Quote 81
VLADIMIR
You're not unhappy? (The Boy hesitates.) Do you hear me?
BOY
Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR
Well?
BOY
I don't know, Sir.
VLADIMIR
You don't know if you're unhappy or not?
BOY
No Sir. (1.803-8)
Much of the suffering in Waiting for Godot is the result of uncertainty.
Quote 82
VLADIMIR
You must be happy too, deep down, if you only knew it. (2.38)
This reinforces the problem with doubt; the men can’t be happy until they are sure they are happy. Since, as Estragon so eloquently says, "nothing is certain," it follows that the men can never be happy.
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? (2.42-9)
Vladimir and Estragon try to fake happiness, only to find that the label "happy" is as meaningless as, well, just about everything else in the play.
Quote 84
VLADIMIR
A dog came in—
Having begun too high he stops, clears his throat, resumes:
A dog came in the kitchen
And stole a crust of bread.
Then cook up with a ladle
And beat him till he was dead.
Then all the dogs came running
And dug the dog a tomb— (2.1)
Vladimir’s song is interesting for two reasons: it illustrates the endless repetition of cyclical routine, but it’s also about death. Of course, death should be the one end to the banality of Vladimir and Estragon’s existence, but is not in this backwards world. The dog dies, yet the song goes on and on.
Quote 85
VLADIMIR
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)
This is Vladimir’s response to Pozzo’s statement that life is fleeting and therefore without any meaning—notice how Beckett ties the two arguments together with a repetition of the oh-so-memorable "astride a grave" image. But while Pozzo focuses on the inevitability of death, Vladimir focuses on the banality of life. Life isn’t meaningless because we die, life is meaningless because we "deaden" it with purposeless habit.
VLADIMIR
(Estragon loosens the cord that holds up his trousers which, much too big for him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord.) It might do in a pinch. But is it strong enough?
ESTRAGON
We'll soon see. Here.
They each take an end of the cord and pull.
It breaks. They almost fall.
VLADIMIR
Not worth a curse.
Silence. (2.865-72)
Beckett ends Waiting for Godot with the ultimate marriage of tragedy and comedy—Estragon with his pants around his knees trying to commit suicide and failing.