ESTRAGON
Well? If we gave thanks for our mercies?
VLADIMIR
What is terrible is to have thought.
ESTRAGON
But did that ever happen to us?
VLADIMIR
Where are all these corpses from?
ESTRAGON
These skeletons.
VLADIMIR
Tell me that.
ESTRAGON
True.
VLADIMIR
We must have thought a little.
ESTRAGON
At the very beginning.
VLADIMIR
A charnel-house! A charnel-house!
ESTRAGON
You don't have to look.
VLADIMIR
You can't help looking.
ESTRAGON
True. (2.154-166)
OK, we’ll admit, this exchange at first seems entirely without logic. But it’s actually just a series of conversations all taking place at once, with several of the responses interchangeable and taking place in more than one back-and-forth. Vladimir’s statement that it is terrible to have thought is continued when Estragon replies "True" several lines below. The question of the corpses is abandoned until Vladimir realizes they come from a charnel-house. Didi ignores Estragon’s question about mercies, so Estragon resumes this strand of thought himself with the line "But did that ever happen to us?" (likely referring to acts of mercy, although one can’t be sure if this is part of a different exchange).
ESTRAGON
I'm going.
He does not move. (1.67)
The ability to choose is rendered useless when a decision cannot be joined with action. This seems constantly to be the case in Waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON
Who believes him?
VLADIMIR
Everybody. It's the only version they know.
ESTRAGON
People are bloody ignorant apes. (1.87-89)
Waiting for Godot argues that people are driven to beliefs by habit, popularity, and ignorance, rather than by conscious choice.
ESTRAGON
Let's go.
VLADIMIR
We can't.
ESTRAGON
Why not?
VLADIMIR
We're waiting for Godot. (1.91-94)
For Vladimir, the act of waiting for Godot prevents him from choosing any other course of action. Yet his decision to wait for Godot at all is a choice in itself; if he realized the radical personal freedom afforded to him by choice, he could decide to leave the stage.
ESTRAGON
An Englishman having drunk a little more than usual proceeds to a brothel. The bawd asks him if he wants a fair one, a dark one or a red-haired one. Go on. (1.162)
OK, we have to explain this joke in order for us to make our argument. Our reference is a very reputable scholar. The rest of the joke (which is cut off by Vladimir’s refusal to tell it) is that the Englishman has to decide whether he wants a blonde, brunette, or red-head. He chooses and is led through one of three doors. He is then faced with two doors and asked to make another choice, this time in regard to the upper half of the female body and size. He chooses and is led through another door. He is then faced with two doors and asked to choose again, this time based on size and the lower half of the female anatomy. At the end, the Englishman walks through a door only to find himself alone and back on the street. The relevance in this theme is that the Englishman makes a series of choices that are essentially arbitrary and cannot ultimately determine the course of his action. Like much of Waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON
What exactly did we ask him [Godot] for?
[…]
VLADIMIR
Oh . . . Nothing very definite.
ESTRAGON
A kind of prayer.
[…]
ESTRAGON
And what did he reply?
VLADIMIR
That he'd see.
ESTRAGON
That he couldn't promise anything.
VLADIMIR
That he'd have to think it over.
[…]
VLADIMIR
Consult his family.
ESTRAGON
His friends.
VLADIMIR
His agents. (1.202-217)
Even Godot, or at least Vladimir’s conception of Godot, is incapable of making independent choices.
ESTRAGON
We've no rights any more?
Laugh of Vladimir, stifled as before, less the smile.
VLADIMIR
You'd make me laugh if it wasn't prohibited.
ESTRAGON
We've lost our rights?
VLADIMIR
(distinctly) We got rid of them. (1.236-239)
That Vladimir says this last line "distinctly" is interesting; he at this moment appears to understand what has otherwise been beyond his grasp: that the men cannot leave because they consciously decide not to. If they have no rights, it is because they decided to get rid of them. All compulsory restrictions, then, are at the core a self-inflicted choice.
ESTRAGON
Excuse me, Mister, the bones, you won't be wanting the bones?
Lucky looks long at Estragon.
POZZO
(in raptures) Mister! (Lucky bows his head.) Reply! Do you want them or don't you? (Silence of Lucky. To Estragon.) They're yours. (Estragon makes a dart at the bones, picks them up and begins to gnaw them.) (1.384-5).
Lucky is incapable of making a decision, therefore one is made for him. In a sense, this is what makes Lucky lucky – the burden of responsibility has been taken from his shoulders as a condition of his servitude.
ESTRAGON
Then adieu.
POZZO
Adieu.
VLADIMIR
Adieu.
POZZO
Adieu.
Silence. No one moves.
VLADIMIR
Adieu.
POZZO
Adieu.
ESTRAGON
Adieu.
Silence.
[…]
POZZO
I don't seem to be able . . . (long hesitation) . . . to depart.
ESTRAGON
Such is life. (1.670-684)
It is Estragon, NOT Vladimir, who makes the connection here: there is a barrier between a choice to act and the actual action itself.
ESTRAGON
For me it's over and done with, no matter what happens. (2.13)
Estragon takes a determinist viewpoint and thus denies himself the ability to choose.
ESTRAGON
(having tried in vain to work it out) I'm tired! (Pause.) Let's go.
VLADIMIR
We can't.
ESTRAGON
Why not?
VLADIMIR
We're waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON
Ah! (Pause. Despairing.) What'll we do, what'll we do! (2.263-264)
This excuse for passivity (waiting for Godot) is as much a problem in Act II as it is in Act I.
ESTRAGON
Tell me what to do.
VLADIMIR
There's nothing to do.
ESTRAGON
You go and stand there. (2.390-2)
The men, unable to make choices for themselves, resort to making choices for each other – perhaps because they find it "safer" than deciding action that holds personal repercussions.
ESTRAGON
Suppose we got up to begin with?
VLADIMIR
No harm trying.
They get up.
ESTRAGON
Child's play.
VLADIMIR
Simple question of will-power.
ESTRAGON
And now?
POZZO
Help! (2.634-9)
Here we see a fundamental difference between Pozzo and the two men Vladimir and Estragon. The latter are able to act, albeit after deliberation, but Pozzo remains helpless until others either tell him what to do or physically do it for him.
ESTRAGON
What did we do yesterday?
VLADIMIR
What did we do yesterday?
ESTRAGON
Yes.
VLADIMIR
Why . . . (Angrily.) Nothing is certain when you're about.
ESTRAGON
In my opinion we were here.
VLADIMIR
(looking round) You recognize the place?
ESTRAGON
I didn't say that.
VLADIMIR
Well?
ESTRAGON
That makes no difference. (1.122-130)
The unreliability of memory is one of the reasons that Waiting for Godot lacks rationale.
ESTRAGON
Why doesn't he put down his bags?
POZZO
I too would be happy to meet him. The more people I meet the happier I become. From the meanest creature one departs wiser, richer, more conscious of one's blessings. Even you . . . (he looks at them ostentatiously in turn to make it clear they are both meant) . . . even you, who knows, will have added to my store.
ESTRAGON
Why doesn't he put down his bags?
POZZO
But that would surprise me.
VLADIMIR
You're being asked a question.
POZZO
(delighted) A question!
[…]
VLADIMIR
You can ask him now. He's on the alert.
ESTRAGON
Ask him what? (1.407-414)
The lack of memory in Waiting for Godot establishes a world of absurdity and purposelessness. If Estragon can’t recall his original question, the questions of the past have no meaning in the present. Likewise, questions are irrelevant by nature since answers will soon after be forgotten.
ESTRAGON
You think all the same.
VLADIMIR
No no, it's impossible.
ESTRAGON
That's the idea, let's contradict each another.
VLADIMIR
Impossible. (2.140-3)
The absurdity is that, in calling Estragon’s idea of contradiction impossible, Vladimir is in fact contradicting Estragon.
Estragon goes towards the boots, inspects them closely.
ESTRAGON
They're not mine.
VLADIMIR
(stupefied) Not yours!
ESTRAGON
Mine were black. These are brown.
VLADIMIR
You're sure yours were black?
ESTRAGON
Well they were a kind of gray.
VLADIMIR
And these are brown. Show me.
ESTRAGON
(picking up a boot) Well they're a kind of green. (2.243-50)
As we’ve already seen in the case with numbers, color is also an arbitrary and meaningless label in the world of Waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON
We came here yesterday.
VLADIMIR
Ah no, there you're mistaken.
ESTRAGON
What did we do yesterday?
VLADIMIR
What did we do yesterday?
ESTRAGON
Yes.
VLADIMIR
Why . . . (Angrily.) Nothing is certain when you're about. (1.120-5)
Vladimir puts a condition on uncertainty: nothing is certain when Estragon is around. Compare this to Estragon’s claim that nothing is certain—period.
ESTRAGON
You're sure it was this evening?
VLADIMIR
What?
ESTRAGON
That we were to wait.
VLADIMIR
He said Saturday. (Pause.) I think.
ESTRAGON
You think.
VLADIMIR
I must have made a note of it. (He fumbles in his pockets, bursting with miscellaneous rubbish.)
ESTRAGON
(very insidious) But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? (Pause.) Or Monday? (Pause.) Or Friday?
VLADIMIR
(looking wildly about him, as though the date was inscribed in the landscape) It's not possible!
ESTRAGON
Or Thursday? (1.132-40)
Add this to the list of uncertainties surrounding the act of waiting for Godot. Not only are the men unsure of what day they are supposed to meet him, but even if they were, they couldn’t know what day it is anyway. Part of the problem here is that what should be objective truth—the name of this specific day—is actually arbitrary. If it’s Thursday, it’s because we choose to call it Thursday. Some existentialists argue that, actually, there is no such thing as objective truth, ever, so it’s possible that Beckett is getting at that claim.
ESTRAGON
If he came yesterday and we weren't here you may be sure he won't come again today. (1.142)
This threat hangs over much of the play; the men may already be damned (in the sense that they will never get to meet Godot) and just not know it. The problem there isn’t with being damned, but with the uncertainty over whether or not they are damned.