Waiting for Godot is a stark, simple play that involves no props beyond a single tree and a total cast of five, though the focus is on two. These two, Vladimir and Estragon, are bums of some sort, who are waiting for someone named Godot, who is supposed to give them work. The two whittle the time away, trying to find ways to amuse themselves as they wait for good things to come their way. The play involves a lot of wordplay, and a lot of Marx brothers like slapstick comedy. It’s very light in tone, but for a work of its sort, there are a lot of interesting ideas going on.

In reference to the play, Samuel Becket once said, “the trouble with most commentators is their failure to see the wood for the trees. Do try and see the thing primarily in its simplicity.” Becket is absolutely right to insist on the simplicity of Waiting for Godot. Not because the play doesn’t deserve a close reading, of course, but because symbolic readings would, in many cases, eclipse the close reading that is necessary to see what is happening within and among its characters.

The thing that strikes me most – and on the most elementary level – is the existential vacuum that these characters live in. Though they communicate with other people, these characters each live on an island – an island which has been created by the fundamental gulf between them, on the one hand, as well as in their limited sense of individual meaning and progress. Because the characters dwell within a world that lacks the notion of purpose coupled with a world that lacks the notion of Otherness, the characters remain lost, damned and ultimately, unhappy.

These very simple ideas come through without ever needing to relegate characters and actions to metaphorical levels. We can see quite plainly, for example, that these characters have yet to truly get off their own island of selfness. Vladimir and Estragon, to begin with, are always talking to each other, but never really listening. The two often banter with each other in a very Abbot and Costello like manner, misinterpreting, mishearing, and misunderstanding what the other is saying while putting forth only enough effort to let themselves be heard.

Their superficial communicative confusion is only indicative of a much deeper problem, however. Near the beginning, they are both surprised to hear that the other feels pain. At such time, they do not empathize with the other and recognize the real existence of the other, but minimize the other’s pain in relation to his own. Though Waiting for Godot is often seemingly absurd, it appears to be painfully reflective of our own experiences.

Vladimir and Estragon’s apparent egocentricity is magnified when they encounter a magnified version of themselves in Pozzo. After their first encounter with the pitiable man, they remain at a Mad Hatter like distance, feeling nothing of consequence of their meeting with Pozzo other than that his presence helped “pass the time” (51). On their second encounter, they are slow to recognize his continued pleading for help.

When we read Pozzo as the Pope, I think we fail to see Pozzo as ourselves, even if it is somewhat exaggerated. Pozzo’s outrageous behavior towards Lucky, for example, marks a way in which we often treat others. We see, quite simply, that Pozzo fails to recognize Lucky as human because of his demanding attitude, his cruel words and his fundamental contempt for him. No complex interpretations are required in order to see the startling truth that we also fail to recognize other people’s humanity when we respond to one another with a demanding attitude, cruel words or contempt for them.

When the notion of the Other does spark into Pozzo’s head, it is, comically, with great self concern. In one of Waiting for Godot’s best lines, Pozzo contemplates, “Is there anything I can do, that’s what I ask myself, to cheer them up? I have given them bones, I have talked to them about this and that, I have explained the twilight, admittedly. But is it enough, that’s what tortures me, is it enough?” (40) Pozzo’s false sense of anguish for his fellow being is wrapped around a false sense of nobility in himself – which is further magnified by the triviality of the situation.

Because the characters have no sense of reality beyond themselves, they have no sense of purpose beyond themselves either. In a simple, yet hyperbolic, way, this purposelessness comes out as literally as possible. Vladimir and Estragon spend every day walking around in circles in the small islands they have created for themselves. They see no other land in sight, and seem to have lost all hope that the boat will come rescue them – though they wait nonetheless.

As they infinitely wait for the elusive Godot, they are sure of nothing except the fact that they can’t get off their islands by themselves. Though mentioned multiple times, perhaps the best example comes when Beckett is at his least symbolic. Presenting the play’s underlying dilemma as plainly as possible, Vladimir and Estragon discuss the possibility of modifying ones character,

V: Nothing you can do about it
E: No use struggling
V: One is what one is
E: No use wriggling
V: The essential doesn’t change
E: Nothing to be done (17)

The overwhelming sense of hopelessness of the possibility of molding ones individual will is what traps the two into their static state.

Because Vladimir and Estragon are stationary within, they see the world as stationary without. When months (years?) have passed, the two believe it is only the next day. It is the next day for them, for every day is the same. The two never know where they are (8) or when they are (9) because they really don’t know who they are.

By the play’s end, the characters’ existential vacuum has become their existential despair and they realize that they, “can’t go on like this” (109). They have, nevertheless, never discovered each other and never discovered the world outside themselves. And so, when all else is said and done, “They do not move” (109).

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