What is "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett about?

Question

Can someone give me the themes or a general overview of the point of the play?
How does exterstensialism fit into the plot?

Answer 1

Simply put, it is about waiting for the play to end.
The intentionally uneventful and repetitive plot of Waiting for Godot can be seen as symbolizing the tedium and meaninglessness of human life, which loosely connects the play to one of the themes of existentialist philosophy. The audience never learns who Godot is or the nature of his business with Vladimir and Estragon. As a proper noun, the name "Godot" may derive from any number of French verbs, and Beckett stated it might be a derivative of godillot, which is French slang for "boot". The title, in this interpretation, could be seen as suggesting that the characters are "waiting for the boot".[citation needed]

Left to speak for itself, without Beckett's interpretation, Waiting for Godot initially confused interpreters and critics. A play that spoke without interpretation, it confounded at first many assumed rules by which actors looked for motivation and critics looked for storyline.[4] Depending upon director, some performances played it for comedy and slapstick, others for pathos and drama.

Some 50 years after its writing, it is now more clear that Waiting for Godot holds some form of mirror up to individuals who see it.[citation needed] Directors often favour a "less is more" philosophy, a bleak stage with a tree, a rock, and perhaps three or five leaves only, to draw out the precision of the powerful juxtaposing of inadvertent humor and emotional pathos expressed through the lives of the characters.

Beckett uses the characters' interaction to bring home the existentialist view of the tedium and meaninglessness of modern life. Some of the business involving hats was adopted from a routine done by the Marx Brothers, and the character schema - four characters, one of whom is mute (except when ordered to think), and one of whom bears an Italian name - may have been derived from the same source (the character's names also arguably reflect Beckett's experience in the Second World War: "Vladimir" is Slavic, whilst "Estragon" is the French for tarragon; Pozzo has an Italian sounding name and Lucky is an English nickname. This possibly refers to veterans from each world power after the war). Critic Kenneth Burke argued that the interaction of Vladimir and Estragon is based on that of Laurel and Hardy. Near the end of the play, to give one example of the play's sillier moments, Estragon removes the cord holding his trousers up so he can hang himself with it, and his trousers fall down. In the original French production Beckett was adamant that the actor playing Estragon, who was reluctant to perform so foolish a piece of business, follow the directions to the letter.[5]

Initially, reviews were mixed, with critics very unsure how to respond to the rule-breaking play. Critic Vivian Mercier initially summed up the two-act play with the words "nothing happens, twice." Another critic, Jean Anouilh, referring to the work's drawn-out scenes and scarcity of characters, summed up his review with a line from the play: "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" And yet, despite its essential bleakness, it has many moments of comedy, some of it even recalling the deadpan slapstick of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.

Many readers of this play have understood the character "Godot" as a symbolic representation of God. They see Godot's persistent failure to appear and Vladimir and Estragon's aimless waiting as representations of the masses hoping for a being who will never appear. Beckett himself vehemently denied this interpretation saying "If by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot."[6] Other interpretations hold Pozzo as the all encompassing "exploiter" or dictator, because of his tyrannical abuse of his servant and slave, Lucky, who won't even think without being told to (and when Lucky does, Lucky refuses to listen to Pozzo's orders for a time afterwards). His using of Vladimir and Estragon's search for Godot to make them stay and talk with him is compared with opportunistic leaders use of their citizens' devotion to God to further their own means.

This was Beckett's third attempt at drama after an abortive attempt at a play about Samuel Johnson, and the considerably more conventional Eleutheria (which Beckett suppressed after writing Godot). Godot was the first to be performed. It was a big step back towards normal human experience after his novel The Unnamable. Subtitled "a tragicomedy," the script has little indication of setting or costume (but for Beckett's specific footnote that all four of the major characters wear bowler hats); the only indication for decor is the typically succinct "A country road. A tree. Evening" prior to Act I. As such, Godot is capable of sustaining a wide range of interpretation, including who, or what, Godot is. There are even suggestions that Vladimir and Estragon are lovers, epitomized by Estragon's invocation of their honeymoon in his "Maps of the Holy Land" monologue.[citation needed]


Existentialism:

A movement in twentieth-century literature and philosophy, with some forerunners in earlier centuries. Existentialism stresses that people are entirely free and therefore responsible for what they make of themselves. With this responsibility comes a profound anguish or dread. Søren Kierkegaard and Feodor Dostoevsky in the nineteenth century, and Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, and Albert Camus in the twentieth century, were existentialist writers.
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Good luck

Answer 2

Waiting For Godot Summary

Answer 3

literally it is a play about the meaninglessness of life and shows that even if nothing important happens we still continue to exist, plodding along in our day to day lives. Vladimir and Estragon, no matter what happens, always come back to the featureless landscae to wait for Godot. He never shows. the two halvesof the play represent two different ideas. act 1 Vladimir and Estragon are almost beaten into submission by Pozzo where as in the second act the want to be at the same level as him. that shows that no matter what happens, they will always want the same level/status.

"Exterstensialism" --- is that even a word?

Answer 4

Basically about nothing. Interesting story about this play.
When it opened, they were not selling many tickets. Then someone came up with a brilliant idea. They started putting ads in papers saying it was for smart people only and that if you werent smart, the play was probably not for you. Soon, they were playing to full houses mostly of people who had no clue what they were watching.

Answer 5

it is a play about nothing