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Waiting for Godot
by
Samuel Beckett
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Waiting for Godot
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Waiting for Godot Themes
Little Words, Big Ideas
Choices
Waiting for Godot consists of two men unable to act, move, or think in any significant way while they kill time waiting for a mysterious man, Godot. The characters fail to realize that this very ac...
Philosophical Viewpoints: The Absurd
Waiting for Godot is hailed as a classic example of "Theatre of the Absurd," dramatic works that promote the philosophy of its name. This particular play presents a world in which daily actions are...
Truth
Waiting for Godot is a play driven by a lack of truth – in other words, uncertainty. Characters are unable to act in any meaningful way and claim this is so because they are uncertain of the...
Life, Consciousness, and Existence
The portrait of daily life painted by Waiting for Godot is a dismal one. It is repetitive and stagnant. It lacks meaning and purpose and entails perpetual suffering. The solution (which none of the...
Time
Time presents a slew of problems in Waiting for Godot. The very title of the play reveals its central action: waiting. The two main characters are forced to whittle away their days while anticipati...
Religion
Religion is incompatible with reason in Waiting for Godot. Characters who attempt to understand religion logically are left in the dark, and the system is compared to such absurd banalities as swit...
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. Thi...
Freedom and Confinement
Every character in Waiting for Godot seems to live in a prison of his own making. Each is confined to a state of passivity and stagnancy by his own inability to act. The one character who is litera...
Suffering
Suffering is a constant and fundamental part of human existence in Waiting for Godot. Every character suffers and suffers always, with no seeming respite in sight. The hardship ranges from the phys...
Mortality
None of the characters in Waiting for Godot shy away from the fact that death is inevitable. In fact, death becomes at times a solution for the inanity of daily life. The main characters contemplat...