262
See also: Metamorphosis 210 –11 ■ The Trial 242 ■ Nausea 244 ■
The Outsider 245T
he theater of the absurd, in
which the acclaimed Irish
writer Samuel Beckett
(1906–1989) played a major role,
subverted the norms of art and
life by entertaining the idea that
any meaning in the universe
would always elude our attempts
to discover it. “He leaves no stone
unturned,” said English playwright
Harold Pinter admiringly of Beckett,
“and no maggot lonely.” In both his
plays and his fiction, Beckett gave
voice to the inarticulate—damaged
souls, without hope and with only
pathetic consolations, facing the
brute truths of existence.Words in orbit
The play Waiting for Godot
(originally written in French, like
much of Beckett’s work) features
two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon.
Their dialogue is a tragicomic
dance of ideas, and the action
defies common sense. Another
character, Lucky, led on a rope by
his master, Pozzo, says nothing
initially but later spews out a
surreal 700-word unpunctuatedmonologue with phrases that have
no meaning. The speech stops only
when Vladimir pulls off Lucky’s
hat, causing him to break off mid-
sentence—an example of Beckett’s
debt to vaudeville comedy and,
more specifically, to comedians
Laurel and Hardy. The tramps are
waiting for Godot, but this character
never turns up, and has been seen
as a stand-in for God, often referred
to but also absent—an analysis
that irritated Beckett, although
he conceded its plausibility. ■HE LEAVES NO STONE
UNTURNED, AND NO
MAGGOT LONELY
WAITING FOR GODOT (1953), SAMUEL BECKETT
IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
The absurdBEFORE
1942 The narrator of Albert
Camus’ novel The Outsider
expresses a typical absurdist
belief: “I laid my heart open
to the gentle indifference of
t he u n iverse.”AFTER
1959 Les Nègres, a play by
French writer Jean Genet,
shocks audiences by using
black actors in whiteface.1959 In Rhinocéros by
Romanian playwright Eugène
Ionesco, characters turn into
rhinoceroses and wreak havoc,
indicating the absurdity of a
world where ordinary people
change into fascist monsters.
1960 English writer Harold
Pinter’s play The Caretaker
owes a great debt to Beckett in
its lack of plot and its oblique
dialogue, full of tangents and
offbeat implications.Joyce was a synthesizer, trying
to bring in as much as he
could. I am an analyzer, trying
to leave out as much as I can.
Samuel BeckettUS_262-263_Godot_Pavilion.indd 262 03/11/2015 16:54