Analysis: Tragicomedy In Waiting For Godot

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“Vladimir: But yesterday evening it was all black and bare. And now it’s covered with leaves. Estragon: Leaves? Vladimir: In a single night.” (Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 Acts.) Beckett has removed the characters ability to recognize time passing, meaning that without this recognition each day is the same, the beginning of a new one being unrecognizable. They also lack signifigant memories, and as the second act starts for some characters the previous events are a dream or something that never happened at all. We see this in Estragon, who has very little memory of the day before, except the injury given to him by Lucky. Other characters which experience the tribulations of memory loss are the messenger boy, and Pozzo. The boy, who does not remember delivering the message from the first act, saying that Godot could not come but that he would definitely be there the next day, delivers the exact same message again. This enforces the idea that they are stuck in a static situation until Godot appears and saves them from it. Another character which is suffering from the time being indiscernible is Pozzo who is quite literally blind to the changing of time. “Pozzo: (violently) Don’t question me! The blind have no notion of time. The things of time are hidden from them too. Vladmir: Well just fancy that! I could have sworn it was just the opposite.” (Beckett, Samuel. Waiting …show more content…

As Pozzo says, Godot holds their immediate futures in his hands “what happens in that case to your appointment with this . . . Godet . . . Godot . . . Godin . . . anyhow you see who I mean, who has your future in his hands . . . (pause) . . . at least your immediate future?” (Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 Acts. ACT 1

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