Paper 9: The Modernist Literature
Name:
Sagar B Vaghela
Semester:
3
Roll
No: 32
Enrollment
No: 2069108420180052
Paper
9: The Modernist Literature
Topic:
Character study of Vladimir and Estragon.
Batch:
2017-19
Submitted
To: S.B.Gardi Department of English MKBU
Introduction
Waiting
for Godot written by Samuel Becket. Samuel Beckett born in 13 april 1906. He
was an Irish novelist, playwright and literary translator. He was lived in
Paris.
Characters:
There
are many characters in this play like
Vladimir
Estragon
Pozzo
Lucky
A
Boy
Godot
Vladimir
and Estragon protogonist of the play waiting for Godot.
Waiting
for Godod is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), wait for the
arrival of someone named Godot who never arrives, and while waiting they engage
in a variety of discussions and encounter three other characters.Waiting for
Godot is Beckett's translation of his
own original French play, En attendant Godot, and is subtitled (in English
only) "a tragicomedy in two acts".The original French text was
composed between 9 October 1948 and 29 January 1949.The premiere was on 5
January 1953 in the Théâtre de Babylone (fr), Paris. The English language
version was premiered in London in 1955. In a poll conducted by the British
Royal National Theatre in 1990 it was voted the "most significant English
language play of the 20th century".
Character
analysis of Lucky and pozzo :
Estragon
and Vladimir are the two protagonists of this play. They live out their life waiting for man
named Godot, believing that Godot will come to them. A boy comes at the end of each day and announces
that Godot is not coming, but will come soon.
They continue to wait. The two
both have names of seven letters, and both have two syllable repeating
nicknames - Beckett is calling attention to their connection.
The
way their clothing is described suggests that these two characters, who are
only shown on a roadside waiting, may have been gentlemen of financial means at
some point. They have on jackets and
boots of a respectable nature. They are
now homeless, though, as evident in their torn and dirty description.
Vladimir
has the better memory of the two, and seems more intelligent. He tries to encourage Estragon to be
optimistic, and helps him to pass the time.
He is philosophical, and more likely to consider their purpose in being
where they are. Estragon is more
child-like. He is emotional, and allows
himself to be led by Vladimir. He spends
quite a bit of time concerned with his feet and his boots, while Vladimir
spends a lot of time concerned with his hat.
Beckett suggests that these two characters represent the two sides of a
human being - Vladimir is the mind (intellect), and Estragon is the body.
Estragon
is one of the two protagonists. He is a bum and sleeps in a ditch where he is
beaten each night. He has no memory beyond what is immediately said to him, and
relies on Vladimir to remember for him. Estragon is impatient and constantly
wants to leave Vladimir, but is restrained from leaving by the fact that he
needs Vladimir. It is Estragon's idea for the bums to pass their time by
hanging themselves. Estragon has been compared to a body without an intellect,
which therefore needs Vladimir to provide the intellect.
Vladimir
is one of the two protagonists. He is a bum like Estragon, but retains a memory
of most events. However, he is often unsure whether his memory is playing
tricks on him. Vladimir is friends with Estragon because Estragon provides him
with the chance to remember past events. Vladimir is the one who makes Estragon
wait with him for Mr. Godot's imminent arrival throughout the play. Vladimir
has been compared to the intellect which provides for the body, represented by
Estragon.
When
Beckett started writing he did not have a visual image of Vladimir and
Estragon. They are never referred to as tramps in the text, though are often
performed in such costumes on stage. Roger Blin
advises: "Beckett heard their voices, but he couldn't describe his
characters to me. The only thing I'm sure of is that they're wearing
bowlers.' "The bowler hat was of course de rigueur for male persons in
many social contexts when Beckett was growing up in Fox rock, and [his father]
commonly wore one. “That said, the play does indicate that the clothes worn at
least by Estragon are shabby. When told by Vladimir that he should have been a
poet, Estragon says he was, gestures to his rags, and asks if it were not
obvious.
There
are no physical descriptions of either of the two characters; however, the text
indicates that Vladimir is possibly the heavier of the pair. The bowlers and
other broadly comic aspects of their personas have reminded modern audiences of
Laurel and Hardy, who occasionally played tramps in their films. "The
hat-passing game in Waiting For Godot
and Lucky's inability to think without his hat on are two obvious
Beckett derivations from Laurel and Hardy – a substitution of form for essence,
covering for reality", wrote Gerald Mast in The Comic Mind: Comedy and the
Movies. Their "blather", which indicated Hiberno-English idioms,
indicated that they are both Irish.
Vladimir
stands through most of the play whereas Estragon sits down numerous times and
even dozes off. "Estragon is inert and Vladimir restless."Vladimir
looks at the sky and muses on religious or philosophical matters. Estragon
"belongs to the stone",preoccupied with mundane things, what he can
get to eat and how to ease his physical aches and pains; he is direct,
intuitive. He finds it hard to remember but can recall certain things when
prompted, e.g., when Vladimir asks: "Do you remember the Gospels?"
Estragon tells Vladimir about the coloured maps of the Holy Land and that he
planned to honeymoon by the Dead Sea; it is his short-term memory that is
poorest and points to the fact that he may, in fact, be suffering from
Alzheimer's disease.Al Alvarez writes: "But perhaps Estragon's
forgetfulness is the cement binding their relationship together. He continually
forgets, Vladimir continually reminds him; between them they pass the
time." They have been together for fifty years but when asked–by
Pozzo–they do not reveal their actual ages. Vladimir's life is not without its
discomforts too but he is the more resilient of the pair. "Vladimir's pain
is primarily mental anguish, which would thus account for his voluntary
exchange of his hat for Lucky's, thus signifying Vladimir's symbolic desire for
another person's thoughts."These characterizations, for some, represented
the act of thinking or mental state (Vladimir) and physical things or the body
(Estragon). This is visually depicted in Vladimir's continuous attention to his
hat and Estragon, his boots. While the two characters are temperamentally
opposite, with their differing responses to a situation, they are both
essential as demonstrated in the way Vladimir's metaphysical musings were
balanced by Estragon's physical demands.
Throughout
the play the couple refer to each other by the pet names "Didi" and
"Gogo", although the boy addresses Vladimir as "Mister
Albert". Beckett originally intended to call Estragon "Lévy" but
when Pozzo questions him he gives his name as "Magrégor, André" and
also responds to "Catulle" in French or "Catullus" in the
first Faber edition. This became "Adam" in the American edition.
Beckett's only explanation was that he was "fed up with Catullus".
Vivian
Mercier described Waiting for Godot as a play which "has achieved a
theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps
audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly
different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens,
twice." Mercier once questioned Beckett on the language used by the pair:
"It seemed to me...he made Didi and Gogo sound as if they had earned PhDs.
'How do you know they hadn't?' was his reply." They clearly have known
better times, a visit to the Eiffel Tower and grape-harvesting by the Rhône; it
is about all either has to say about their pasts, save for Estragon's claim to
have been a poet, an explanation Estragon provides to Vladimir for his
destitution. In the first stage production, which Beckett oversaw, both are
"more shabby-genteel than ragged...Vladimir at least is capable of being
scandalised...on a matter of etiquette when Estragon begs for chicken bones or
money."
Conclusion
:
Thus
we can say that Vladimir and Estragon both are important characters of the
play. His bond of brotherness famous in this play . Both are centre characters
of the play . Vladimir and Estragon Both are main and important characters of
the play. There are many characters in this play like pozzo luckey A boy Godot
. Both are shows their calmness in this play . and they never gave up. Waiting
for godot is absurd play we can show absurdity in this play and also we can see
nothingness in this play. Thus Vladimir and Estragon both are important
characters in the play waiting for godot.
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