Blog Post 3

Samuel Beckett, a well-known playwright, collaborated with the famous philosopher and essayist Albert Camus to develop a play centered around the theory of absurdism. This theory states that the universe is vast and incomprehensible and humans search for meaning is void because life is meaningless. Camus helped weave these philosophical ideas of absurdism into Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot”, that portrays two men endlessly anticipating the arrival of the mysterious man named Godot. The two men, Vladimir and Estragon, spend many days under a barren tree trying to fill the ticking time while waiting for Godot’s arrival. The drama is composed of two long acts, yet Godot never arrives. The choppy sentence structure and repetition reveals the meaningless of the play, which emphasizes the theory of absurdism through the form of a drama.

The play is sprinkled with short sentences, usually a few words in length and some spots where the responses are only a word long. The short nature of the phrases creates a fast pace interaction between the two men, which usually goes hand in hand with an action movie filled with interesting twists and surprising events. Yet this drama is the opposite, with each retort followed closely by another unrelated reply that brings about confusion and boredom. This is seen in act one where Estragon askes Vladimir “We’re not tied?”, Vladimir replies “Tied?”, Estragon quickly replies “Ti-ed?”, Vladimir responds with “How do you mean tied?” and Estragon retorts with a simple word “Down” (Act 1), which has no correlation to the previous discussion about carrots and only brings confusion to the reader about what this interaction could mean. The whole play proceeds in this manner, with the two men changing topics frequently, and the choppy sentences make it hard to follow what is truly being said. The arrival of Pozzo and Lucky brings a slight twist to the play, giving the reader hope that there will be some new chaos present. Yet the two new character’s only addition is a distraction for the two men while they keep waiting. Beckett’s use of short sentences that brings about dullness fulfills the theory of absurdism because the reader is waiting for something to happen–they are trying to find a meaning in the allusive format of the play—yet nothing happens or has meaning. In this way, the dramatic form is ironic, since the expected suspense usually present in dramas only emphasizes how humans try to find meaning in every aspect of life (like this play) but in reality the notion is pointless.

In addition to the short sentences, the repetition that prevails throughout the play emphasizes the meaninglessness of the drama and life itself. Most of the phrases and ideas present are repeated not only in a close distance of one another but even arise in the separate acts. The phrase “we are waiting for Godot,” (Act 1,2) is repeated constantly throughout the play. The opening scene is of Vladimir approaching a struggling Estragon, who is trying to put on his shoes that are too small. The two of them bicker about the sizing yet diverge onto a never ending tangent that continues for the entirety of the first act. The second act starts out just the same way, with Vladimir helping a complaining Estragon take of his shoes. This repetitive nature leaves the reader grappling for some sort of meaning as to why Beckett opens both acts with a relatively similar idea. Similarly, in the second act, the two men trade hats around for a 10 lines with “Estragon put[ting] on Vladimir’s hat…Vladimir tak[ing] Estragon’s hat…Vladimir put[ting] Estragon’s hat in place of Lucky’s hat…” (Act 2) which is repeated in a cycle for no reason but to kill time. Although these reoccurring incidents and phrases seem to be pointless, the meaninglessness is intentional and adds to the theory of absurdism. These repetitive scenes are the manifestations of the two men’s desire to fill the time with some type of distraction, some type of meaning, yet they never can. Their determination but inability to find meaning goes hand in hand with absurdism’s belief that the human search for understanding is worthless.

Beckett alludes to the theory of absurdism by creating a sense of meaninglessness with his short sentence structure and constant reoccurrences throughout the play. The dramatic form of the play helps reveal absurdism because the repetition of the open ended interactions forces the reader to think about the meaning overall. If Beckett wrote these repetitive and short phrases in a novel, the reader would not have the freedom to interpret the meaningless chaos.  The novel form must have long and cohesive sentences/paragraphs that gives more room for Beckett to force his knowledge on the reader in a straightforward manner. Instead, the dramatic form illuminates the real point Beckett and Camus are trying to prove in an allusive style through short dialogue and open-endedness --that life is futile.