Waiting for Godot Notes PDF

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Notes on WFG, including analysis and lots of contextual information...

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WAITING FOR GODOT

RUBRIC →The experiences of individuals and communities seeking unity, certainty, solace, justice or restoration in periods of significant social and political change and upheaval. →How texts represent the predicaments, aspirations, motivations and ideas of individuals and groups in periods of upheaval →Reflect on the potential of texts to activate change in attitudes, perspectives and social circumstances →How texts representing worlds of social and political change may challenge literary conventions and traditional societal values. →How texts represent shifting values, contexts and attitudes, and reconsider their own values and assumptions in relation to these representations. →They write their own imaginative compositions that represent the relationship between the individual and society in times of upheaval.

CONTEXT First performed in 1953  Irish Playwright Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)  Waiting for Godot composed 1948-49 Initial reactions to the play were negative  Flat and feeble language  "end of theatre" So, what led to this "remarkable piece of twaddle"?  19th Century Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) o One must be conscious of ones self in order to be truly "free o If not 'free', one exists in a state of despair  He is urging people to do conscious, embrace the despair and questions where they fit in 

Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900 o "God is Dead" o Christianity masks our true desires, thereby preventing us from pursuing happiness, therefore religion can be described as weakness and fear  Entrance into the 20th century ideal of 'grand narratives'  Questioning of established rules, structures o We are thrust into anxiety because we can find no purpose in life

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Martin Heidegger 1889-1976 o We live in a state of ignorance we must fight o Key terms; dasein (being), and das nichts (nothing), so we can develop a deeper understanding of our place in the world o We are thrown into a world where we lack control, we must understand our situation in society and rise above it in order to live an authentic life

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G W F HEGEL (1770-1831) o Negotiate our power in the world and our place in the world o Dynamic process where we test ourselves against other people, and come to a point where people are in a point of certainty o Cyclical nature; we start again and begin to test ourselves again  Links to Godot in power dynamic  How does this power dynamic change between 1st and 2nd act? Modernist precedes WFG o Modernists believed they were seeing the breakdown of the world

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The Myth of Sisyphus (and other essays)- Albert Camus 1942 o Existentialist o Story of a man who is condemned by the Gods to roll a rock up a hill for eternity  You'd think he would become depressed/give up  But he sees the merit in doing something o Camus says its better to do something and exist in the moment rather than give up o Typical methods of coping (according to Camus): denying the unreasonable (ignore senselessness of our existence, pretend that things are stable), or abandon reason o CAMUS's suggestions to how we should act and not accept defeat  Permanent revolution, consistently revolt against circumstances, thus keep the absurd alive, never accept defeat  Reject eternal freedom: hold onto reason  Passion: have a passion for life, o He believed that man ultimately had a purpose/could push through

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WW2 atrocities o 100+ million people dead, a genocide o Atomic bomb  Robert Oppenheimer; father of the atomic bomb, scientific developments  Belief that scientific developments are good for the people, but the possibility of mass murder weapons is dangerous  Political leaders use what is supposed to be for the good of man; for the detriment of man  "we knew the world would not be the same"  Bhagavad Gita Vishnu "now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds"  This world of upheaval leads to a questioning of the 'good ness of man', 'where do I fit with other people', 'are humans innately good' o Events were shocking, shaking the core beliefs about inherent human decency o Loss of faith in leaders who were power hungry, incompetent, willing to endorse atrocities

Existentialism  Intense questioning of everything  Absurdity  Anxiety  Alienation  Existence precedes essence

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The Ubermensch o we have to try to overcome obstacles (herd mentality and yourself), you have to be conscious The death of God Subjectivity

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Jean Paul Sartre 1905-80 o Key existentialist figure o "existence precedes essence" we learn behaviour through exposure o An inability or refusal to examine ones try purpose is termed 'bad faith', this I the life lived by most people o 'good faith' means living an authentic life o The endless possibilities of freedom can cause great anxiety

POST MODERNISM

THEATRE OF THE ABSURD -

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A reflection of what seems to be the attitude most genuinely representative of our own time o The hallmark of this attitude is its sense that the certitudes and unshakeable basic assumptions of former ages have been...  swept away, tested  discredited as cheap, and somewhat childish illusions The decline of religion was masked until the end of WWII, by the ‘substitute religions’ of ... o Faith in progress o Nationalism o And totalitarian fallacies  This was all shattered by war By 1942, Albert Camus was calmly putting the question WHY, since life had lost all meaning, man should not seek escape in suicide o Camus tried to diagnose the human situation in a world of shattered beliefs The Myth of Sisyphus (camus) o “a world that can be explained by reasoning (however faulty), is a familiar world” o “but in a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger”

o “his is an irremediable exile, because he is deprived of memories of lost homeland as much as he lacks the hope of a promised land to come” o “the divorce between man, life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of Absurdity”  “the ‘absurd’ is the widespread sensitivity of our times, defined as a confrontation between our demands for rationality and justice and the indifferent universe” -

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‘Absurd’ originally means ‘out of harmony’ in a musical context o French writer Ionesco (1957), defined the term as “devoid of purpose... cut off from his religious, metaphysical and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless” Metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the human condition; o The senselessness of life o Of inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity and purpose  Is the theme of much of the Absurdist writers  it strives for an integration between subject matter and form (absurdist writing) tends toward a RADICAL DEVALUATION OF WRITING o Toward a poetry that is to emerge from the concrete and objectified images of the stage itself Absurdist dramatists have similar ideas to Existentialist philosophers  but they hold that individuals are INCAPABLE of giving significance to the world around them Absurdist humour was born “in the trenches of WWI” according to cultural historians o For the soldiers, their situation was absurd, they constantly faced death, and mutilation from the enemy but ALSO received meaningless traditional rhetoric about ‘honour, courage and patriotism’  From leaders who lived safely away from war zones o For many soldiers, the way out of their desperate situation was an idiotic charge into enemy lines  Soldiers on all sides often responded with laughter; to their circumstances absurdity but also the absurdity of their responses Absurdist theatre continued to grow out of WWII

o The ineffectual attempt to cope with dangerous situations can be seen at the core of absurdist theatre

Characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd: -

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Subverts conventional theatrical form audiences expect Movement of plot is arbitrary, characters are mostly unfamiliar, weirdly motivation o Scenery is unrecognisable, dialogue (appears) to be nonsense Rejects traditional drama narratives (they are too artificial, contrived) World of the play lacks reliable features o Lacks anything to remind audiences of logical structure, time, space and memory are confused The world is absurd as has no logic To playwrights, chaos and irrationality represent reality better than rationality and order World has no reliable MEANING o Protagonists attempts to deal with the world are absurd; they may seem like clowns Characters can’t give significance to their world o Spend their time anxiously confronting an incomprehensible world o They are desperate for reassurance that there is something or someone who can help them Focused on how protagonists try to cope and fail o Incapable of independent action or helping themselves o Wait for something to happen for someone to come along and provide info, direction or meaning (this never arrives) Play ends as it started (w/ them waiting) The action consists of games which the protagonists play, bc they need to pass time Vagueness of plot = no clear ending Is funny due to the ludicrousness of the ineffectual attempts to give significance to the passing of time, when no one has resources Aim is to reveal for audiences a powerful image which can be literal, metaphorical, analogical or allegorical Often bleak and funny at the same time o Humour is bleak bc it depends on laughing at any attempt to discover significance in life or action The humour deals with subjects that are normally taboo o Death, illness, madness, sexual strangeness, human cruelties

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Are often the common these in absurdist drama and are made the subjects of verbal and visual humour

Martin Esslin - Absurd Drama 1965  

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“emphasis in drama has shifted away from traditional forms towards images which must necessarily lack the final clarity of definition” “playwrights concerned no longer believe with expressing a sense of wonder, and at times of despair of the lack of cohesion and meaning they find in the world” “they have no faith in the existence of so rational and well ordered a universe” “the ‘well-made play’ can thus be seen as conditioned by clear and comforting beliefs, a stable scale of values, an ethical system in full working condition” “the world view behind the well-made play may be a religious or political one; it may be an implicit belief in the goodness and perfectibility of men, or it may be a mere unthinking acceptance of the moral and political status quo” “the basis of the well-made play is the implicit assumption that the world does make sense, that reality if solid and secure, all ends apparent” “the plays (ToA), express a sense of shock at the absence, the loss of any such clear and well defines systems of beliefs or values”

EXISTENTIALISM “sets EX apart from other philosophies is that it begins with the ‘individual’ rather than the ‘universal’... does not aim to arrive at general truths; its insistence on personal insights as the only means to real understating ...that is makes no claims to objective knowledge”– Earnshaw Existentialism is not a unified philosophy -

Most theorists wouldn’t agree The term covers a broad range of views

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There is little that they share but generally believe that the world has either: o No inherent meaning except that which the individual creates – or  Generally, Atheist o That the world does have meaning, but it is transcendent of our capacity to understand it  Generally religious: means; there is no meaning, not hidden meaning the world at face value has lots of meaning but this is in fact “a construct of society”, a way of constructing things so that they have some importance culture, religion etc... act as rocks created by our minds so we have something to hand onto all these confront; are anchors for our sanity, we think the world has meaning independent of ourselves existentialist instead throw themselves off the rock into the surrounding ocean or chaos and pointlessness o and find that the mental structures made for our own sanity constrict us  better understanding can be made by realising that there is absolutely no meaning outside ourselves o when this is done; you find greater solid invincible meaning inside yourself, that which offers more comfort than the rock ever did – bc YOU KNOW ITS TRUE We find existentialism sad bc we hide behind what we think we know is “true and good” Life has no inherent meaning, we create meaning because we fear meaninglessness Freedom from self-mind-control and the pressure of others can be found by realising meaningless Meaninglessness only seems sad because of subconscious desire to find meaning Embracing the meaningless of life creates meaning in ourselves The meaning in yourself is stronger than external meaning, because that can be removed where yours is totally unremovable from yourself because you take meaning from the fact there is no real meaning

Meaninglessness = freedom (before you relied on structures and now you can manufacture it yourself) THEORIES OF LANGUAGE

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Wittgenstein 1889-1951 o Words have no essential meaning o Language and understanding are based on contextual influences, therefore language is inherently flawed as no definite meaning can ever be assumed o The term" language games" coined by W to describe the way we understand concepts through exposure to contextual influences and language o Language and words are dependent on each specific context  The way we use words is to hide the truth behind different contextual influences

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Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) o Argued that a simplistic explanation of the way we understand new concepts in based on privileging of one concept/term  E.g. blonde and brown, large and small o A second, dependent concept is always understood in terms of its difference from the initial idea o Once concept is always favoured o This negates the fact that our understanding depends on contextual influences

Distrust of Grand Narratives  Meta narrative; grand, large scale theories and philosophies of the world such as the progress of history, the know ability of everything by science and the possibility of absolute freedom  Jean Francois Lyotard 1924-1998 o "simplifying to the extreme, I define post-modern as incredulity towards meta-narrative FINISH QUOTE o Lyotard argues that we have ceased to believe that narratives of this kind are adequate to represent and contain us all Post Modernism  All truth is limited and constantly changing  No explanation about our lives can ever be proved true, we can only show that an explanation is false  Nothing can be explained consistently  Separation between the way we think about things and the thing in itself  Unlearn and question what you "know" Theatre of the Absurd  Absurdist humour was born 'in the trenches of WWI' o For the soldiers, their situation was absurd o They constantly faced death, multination but equally received meaningless traditional rhetoric's about honour, courage and

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patriotism from their leaders who lived safely away from war zones Soldiers = only way out = idiotic charge into enemy lines Soldiers of all sides of all conflict responded with laughter at times, not just at their circumstances but their responses to that situation Conventions of theatre; o rejects traditional drama narratives too artificial, too contrived. Subverts conventional theatrical form audiences have come to expect, o Arbitrary plot o No sense of time o Unfamiliar characters o Unrecognisable scenery o Nonsensical dialogue o World of the play lacks reliable features o Attempts to deal with the world are absurd, almost clownlike o Characters are incapable of giving significance to their worlds o Uncontrollable chaos and lack of meaning creates great anxiety o Absurdist theatre is funny due to the ludicrousness of the ineffectual attempts to give significance to the passing of time, when one has no resources o Non-sequitur

WHO IS GODOT?  

Meaningless of language Even the title is an attempt the frustrate the reader o Demonstration of his key idea that we can't find meaning...meaning does not exist o "what do I know of man’s destiny? I could tell you more about radishes"

Summary: what characterises this post-war, post-modern, "world of upheaval" ATOMIC BOMB 

By 1945 USA has the bomb o 1945-49 USA is the only superpower o 1949 Russia exploded an atomic bomb --> cold war  MAD (recognition that both sides had stockpiled so much that the world would be destroyed) Mutually Assured Destruction o First time in history that something like this had happened o How can you have faith when there is this type of environment?  E.g. American propaganda 'Duck and Cover'

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In a world where your everyday life is threatened? Is there importance in meaning of human relationships? Or are they ultimately doomed?

Similarities

Romanticism 1770-1832

Literature considering ways of thinking

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Technological improvement

Reacting to the French Revolution + rise of Napoleon  Periods of political upheaval

Questioning of power structures

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Reacting to WWII Political and social upheaval

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Dangers of nuclear weapons  Use of science for evil?

Rebelled against the  Augustan period

New ways of

Dangers of new science; galvanism

New ways of thinking rebelling against the past

1950's

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British scared reaction to FR

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Structure

Fear of communism

Reactionary writers Self-induced destruction

Differences

Romanticism 

Where does man find solace?

Believed could change man for better  Greater hope

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Belief in truth and

1950's 

Cynical Was man inherently

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Greater questioning of religion

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Pantheism Napoleon  Destructive, egotistical  Thousands died for their own gain

WWII  Prisoners of War etc…  Introduced a concept of evil into politics that hadn't been there before  Banality of evil

o o Heroic Over-reacher  Glamorised by Shelley and others…  Not any particularly nihilistic texts

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Hitler/Stalin Concentration camps

Atomic bomb (MAD)  Mutually assured destruction  For the first time it is not just a war  Lasting effects of war o Humanity could destroy itself  Nihilistic view of what man could do itself  Annihilation

Times of upheaval when people are questioning - there are still those who hang onto conservatism The writers are radical

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SAMUEL BECKETT

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Irish

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Vaudeville fascination

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Intensified the dehumanisation of mankind o He liked abstract painting o He thought people were totally alone o Only the inner man had any importance o Loved or hated by anyone but himself o As the years drew on his bitterness increased

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Wrote as relaxation

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Thought writing for the stage was a diversion that was liberating

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Godot was derived from the French word for 'boot'

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Topic of conversation --> o Went to see the play to see the scandalous impertinence o So, they could talk about it at the next party

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At 47 S...