Table Of ContentSamuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot
SAMUEL BECKETT’S
WAITING FOR GODOT
A Reference Guide
William Hutchings
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hutchings, William.
Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot : a reference guide / William Hutchings.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–313–30879–9
Contents: Summary—Texts—Meaning—Intellectual contexts—Dramatic art—
Performance.
1. Beckett, Samuel, 1906– En attendant Godot. I. Title.
PQ2603.E378E648 2005
842.914—dc22 2005001481
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2005 by William Hutchings
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2005001481
ISBN: 0–313–30879–9
First published in 2005
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Guy Davenport
CONTENTS
Introduction ix
Chapter 1: Summary 1
Chapter 2: Texts 13
Chapter 3: Meaning 23
Chapter 4: Intellectual Contexts 47
Chapter 5: Dramatic Art 69
Chapter 6: Performance 81
Bibliographical Essay 111
Index 157
INTRODUCTION
Over a half century ago, theatergoers and readers began waiting for Godot
to come. In theaters throughout the world and in reading venues too
numerous to count, they also began arguing about the play’s meaning, its
strangeness, and the ways in which it confounds conventional expecta-
tions even as it fascinates, perplexes, and provokes. Sometimes the argu-
ments take place in theater lobbies after a performance or on the way home
after the play; sometimes they occur in classrooms, and sometimes they
occur in print. This volume is a chronicle of those arguments and ongoing
discussions—and a guide for the perplexed.
Since the beginnings of Western drama in ancient Greece in the fifth cen-
tury b.c., three plays have generated more diverse interpretations, raised
more profound questions, captivated more audiences’ imaginations, and
provoked more arguments than any others—or even, quite possibly, more
than all others combined. The first, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (also known
as Oedipus Tyrannus or Oedipus the King), was written in the fifth century
b.c. in ancient Athens; the second, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, was first
performed in London circa 1602; the third is Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for
Godot, which had its premiere in a very small theater in Paris in 1953.
Each of these plays has a seemingly endless ability to fascinate—and to
perplex—its audiences, in part because its plot raises questions for which
there can be no easy answers or final resolutions: Did Oedipus have free
will in taking the actions that he did, even when he unknowingly killed
his father? Or was his fate entirely determined or predestined by the gods?
Is Prince Hamlet mad, or is he not? Is the ghost that he sees real, or is it
x INTRODUCTION
not? If real, is it telling the truth, or is it not? And, most strangely of all,
why are these two tramps on this desolate landscape waiting beside a tree
for a Mr. Godot whom they might not recognize and who does not—and
may not ever—arrive? Why isn’t anything much happening here? What’s
it meant to mean?
One reason for the three plays’ continuing appeal is that each challenges
its audiences and its readers to think about profound questions about the
nature of the world in which we live; about the meaning of life itself; and,
especially, about how we know what we think we know about the uni-
verse, about other people, and even about ourselves. Each in its own way
embodies issues that have vexed philosophers and theologians for years.
Oedipus Rex asks us to consider whether gods or humans are fundamen-
tally in control of the world; whether we all have destinies that are inexo-
rable, unavoidable, and preordained; and whether there are circumstances
in which we can—or even should—try to defy the will of the gods and
the edicts that they issue. Hamlet, similarly, questions the kind of universe
we live in—whether there is an afterlife with rewards and punishments,
whether justice can be found in this world or the next (if at all), and whether
we can ever know with certainty the truth of our situations and then act
with moral responsibility when and if we think we do. Waiting for Godot,
in many ways, simply extends those uncertainties: Why are we here? Are
we alone in an uncaring universe, or not? What are we to do while we are
here? How can we know? And, ultimately, what does it matter?
However profound the questions that they raise and however disturbing
the answers that they provoke, these plays are fundamentally not philo-
sophical treatises or sermons. The source of their perennial popular appeal
lies, emphatically, elsewhere: despite quite dissimilar styles, they share a
uniquely theatrical eloquence, a poetry that is embodied in performance,
conveyed not only through language but through action and gesture as
well. Their characters puzzle and even disconcert their audiences, always
eluding even our best efforts to determine exactly who they are, why they
do what they do, and what their experience ultimately means. However
well we think we know the characters, each new production of the play
or each rereading of the text offers new “portals of discovery” about their
motives and actions, often revealing facets of their personality and moti-
vation through details and images that have somehow gone unnoticed or
been underappreciated heretofore. Weighty and somber considerations of
the plays’ themes should not be allowed to overshadow the fact that they
are also, in quite dissimilar ways, forms of entertainment: Oedipus, though
originally presented as part of a religious festival, is basically the inven-
tion of the “whodunit” as a literary form (even though the original audi-
