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Waiting for Godot: Philosophical Contexts
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Title: Waiting for Godot: Philosophical Contexts
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Waiting for Godot Philosophical Contexts
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- When considered in terms of twentieth-century
secular philosophy, Waiting for Godot seems
particularly congruent with the tenets of
existentialism, which gained popularity (and
notoriety) in the decades following World War II. - Although origins can be traced back at least to
the mid-nineteenth century in the writings of
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the fiction
for Fyodor Doestoyevsky, its foremost twentieth
century proponent was Jean Paul Sartre, whose
major work Being and Nothingness was published in
1943 in France and translated into English in
1956.
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- Controversial because it was perceived as
undermining the basis of Western philosophy since
Plato and subverting virtually all traditional
religions, existentialism asserted that human
existence precedes any form of essence. - There is, therefore, no preexistent spiritual
realm, no soul, no god (Christian or otherwise),
no cosmic compassion for or interest in human
life, no afterlife, no eternal life, no heaven,
no hell, no everlasting rewards or punishment for
earthly deeds, no transcendence of worldly
existence, no cosmic metanarrative, no angels and
devils vying for human allegiance, no divine
will, no salvation, no redemption (and no agency
to perform it), no preset destiny, no inevitable
fate, no revealed truth,
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- And no immutable commandments or other permanent
but externally imposed rules. All of that is
simply human invention or, as Nietzsche termed
it, superstition, a culturally determined and
socially enforced fiction that, in its
effectiveness, fundamentally constricts human
freedom and allows human beings to evade their
own responsibility for the conditions of
existence throughout the world. - The best concise introductory explanation of
Sartres doctrine is his essay now titled The
Humanism of Existentialism. Although he briefly
acknowledges the existence of Christian
existentialism, he insists that the first
principle of (his own atheistic) existentialism
is that there is no human nature since there is
no God to
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- Conceive it. Not only is man what he conceives
himself to be, butman is nothing else but what
he makes of himself. Because each individual
must bear full responsibility for whatever he or
she becomes and whoever he or she is (since it is
not predetermined, shaped by Gods will, or
otherwise from outside oneself, a constant state
of anxiety is a defining human characteristic
the first of three that Sartre identifies. Many
people, however, seek desperately to avoid taking
such responsibility for themselves, palliating
(however dishonestly) their anxiety and trying to
place responsibility on anyone or anything but
themselves- an institution, a religion, even a
Godot.
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- Yet such an evasion is itself an act of
self-definition,a free choice for which they
remain responsible, even if they consider it an
obligation by which they are bound or a worldview
not of their own design (or indeed, of their own
liking.) The second of Sartres defining
characteristics is forlornness, a term that he
traces particularly to the philosopher Martin
Heidegger, by which he means only that God does
not exist and we have to face the consequences of
this. - Among the foremost of these is that there are no
transcendent or a priori standards of goodness,
virtue, or justice, just as there is no God to
conceive or sanction them, as a result, man is
forlorn, for neither within him now without does
he find anything to cling to.
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- Neither is there any core human nature or other
form of determinism, instead man is free, man is
freedom. In an empty universe that is devoid of
meaning, purpose, design or care the
existential void represented by the coldness of
interstellar space, the featureless Beckettian
landscape, or simply darkness in Becketts later
stage works- human beings are, Sartre contends,
alone, with no excuses and condemned to be
free. - This situation leads to the third of his defining
characteristics, despair, which is widely if
wrongly alleged by Becketts detractors against
his works as well. For Sartre, the term means
that we shall confine ourselves to reckoning with
what depends on our will, or on the ensemble of
probabilities which make our action
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- Possible. For Becketts characters in Waiting
for Godot, however, it is precisely the
probabilities that are uncertain, the decisive
action that is impossible (other than waiting,
which is, of course, itself an action, and the
will (including but not limited to their
consideration of suicide) that remains paralyzed.
To Sartre, however, existentialism can not be
taken for a philosophy of quietism, since it
defines man in terms of action, not for a
pessimistic determination of man, for mans
destiny is within himself. - An equally important Sartrean concept was set
forth in Part One of Sartres major work Being
and Nothingness. As Vladimir and Estragon base
their lives on the arrival (and indeed the
existence) of Godot, the exemplify what
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- Sartre defines as bad faith, it prevents them
from being sincere in Sartres sense, in that
they cannot be what they are because they are
preoccupied with the transcendent Other (Godot)
that remains an absence rather than a presence in
their lives. Action, by which existential man
defines himself, is therefore precluded or
perhaps endlessly deferred, any suggestion that
they might actually do something (even depart or
commit suicide) is countered by yet another
reiteration of the core fact of their existence,
that they must continue to await Godot. - If this motive is considered to be like one of
the drives that Sartre describges, this
enterprise of waiting is itself realized only
with their consent Furthermore, it must be
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- Realized that such drives are not forces of
nature or innate within mankind, instead, the
tramps lend the drives the efficacy by making a
perpetually renewed decision concerning their
value Such is, in effect, the plot of Waiting
for Godot. Moreover, Sartre asserts that
assuredly a man in bad faith who borders on the
comic is one who acknowledges all the facts
which are imputed to him (but still) he refuses
to draw from them the conclusion which they
imposethe crushing view that his mistakes
constitute for him a destiny. - The facts, in Becketts play, are to be found in
Vladimirs admissions of multiple uncertainties-
that they are in the right place, that it is the
right day and time, even that they would
recognize Godot if he came. Their crushing
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- Conclusion is that their purpose is futile, that
Godot will never come, or that their lives have
been in vain. Against such despair, they
continue, unreasonably and implicitly, to hope,
to wait, and idly pass the time- actions that do
indeed border on the comic in a play that its
author labeled a tragicomedy. - Ultimately, however, as Sartre argues, the true
problem of bad faith stems evidently from the
fact that bad faith is faith. (Sartres
emphasis). In other words, it bases ones
existence on a sustained belief in and sustaining
reliance on someone or something external to the
self. To a Sartrean existentialist, such a being
that transcends and transforms lives is by
definition nonexistent- and thus not
fundamentally unlike Santa Claus, the Easter
bunny, wish-granting genies, leprechauns,
fairies, and all other
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- Such fictions, however pleasant, popular,
entertaining, or consoling belief in them might
be among the credulous. Accordingly, those who
consider Waiting for Godot an existential play
tend to assume (with often aggressive and
sometimes condescending certainty) that Godot
does not actually exist that he will never come
for the simple reason that he can never come,
that there is no he to come, even if Vladimir
and Estragon were to wait for all eternity. In
this view, the plays many Christian allusions
are little more than shards of a culture,
signifiers of little or nothing, distractions or
delusions that merely help to pass the time. - Notwithstanding the striking congruencies between
Sartres philosophy and Becketts play, to read
Waiting
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- For Godot as nothing more than a dramatic
illustration of a Sartrean thesis is no less
reductive and simplistic than to regard it as a
modern-day version of Christian allegory the
committed atheist and the religious zealot have
in common an unyielding ontological certainty,
despite their irreconciliably opposite beliefs.
Theirs is, however, a conviction that neither
Beckett himself nor any of his characters seem to
share. When, in 1937, Samuel Beckett was asked in
a courtroom whether he was a Christian, a Jew, or
an atheist, he replied None of the three, each
presumably, was too certain about
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- Everything for Beckett to affirm anything that
they believed. Becketts characters, non-knowers
and non-caners as he himself described them,
would be totally daunted by the prospect of
having to be constantly commited (engage, in
existential terms, continually self-defining, and
wholly responsible for both themselves and the
state of the world, as Sartres ideology contends
that they must be. Their concerns are far more
mundane hurting feet, lapsing memories, the
scarcity of carrots, the protocols of hanging,
their appointment with the unknown Godot.
Although existential issues are
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- Unmistakeably present throughout Waiting for
Godot, they are no less the subject of skepticism
and humor than the precepts of Christianity.
