• the traditional idea of time having a meaning for man • Man needs to feel a connection between today and yesterday. Pozzo is the symbol of chronological, linear time in the play until he loses his watch. Then everything merges into non-differentiated, present time. One day is the same as another. Everyone is caught in a cyclical prison of life and death and birth.
• Hope • Vladimir and Estragon are lowly bums. Their only material possessions—besides their tattered clothes— are a turnip and a carrot. Nevertheless, they have not given up on life; they do not descend into depression, pessimism, and cynicism. Even though they frequently exchange insults, they enjoy each other’s company and help each other. Above all, though, they wait. They wait for Godot. They do not know who he is or where he comes from. But they wait just the same, apparently because he represents hope.
• The themes are concerned with the general condition of the universe
• Focus is on the uncertain quality of existence. The universe may be ordered by a God with pity for his creations (the traditional God with a "white beard" or the universe may be controlled by chance or a cruel fate.
Themes in
• Waiting for Godot is a two-act stage drama classified as a tragicomedy. In 1965, critic Martin Eslin coined the term theater of the absurd to describe Godot and other plays like it. As a result, these plays also became known as absurdist dramas.
• Search for Meaning
• Vladimir and Estragon are homeless rovers attempting to find an answer to a question all human beings face: What is the meaning of life? Godot may have the answer for them. So they wait. After Godot fails to appear on the first day, they return to the tree the next day to continue waiting. He does not come. Vladimir and Estragon decide to leave the area. However, the stage direction at the end of the play says, "They do not move." Apparently, they plan to continue their search for meaning by continuing to wait for Godot.
Our mortality
• A central theme running through the play is the idea that all activities, either pleasurable or agonized, are designed to distract us from the one reality which we know with absolute certainty - our mortality. The existentialists do not accept the idea of an after-life - so this mortality takes on an even greater meaning.
• devaluation of language as a means of communication • Language has become meaningless and false. It serves no purpose. People cannot communicate with words and so they are left isolated and helpless in a chaotic universe.
• Monotony • Life is tedious and repetitive for Vladimir and Estragon. In the first act of the play, they meet at a tree to wait for Godot. In the second act, they meet at the same tree to wait for Godot.
• • • •
the futility of life the lack of purpose in life the uncertainty of life the anxine of the complexities of Literature of the Absurd is that it is often difficult to define a theme, since the very absurdity of the work is focused (usually) on man's inability to make sense of things. However, there are some discernible threads of themes in Waiting for Godot.
• Waiting • Man has lost all sense of value in this irrational, cruel, pointless universe. If there is no Godot, then there is only waiting, which in itself is meaningless. Man seems to be waiting simply for the release from life which death brings.
• The characters are crippled with inaction and anxiety. They wait around for the mysterious Godot, as if then they'll be able to take action. They wait for something external to give them meaning. There is also a religious interpretation to this play in the sense that people rely on (wait for) religious deities and creeds to dictate the next course of action they should take. People also later attribute their past actions to god(s), and rely on god(s) to give their life purpose.
• Dependency
• Vladimir and Estragon depend on each other to survive. Although they exchange insults from time to time, it is clear that they value each other's company. One could imagine Pozzo without Lucky—until the second act, when the audience learns he has gone blind. Unable to find his way, Pozzo is totally dependent on Lucky. Lucky, of course, is tied to Pozzo—by a rope and by fear of being abandoned.
• The play is concerned with the theme of deconstruction - the deconstruction of realism, of theatrical conventions, of expectations, of time, of reason, of values. The deconstruction of the absolutes is also important, especially the illusion of absolute truth. The 'truth' is seen as the lack of logic, order and certainty. Waiting for Godot presents us with a universe which is illogical, chaotic, uncertain, cruel, and arbitrary. Man is shown to construct whatever fiction he needs to survive.