacks. Names like Fartov and Belcher correspond to farting and belching. “Acacacacademy” contains the word caca, which means excrement or feces.

ESTRAGON: That’s the idea, let’s abuse each other.

VLADIMIR: Moron!

ESTRAGON: Vermin!

VLADIMIR: Abortion!

ESTRAGON: Morpion!

VLADIMIR: Sewer-rat!

ESTRAGON: Curate!

VLADIMIR: Cretin!

ESTRAGON: (with finality). Critic!

VLADIMIR: Oh!

ESTRAGON: Now let’s make it up.

VLADIMIR: Gogo!

ESTRAGON: Didi!

VLADIMIR: Your hand!

ESTRAGON: Take it!

VLADIMIR: Come to my arms!

ESTRAGON: Your arms?

VLADIMIR: My breast!

ESTRAGON: Off we go!

VLADIMIR: How time flies when one has fun!

(Act 2)

Estragon and Vladimir often play around and act out the different moods of human interaction simply to pass the time. Arguments, abuse, and even affection are deployed as simple maneuvers to fill the empty spaces in their lives. When at one point Pozzo falls to the ground, Estragon and Vladimir use his suffering as an opportunity for play instead of helping; it’s a unique opportunity for diversion that would be squandered if they helped Pozzo too early. In the play, entertaining oneself is the key to survival.

POZZO: Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It’s abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we’ll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.

(Act 2)

Pozzo rehashes his sentiment about the shortness of human life. Here, he presents the image of a mother giving birth directly into a grave, signifying a life that seems to last literally only for an instant. In act 2, Pozzo’s unwillingness to talk about the specifics of time (“One day, is that not enough for you?”) seems to be related to his explicit anxiety about his own mortality. One striking moment in the play is when he misplaces his watch and, mistaking the beating sound of his own heart for its ticking, curses out loud. His sudden onset of blindness can be understood as a result of this. “The things of time are hidden from [the blind],” he says. It’s possible to interpret from this that he went blind from the desire not to look death in the eye, as “the things of time,” which include death, would then become hidden from him.

VLADIMIR: Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. But habit is a great deadener. At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. I can’t go on! What have I said?

(Act 2)

Vladimir has a view of time that is diametrically opposed to Pozzo’s: Vladimir thinks people are given too much time in their life to the point of filling them with agony. When Vladimir calls habit a deadener, he means that human beings often use habits as a way of not having to think about their lives, thus escaping its tedium. In another moment, he says, “The hours are long . . . and constrain us to beguile them with proceedings which . . . may, at first sight, seem reasonable, until they become a habit.” Faced with something new, human beings tend to exercise their heads, but they quickly ossify and settle into habits—habits that are kept long after they have outlived their usefulness, merely to avoid feeling any sort of pain. Vladimir’s realizations cause him great distress, though he immediately forgets them.