Waiting for Godot di Beckett: analisi del testo

Analisi in inglese di Waiting for Godot di Samuel Beckett: linguaggio, messaggio, caratteristiche, teatro dell'assurdo, filosofia e personaggi dell'opera (4 pagine formato pdf)

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WAITING FOR GODOT ANALYSIS

Samuel Beckett, “Waiting for Godot”.

Waiting for Godot is one of the most influential theatrical works of the post –war period. Vladimir and Estragon, two old men, possibly tramps, are caught in each of the two acts in an apparently endless waiting for a mysterious figure called Godot. While they wait, they
engage in a series of verbal games to give themselves “the impression they exist”. They have three visitors: Pozzo, who comes on the stage driving the deeply depressed Lucky by means of a rope (=corda) and a whip (=frusta), and later a boy, with a message from Godot:”he won’t come this evening”.
Godot,however, never comes and at the end of the play Vladimir and Estragon are left waiting.
Their waiting, in ignorance, fear, despair and occasionally hope, is Beckett’s image of the human condition. In the relationship between Pozzo and Lucky it could be seen a class relationship, of the slave-master type.

Waiting for Godot: analisi

WAITING FOR GODOT SIGNIFICATO

The language. The language is full of repetitions, it is composed of ready-made phrases. Lots of silences and pauses are interspersed with the characters’ utterances. Each has experienced a universe through his five senses and is not interested in communicating it to the other. Several words are repeated throughout the play. They all stand for the inconsequential spontaneity of everyday speech. The usual cues(=battute), repeated several times, create
expectation, but they also underline the idea of repetitiveness linked to human experience. The stage directions mostly refer to the actors’ movements and to the absence of real communication. They sometimes contradict the words spoken by characters. “Silences” and “pauses” are repeated several times; they isolate words and remind us how communication is meaningless and impossible in such a world.

WAITING FOR GODOT CHARACTERS

The drama in Waiting for Godot consists of conversation: the dialogue never leads to action and is interrupted by small scenes which resemble music-hall routines. But the talk seems like a conversational vacuum, a succession of phrases and sentences to pass the time, to mitigate the agony of waiting, which is the essence of the play itself. The two characters wait, and fill the vacuum of waiting-and of life- by means of conversation which is in continual need of finding a reason, a pretext for continuing, and which comes to a halt with the central question: the waiting for Godot.

WAITING FOR GODOT MEANING

The message. Nothing can be done by contemporary man but waiting. Beckett’s aim was to make the audience share the waiting of the two tramps and understand the quality of this waiting. The aspects which may have had an influence on Beckett’s view of human life are:
- The social revolution and changing values of Britain in the 1950s
- The certainties and basic assumptions of the previous age swept away by Two
World Wars
- The decline of religious belief
- The mistrust in rationalism as a means to explain reality
- The disillusionment with socialist ideals, brought about by totalitarianism
- The materialism and consumerism of contemporary society
- A general mood of frustration, alienation and futility