Quote 21
VLADIMIR
I've seen you before, haven't I?
BOY
I don't know, Sir.
VLADIMIR
You don't know me?
BOY
No Sir.
VLADIMIR
It wasn't you came yesterday?
BOY
No Sir. (1.771-6)
Vladimir doubts his own memory here, but compare this to his reaction in Act 2 when he sees the Boy again.
Quote 22
VLADIMIR
And why doesn't he beat you?
BOY
I don't know, Sir.
VLADIMIR
He must be fond of you.
BOY
I don't know, Sir.
Silence.
[…]
VLADIMIR
You're not unhappy?
[…]
BOY
I don't know, Sir.
VLADIMIR
You don't know if you're unhappy or not?
BOY
No Sir. (1.797-808)
The repetition of "I don’t know" is an appropriate ending to Act 1.
Quote 23
VLADIMIR
Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw us. (Pause.) You did see us, didn't you?
BOY
Yes Sir. (1.817-8)
Vladimir’s uncertainty seems to have worsened throughout the course of the play. Whereas earlier he doubted memory and knowledge, he now can’t even accept that actions are true in the moment they occur.
VLADIMIR
(without anger) It's not certain.
ESTRAGON
No, nothing is certain. (1.855-6)
Vladimir has resigned himself to this predicament; Beckett makes a point of the stage direction here.
VLADIMIR
Say you are, even if it's not true.
ESTRAGON
What am I to say?
VLADIMIR
Say, I am happy.
ESTRAGON
I am happy.
VLADIMIR
So am I.
ESTRAGON
So am I.
VLADIMIR
We are happy.
ESTRAGON
We are happy. (Silence.) What do we do now, now that we are happy?
VLADIMIR
Wait for Godot. (2.42-50)
Faced with constant uncertainty, the men begin to fake conviction. Unfortunately, assigning labels (like "happy") provides no assistance with the central problem of inaction.
Quote 26
VLADIMIR
But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come— (2.526)
Again, this is ironic; the one fact the men are absolutely certain of is surrounded by the most doubt and questioning.
VLADIMIR
And you are Pozzo?
POZZO
Certainly I am Pozzo.
VLADIMIR
The same as yesterday?
POZZO
Yesterday?
VLADIMIR
We met yesterday. (Silence.) Do you not remember?
POZZO
I don't remember having met anyone yesterday. But tomorrow I won't remember having met anyone today. So don't count on me to enlighten you. (2.746-51)
The constant state of uncertainty is the only consistent, objective truth in Waiting for Godot.
Quote 28
VLADIMIR
Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? […] At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (Pause.) […] What have I said?
He goes feverishly to and fro, halts finally at extreme left, broods. (2.795)
Vladimir can’t even be certain of his own consciousness by the end of the play.
Quote 29
VLADIMIR
Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw me and that . . . (he hesitates) . . . that you saw me. (Pause. Vladimir advances, the Boy recoils. Vladimir halts, the Boy halts. With sudden violence.) You're sure you saw me, you won't come and tell me tomorrow that you never saw me!
Silence. Vladimir makes a sudden spring forward, the Boy avoids him and exits running. (2.829)
This is interesting; at the end of the play, Vladimir is at his most lucid. He knows he saw the Boy yesterday (and, we can extrapolate, many other days in the past) and he knows he will see him tomorrow. His moment of clarity, however, leads only to fruitless anger. What good is certainty, anyway, in a world full only of unreliability and doubt?
VLADIMIR
There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet. (1.40)
Vladimir starts to do what the audience is perhaps doing as well: derive meaning from the smallest of actions. We search for symbols and metaphors in the absurd objects of Waiting for Godot just as we search for meaning in the dull daily actions of our lives.
VLADIMIR
Well? What do we do?
ESTRAGON
Don't let's do anything. It's safer. (1.194-195)
This is the fundamental problem in Waiting for Godot and—if we see the play as an allegory—the fundamental problem of life (which is highly more likely than the notion that the play is about little more than boots and hats). Fear and uncertainty result in inaction.
VLADIMIR
I get used to the muck as I go along.
[…]
VLADIMIR
Nothing you can do about it.
ESTRAGON
No use struggling.
VLADIMIR
One is what one is.
ESTRAGON
No use wriggling.
VLADIMIR
The essential doesn't change.
ESTRAGON
Nothing to be done. (1.281-290)
This is the second time we hear Estragon’s line "Nothing to be done," the phrase that opened the play. Here, both men have accepted the stagnancy of their situation and abandoned any hope of change or betterment. This becomes not only an excuse for passivity, but a prison of inaction, as neither man can bring himself to break the cycle of waiting for Godot.
VLADIMIR
At last! (Estragon gets up and goes towards Vladimir, a boot in each hand. He puts them down at edge of stage, straightens and contemplates the moon.) What are you doing?
ESTRAGON
Pale for weariness.
VLADIMIR
Eh?
ESTRAGON
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the likes of us.
VLADIMIR
Your boots, what are you doing with your boots? (1.819-23)
While Vladimir can focus only on the boots, Estragon makes one of the play’s most reflective and poetic comments: that the moon is pale with weariness from watching this tiring routine play out below. Though he comes across as the simpleton, Estragon in a way recognizes more than Vladimir the incessant banality of their existence.
VLADIMIR
Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! (Pause. Vehemently.) Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. (2.526)
Vladimir decides that he and Gogo represent all mankind only once they are asked for help (in this case, by Pozzo). Didi is only able to assign meaning to his life when he is depended on, which is why he needs Estragon as much Estragon needs him.
VLADIMIR
But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come— (2.526)
Vladimir uses the act of waiting for Godot to assign meaning to what is otherwise an entirely meaningless series of actions and interactions.
VLADIMIR
All I know is that the hours are long, under these conditions, and constrain us to beguile them with proceedings which—how shall I say—which may at first sight seem reasonable, until they become a habit. You may say it is to prevent our reason from foundering. No doubt. But has it not long been straying in the night without end of the abyssal depths? That's what I sometimes wonder. You follow my reasoning? (2.535)
All right, Vladimir’s little speech here is tricky. What he’s saying is, when you’re doing absolutely nothing every day for your entire life, time moves pretty slowly. The only solution, then, is to fill up your time with a series of actions. At first these actions seem "reasonable"—you take off your boots, you put on a hat, you converse or argue. But as time goes on, these daily actions become habit, and that’s when it starts to get a little absurd. In other words, take off your boots once, that makes sense. Take them off and put them back on twenty times a day for a decade, and that no longer makes any sense.
Quote 37
VLADIMIR
Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his carrier, and that he spoke to us? Probably. But in all that what truth will there be?
(Estragon, having struggled with his boots in vain, is dozing off again. Vladimir looks at him.) He'll know nothing. He'll tell me about the blows he received and I'll give him a carrot. (Pause.) Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. (He listens.) But habit is a great deadener. (He looks again at Estragon.) At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (Pause.) I can't go on! (Pause.) What have I said? (2.795)
Vladimir has brilliantly encapsulated the most difficult concepts of Waiting for Godot, only to promptly forget all that he’s uttered! Let’s look at this little speech, since it’s confusing the first time around. Vladimir first asks himself what will happen tomorrow. He outlines all the mundane events he foresees: his conversation with Estragon, the carrot, etc. He knows he will then try to remember what happened today, but even if he accurately recalls it all, there won’t be any truth there in his memories, since there is nothing of meaning in the events of the day to ponder. There is only banality and purposelessness. Now, Pozzo has just claimed that the problem with life is time; we don’t have enough time, so life is too fleeting for us to find meaning. But here, Vladimir disagrees: the problem isn’t time, he says—we obviously have plenty of that. The problem is what we do with that time: we fill it with empty habits. These habits are what deaden our lives, or strip it of meaning, probably because habit is action without thought or purpose.
VLADIMIR
Hand in hand from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. We were respectable in those days. Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us up. (Estragon tears at his boot.) What are you doing?
ESTRAGON
Taking off my boot. Did that never happen to you?
VLADIMIR
Boots must be taken off every day, I'm tired telling you that. (1.20-22)
We are introduced to what appears to be a repeating, cyclical routine for these two men. The more we realize the extent of the repetition, the more horrifying their predicament seems.
VLADIMIR
He didn't say for sure he'd come.
ESTRAGON
And if he doesn't come?
VLADIMIR
We'll come back tomorrow.
ESTRAGON
And then the day after tomorrow.
VLADIMIR
Possibly.
ESTRAGON
And so on.
VLADIMIR
The point is—
ESTRAGON
Until he comes.
VLADIMIR
You're merciless.
ESTRAGON
We came here yesterday.
VLADIMIR
Ah no, there you're mistaken. (111-121)
Note that it is Estragon, NOT Vladimir, who recognizes that they’ve been repeating their actions again and again. Why, then, is Vladimir considered the more lucid character? Why is he the only one to remember Lucky and Pozzo later in the play?
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? (1.135-40)
Waiting for Godot reminds us that our labeling of time is ultimately arbitrary. Words like "Saturday" or "Thursday" are made-up anyway, so we have no way of knowing what day it really is.