WAITING FOR GODOT

HEADLINE:

Author: Samuel Beckett

Title of the play: Waiting for Godot

Subtitle: A tragicomedy in tow acts

Editorial: Faber and Faber

Year of publication: 1956

Place of publication: Great Britain

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Estragon: Both characters, Estragon and Vladimir, are wearing with old clothes and with shoes that compress their feet. They don’t know who are waiting for, they only spend their life waiting and also they don’t pay attention to their actions because they don’t remember the past actions.

Vladimir: the same as Estragon.

Lucky: lucky is the servant of Pozzo, is treated as an animal by he: Lucky has his neck tied with rope and is conduced by Pozzo, he has a heavy bag, pliable chair, a basket with provisions and a coat.

Pozzo: He thinks that he is the owner of Lucky, so he always is controlling and hitting Lucky. Pozzo has a switch to affirm his authority; and he wants to do the same controls in Estragon and Vladimir.

Boy: He say that he is sent by Godot to give them the announcement that Godot couldn’t come, he will go the following day.

PLOT:

The play is about two man that are waiting someone called Godot, they don’t know who is he but he spent the days waiting him. While they are waiting appear two more characters, characterised in that one of them mistreat the other as if he was an animal. Two different days a boy say that he is sent from Godot to say them that he couldn’t come that day, he will came the following day. So the only things that the main characters do are waiting for Godot.

SPACE:

It happens in the country, near of a tree.

TIME:

The play occurs in two days.

STYLISTIC AND LITERARY RESOURCES:

Language valuation: Colloquial and also vulgar.

OTHER ASPECTS:

Politico-social circumstances: The time is after the war so this could be a reason that the characters seems to be vagabonds. We arrive to this affirmation after had read that their clothes are old, they don’t had any other thing that waiting someone called Godot and also about their colloquial usage of language.

Social and cultural aspects: The main aspect is the way that one character deal with other (Pozzo and Lucky), Pozzo thinks that is superior of Lucky, so Pozzo talks to him as he was an animal, he doesn’t respects the feelings of Lucky.

PERSONAL OPINION:

The name of the absurd theatre in my opinion is the most adequate because the plays haven’t got many sense. For example in this play, the most important of this kind of theatre, the fact that two characters were waiting to somebody that they don’t know who is he and how is he is very strange; I try to say that this play is a metaphor about the hope and a critic of the credence in God. Due to Vladimir and Estragon are waiting to someone that could be comparing with God. Also the personality of Lucky that he doesn’t think by his own, he only do what Pozzo says to him, this could be a critic about the way that the believers believe in God. To finalise my work I could say that the finality of the absurd theatre is that the reader or the public think and wring the plot so the only have to see the play they had to understand it too.