Alienation in Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot Essay -- Waiting for

Alienation in Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot The alienation of humanity from truth, purpose, God, and individually other is the theme of Samuel Becketts play, Waiting for Godot. The plays cyclical and sparse presentation conveys a feeling of the hopelessness that is an effect of a godless, and therefore, purposeless world. Lack of communication, the cause of mans alienation, is displayed soundly through absurdist diction, imagery, structure, and point of view. The intent of the play is to evoke a feeling of incompleteness and depression. The conversation between Vladimir and tarragon, the protagonists of Waiting for Godot, seems to be void of meaning. The play begins with nil to be done and ends with an unfulfilled Yes, lets go. Suicide was often mentioned and reasoned through in passing, as though their deaths mattered neither to them nor anyone else. Their deaths were bargonly even recognized by them as a change. They argued about shoes and carrots when Estragon, the repre sentative of materialistic human nature, was c at a timerned about it. They argued about the thiefs presence in only one of the gospel singing and spiritual matters when Vladimir initiated conversation. A minor goal discussed by Vladimir and Estragon was to pass the time, though they often forgot what day it was, not to mention whom theyd met, where theyd been, and why it ever mattered. Vladimir and Estragon engaged in dialogue with passing travelers Pozzo and Lucky. Luckys speech was a faultless example of the plays meaning. The outward appearance of Luckys words was that he was a fool who once held power over a great vocabulary, but could only toss words together in a confounding miscellany at that time. fairish as a deep feeling about the absence... ...keep waiting because Godot promised to come tomorrow. But tomorrow never came. In both Luckys speech and the play, the characters, reader, and thesis are left unsatisfied. There is no conclusion to Luckys speech. He simply babbl ed on until his listeners removed his thinking cap. The play leaves Vladimir and Estragon still waiting. Knowing no god, Beckett sees intent as futile and mocks both life and death in his play. Beckett can arouse emotions from his audience by not arranging his play in an aflame way. Absurdist theater is far from the melodramatic tragedies of stereotypical plays. Waiting for Godot is antisocial, devoid of superficial meaning, and empty to its core simply because of its blank, forgetful, and meaningless aspects. Yet beneath this clever camouflage is a depth of depression, sprung from a fountain of godless life and non-communication.