Importance Of Existentialism In Waiting For Godot

SAMUEL BECKET’s play Waiting for Godot can be gathered in the category of EXISTENTIAL DRAMA. All the four characters Estragon , VLADIMIR, Lucky, Pozzo in an absurd way discuss the problems of existence. As is shown they are waiting for an unknown person ‘Godot’ at an unknown place. They suffer from meaninglessness, isolation, and frustration. As it happens no Godot comes but ironically a messenger comes who informs that Godot will not come .These characters are fed up of waiting. The word ‘waiting’ is universalized in the play which is an essential feature of any existential drama.Their antics and useless activities lead them nowhere. This is exactly modern man’s predicament that is successfully dramatized by the dramatist. The importance of the play as an existential drama lies in the multiplicity of meanings which critics have discovered in it.

Discussion

THE context of existentialism, we must go back to Plato. We feel Plato started the pace for ‘existence’. He said in day to day existence what we come across is not the objects we encounter, but FORMS and these forms can be understood at the level of intellect. For example, we see a beautiful chair and a beautiful ox. These are two different things yet common. The common element in these two is beauty. We cannot see beauty alone, we must have an object only then we can see beauty. Such is existence, it has no meaning or we cannot see meaning alone we need objects and the relation only then we can find meaning. So meaning