POZZO
(He looks at the stool.) I'd very much like to sit down, but I don't quite know how to go about it.
ESTRAGON
Could I be of any help?
[…]
If you asked me to sit down.
ESTRAGON
Would that be a help?
POZZO
I fancy so.
ESTRAGON
Here we go. Be seated, Sir, I beg of you.
POZZO
No no, I wouldn't think of it! (Pause. Aside.) Ask me again.
ESTRAGON
Come come, take a seat I beseech you, you'll get pneumonia.
POZZO
You really think so?
ESTRAGON
Why it's absolutely certain.
POZZO
No doubt you are right. (He sits down.) Done it again! (Pause.) Thank you, dear fellow. (1.519-531)
Pozzo, too, requires others to help him act. Again we see that choice does not enable action in this play.
POZZO
I am blind.
Silence.
ESTRAGON
Perhaps he can see into the future. (2.655-6)
Estragon imposes his own sense of backward logic: if the man is denied one manner of sight, perhaps he has gained another. This is also a mythological reference to any one of the many blind prophets in history (think Tiresias from Greek Mythology, since we’re certain you read Shmoop’s Odyssey).
Quote 3
POZZO
(Lyrically) The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. (He laughs.) Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. (Pause.) Let us not speak well of it either. (Pause.) Let us not speak of it at all. (Pause. Judiciously.) It is true the population has increased. (1.461)
The cast of Waiting for Godot finds that the more they speak, the less certain they become. What starts off as assurance and fact quickly degenerates into guesswork and even more questions.
Quote 4
POZZO
(calmer) Gentlemen, I don't know what came over me. Forgive me. Forget all I said. (More and more his old self.) I don't remember exactly what it was, but you may be sure there wasn't a word of truth in it. (1.485)
Pozzo is at least certain of his uncertainty, which is more than we can say for Vladimir—at least in Act 1.
POZZO
It isn't by any chance the place known as the Board?
VLADIMIR
Never heard of it.
POZZO
What is it like?
VLADIMIR
(looking round) It's indescribable. It's like nothing. There's nothing. There's a tree.
POZZO
Then it's not the Board. (2.707-11)
Pozzo convinces himself of "facts" by using an arbitrary and contrived system of logic. The fact that there is a tree in the scenery has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not this is "the Board." (Actually, "the Board" is an old word for "stage," so in fact the setting IS the Board. Pozzo is not only faking certainty, he’s just plain wrong.)
Quote 6
POZZO
(having lit his pipe) The second is never so sweet . . . (he takes the pipe out of his mouth, contemplates it) . . . as the first I mean. (He puts the pipe back in his mouth.) But it's sweet just the same. (1.400)
This is Pozzo putting in his two cents to add to Gogo and Didi’s earlier conversation about the carrot. His opinion is something of a middle ground; habit deadens the senses, but there is still something to be enjoyed in the world.
POZZO
He's stopped crying. (To Estragon.) You have replaced him as it were. (Lyrically.) The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. (He laughs.) Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. (Pause.) Let us not speak well of it either. (Pause.) Let us not speak of it at all. (Pause. Judiciously.) It is true the population has increased. (1.461)
Pozzo tries to dismiss any concerns about the misery of the world with the claim that things have always been this way. Stagnancy has become his excuse for inaction, but as we’ve seen with Gogo and Didi, inaction leads to stagnancy. This likely has something to do with the play’s cyclical nature.
Quote 8
POZZO
But—(hand raised in admonition)—but behind this veil of gentleness and peace, night is charging (vibrantly) and will burst upon us (snaps his fingers) pop! like that! (his inspiration leaves him) just when we least expect it. (Silence. Gloomily.) That's how it is on this b**** of an earth. (1.540)
Just like Vladimir and Estragon, Pozzo moves easily from talking about the physical (in this case, the appearance of the twilight) to the metaphysical or abstract (here, his judgments on "this b**** of an earth"). The variation in these comments makes the subject matter of Waiting for Godot somewhat rare; a combination of the absurdly mundane and the inaccessibly cerebral.
POZZO
(suddenly furious) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (Calmer.) They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more. (He jerks the rope.) On!
Exeunt Pozzo and Lucky. Vladimir follows them to the edge of the stage, looks after them. The noise of falling, reinforced by mimic of Vladimir, announces that they are down again. Silence. (2.773)
Pozzo’s final line is a lasting image in Waiting for Godot. He paints the picture of a birth taking place literally over a grave; the "gleam" of light he describes is the course of a life, which then presumably falls—dead—into the grave. This dismal outlook—very different from the Pozzo of Act 1—seems to be the result of his going blind, which he says means he can no longer see the workings of time. Now that he can assign no meaning to time, Pozzo finds life fleeting and without purpose.
POZZO
You are severe. (To Vladimir.) What age are you, if it's not a rude question? (Silence.) Sixty? Seventy? (To Estragon.) What age would you say he was?
ESTRAGON
Eleven.
POZZO
I am impertinent. (1.390-2)
Again, the notion of keeping track of time is portrayed as absurd, so we might just as easily call Vladimir "eleven" as "seventy." When Estragon characterizes him as "eleven" and Pozzo responds that he is "impertinent," he is simply exchanging one adjective for another. Think of it as you saying, "Hi, I’m Jen," and someone replying, "Hi, I’m hungry." Or, interpreted differently, you’ve got another neat structuring thing going on here, where Pozzo’s two lines, "You are severe" and "I am impertinent" surround the conversation about numbers; Pozzo asks Vladimir’s age and then entirely ignores the answer he gets in return.
POZZO
He's stopped crying. (To Estragon.) You have replaced him as it were. (Lyrically.) The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. (He laughs.) Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. (Pause.) Let us not speak well of it either. (Pause.) Let us not speak of it at all. (Pause. Judiciously.) It is true the population has increased. (1.461)
Pozzo at first claims that time has essentially changed nothing at all as far as the world and its functions. But no sooner are the words out of his mouth that he sees a fallacy in his statement; population, after all, has increased, which means time does in fact bring change. Pozzo’s relationship with time and his attempts to understand it are important to his character; check out Pozzo’s character analysis for more.
POZZO
That was nearly sixty years ago . . . (he consults his watch) . . . yes, nearly sixty. (1.467)
Pozzo is the one character to have a watch, and in fact it is quite a watch. He uses it to speak not of minutes or hours, but a span of years, an impressive feat in a world where the men must examine the sky at length to determine whether or not night has come.
POZZO
(who hasn't listened.) Ah yes! The night. (He raises his head.) But be a little more attentive, for pity's sake, otherwise we'll never get anywhere. (He looks at the sky.) Look! (All look at the sky except Lucky who is dozing off again. Pozzo jerks the rope.) Will you look at the sky, pig! (Lucky looks at the sky.) Good, that's enough. (They stop looking at the sky.) What is there so extraordinary about it? Qua sky. It is pale and luminous like any sky at this hour of the day. (Pause.) In these latitudes. (Pause.) When the weather is fine. (Lyrical.) An hour ago (he looks at his watch, prosaic) roughly (lyrical) after having poured forth even since (he hesitates, prosaic) say ten o'clock in the morning (lyrical) tirelessly torrents of red and white light it begins to lose its effulgence, to grow pale (gesture of the two hands lapsing by stages) pale, ever a little paler, a little paler until (dramatic pause, ample gesture of the two hands flung wide apart) pppfff! finished! it comes to rest. (1.540)
We come to see that the daily wait for Godot draws to a close only with the coming of night and the rising of the moon. Twilight, then, is the least certain and most ambiguous time of day for Vladimir and Estragon. It is fitting that Pozzo, the man who grapples with time repeatedly in the play, is the man to soliloquize on its nature. His vacillations between the poetry of the sky’s color and the exactitude of the time—made clear by Beckett’s alternating stage directions "lyrical" and "prosaic"—suggest that an attempt to categorize and label time is frivolous, maybe even at odds with the deeper understanding one gains from observations.
POZZO
(Turning to Vladimir and Estragon.) Thank you, gentlemen, and let me . . . (he fumbles in his pockets) . . . let me wish you . . . (fumbles) . . . wish you . . . (fumbles) . . . what have I done with my watch? (Fumbles.) A genuine half-hunter, gentlemen, with deadbeat escapement! (Sobbing.) Twas my granpa gave it to me! (He searches on the ground, Vladimir and Estragon likewise. Pozzo turns over with his foot the remains of Lucky's hat.) Well now isn't that just—
VLADIMIR
Perhaps it's in your fob.
POZZO
Wait! (He doubles up in an attempt to apply his ear to his stomach, listens. Silence.) I hear nothing. (He beckons them to approach, Vladimir and Estragon go over to him, bend over his stomach.) Surely one should hear the tick-tick.
VLADIMIR
Silence!
All listen, bent double.
ESTRAGON
I hear something.
POZZO
Where?
VLADIMIR
It's the heart.
POZZO
(disappointed) Damnation!
VLADIMIR
Silence!
ESTRAGON
Perhaps it has stopped. (1.655-64)
Pozzo has lost his watch. Vladimir’s comment that "It’s the heart" they hear ticking, not the missing watch, is a fascinating one, since this is as accurate a ticking of time (and far more poignant) than that of a hunk of metal. Also note that Estragon, not Vladimir, is the man to comment that perhaps "it" has stopped. The watch, sure, but also time, an apt comment since the men are stuck in a cyclical, timeless repetition of banality.
Quote 15
POZZO
(violently) Don't question me! The blind have no notion of time. The things of time are hidden from them too. (2.702)
When we realize in Act 2 that Pozzo has gone blind (and later that Lucky has become mute), we immediately want to know the reason why. Something must have happened in the time between yesterday and today. But time is not logical in Waiting for Godot. Pozzo, who in Act 1 was all about time (his watch, his exposition on the twilight) has now resigned himself to this painful fact. He now admits that he is "blind" to time, or cannot at all understand its workings.
POZZO
But he [Lucky] is dumb.
VLADIMIR
Dumb!
POZZO
Dumb. He can't even groan.
VLADIMIR
Dumb! Since when?
POZZO
(suddenly furious) Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? (2.769-73)
Frustrated at his inability to understand time, Pozzo writes it off as irrelevant.
POZZO
(halting) You are human beings none the less. (He puts on his glasses.) As far as one can see. (He takes off his glasses.) Of the same species as myself. (He bursts into an enormous laugh.) Of the same species as Pozzo! Made in God's image! (1.314)
It could be that Pozzo finds this statement so amusing because he doesn’t consider himself human; he considers himself a god.
POZZO
He can no longer endure my presence. I am perhaps not particularly human, but who cares? (To Vladimir.) Think twice before you do anything rash. Suppose you go now while it is still day, for there is no denying it is still day. (They all look up at the sky.) Good. (They stop looking at the sky.) What happens in that case—(he takes the pipe out of his mouth, examines it)—I'm out—(he relights his pipe)—in that case—(puff)—in that case—(puff)—what happens in that case to your appointment with this . . . Godet . . . Godot . . . Godin . . . anyhow you see who I mean, who has your future in his hands . . . (pause) . . . at least your immediate future? (1.402)
Notice how Pozzo moves from talking about his not being human to a discussion of Godot. This basically invites a comparison of the two characters as divine figures (which we also discuss in the "Characters" section).
POZZO
What was I saying?
VLADIMIR
Let's go.
ESTRAGON
But take the weight off your feet, I implore you, you'll catch your death.
POZZO
True. (He sits down. To Estragon.) What is your name?
ESTRAGON
Adam.
POZZO
(who hasn't listened) Ah yes! The night. (He raises his head.) But be a little more attentive, for pity's sake, otherwise we'll never get anywhere. (1.535-40)
A helpful hint for you from Shmoop: characters are never accidentally named "Adam." Check out "Tools of Characterization" for more on names. In the meantime, Pozzo, who acts like something of a deity, misses the religious significance.
Quote 20
POZZO
(halting) You are human beings none the less. (He puts on his glasses.) As far as one can see. (He takes off his glasses.) Of the same species as myself. (He bursts into an enormous laugh.) Of the same species as Pozzo! Made in God's image! (1.314)
Pozzo here admits that, at least biologically, he is exactly the same as Vladimir and Estragon. This seems incompatible with his status as a God, or his belief that he is somehow above these two men (and above Lucky, who is also clearly a human being). Just like Didi and Gogo, Pozzo struggles between a desire to get close to others and a belief that he is somehow separate from them.