Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is an example of Theater of the Absurd, a term created by literary critic Martin Esslin to describe plays in the 1950s that feature existentialist themes in irrational worlds where people have lost a sense of meaning in life.
Early in his career as a writer, Beckett worked for Irish author James Joyce, assisting him with the creation of Joyce’s novel Finnegan’s Wake, a masterpiece of experimental fiction. After working with the Joycean style, which incorporated dizzying wordplay, Beckett developed a contrasting modernist, minimalist style.
The characters in Waiting for Godot illustrate Absurdist themes, as they seem to have little or no meaning in their lives, engage in repetitive motions, and communicate in fragments. Vladimir and Estragon spend an aimless life, wandering and waiting by a barren tree for Godot. When Lucky appears in act 1, he seems to be an independent person with a purpose, as he enters the stage first. But then it’s revealed that Lucky is tied by a long rope to Pozzo, who controls Lucky. In act 2, the characters are still tied together, but their roles are reversed with Lucky now leading a blind Pozzo.
In his plays, Beckett often features character pairs he termed “pseudo-couples” to illustrate relationship dynamics. Lucky and Pozzo symbolize power-imbalanced relationships, the forces that drive and enslave people’s minds, and how roles between the powerful and powerless can change and shift from one person in the dynamic to the other. Lucky’s mind is enslaved, and his sense of self is lost to the point where he can’t recognize kindness from Estragon and responds with violence. Pozzo admits that Lucky taught him “beautiful things,” but from his own enslavement to his role as master, he continues to abuse Lucky and commands him to dance. When Lucky finally speaks with help of a hat, his speech is a rambling pastiche of ideas broken up by a nonsensical phrase. His lifelong enslavement has damaged his sense of self, thought, and speech.
Despite the unhappy arrangement, Lucky and Pozzo appear to be addicted to their relationship. Pozzo doesn’t sell off Lucky, and despite the abuse, Lucky stays with Pozzo. Perhaps in a meaningless, absurd world where people wander and wait, their relationship, abusive as it is, gives Pozzo and Lucky some sense of meaning and purpose.
Further Reading:
Lawley, Paul. Waiting for Godot: Character Studies. London, Bloomsbury, 2013.
https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-literature/articles/an-introduction-to-waiting-for-godot
Lucky gets his name because he has a job. This is symbolized by the rope around his neck. No doubt many people who work to enrich other people feel the way we would assume Lucky feels. He is earning a living, but he is not getting any satisfaction out of the work he does. The gibberish he speaks in his long monologue symbolizes that kind of work. He might be a lawyer, a salesman, an advertising copywriter, a speech writer for a politician, a hack television writer, a television game-show MC, or anything else that requires a lot of insincere and mercenary talking or writing. The name Lucky, of course, is ironic. He is obviously a slave. He will say anything whether it is true or not. He doesn't care about such things. After all, he is making a good living. He has become very glib, but the words he utters seem meaningless because they are meaningless to him. This would seem to be Beckett's view of the condition of modern middle-class man. There are many people who consider Lucky fortunate because he has a good job. They would gladly take his place if they could. There are many people like Pozzo who get rich by using people like Lucky. They need people like Lucky because they are inarticulate themselves. They are inarticulate because they are too gross to use language any way but bluntly. But they despise people like Lucky because he has no integrity left. He will jump through hoops if they tell him to.
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