How we cite our quotes: (Act.Line) Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue.
Quote #1
VLADIMIR
And they didn't beat you?
ESTRAGON
Beat me? Certainly they beat me.
VLADIMIR
The same lot as usual?
ESTRAGON
The same? I don't know. (1.12-15)
Waiting for Godot presents suffering as a regular, expected part of daily life.
Quote #2
VLADIMIR
It hurts?
ESTRAGON
(angrily) Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
VLADIMIR
(angrily) No one ever suffers but you. I don't count. I'd like to hear what you'd say if you had what I have.
ESTRAGON
It hurts?
VLADIMIR
(angrily) Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
ESTRAGON
(pointing) You might button it all the same.
VLADIMIR
(stooping) True. (He buttons his fly.) Never neglect the little things of life. (1.24-30)
Estragon and Vladimir both have a case of chronic pain. Again, when we see the play as an allegory, it is a statement that pain is a necessary part of the human condition.
Quote #3
Vladimir breaks into a hearty laugh which he immediately stifles, his hand pressed to his pubis, his face contorted.
VLADIMIR
One daren't even laugh any more.
(1.45-6)
That Vladimir feels pain when he laughs is a cruel joke, but representative of the play’s nature as a tragicomedy. Tragicomedy should mean a marriage of the tragic and the comic, but Waiting for Godot goes one step further in suggesting that the tragedy (in this case, the pain) is the result of the comedy (in this case, Vladimir’s laughter).