Waiting for Godot Theme of Friendship

Friendship is tricky in Waiting for Godot, as each character is fundamentally isolated from every other. Relationships teeter between a fear of loneliness and an essential inability to connect. This tension is central to the play. The problems that keep characters apart vary from physical disgust to ego to a fear of others’ suffering.

1. What is the best term to describe Vladimir and Estragon’s relationship? Are they friends? Companions? Master and slave? Mere acquaintances?
2. Vladimir and Estragon constantly ask whether they would be better off without each other. So…would they?
3. Of Vladimir and Estragon, which man is more eager to draw closer, and which man is more hesitant?

Because Lucky and Pozzo understand and accept the nature of their positions as slave and master, they have a healthier relationship than Vladimir and Estragon.