This document provides a summary of two plays: Wole Soyinka's "The Swamp Dwellers" and Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". Both plays deal with themes of waiting and absence. In "The Swamp Dwellers", characters Alu and Makuri wait endlessly for Awuchike to stop the rain so they can resume their normal lives. In "Waiting for Godot", Vladimir and Estragon wait without hope for the arrival of the absent Godot. Both plays illustrate a sense of hopelessness and absence of meaning in human existence.

1. Name: Brijal Oza
Roll no.: 21
Sem: 4
Paper: 14, The African Literature
Topic: Comparison between Swamp
Dwellers and Waiting for Godot
Email Id: brijaloza1994@gmail.com
Submitted to: Dept. of English
M.K. Bhav. Uni.

2. About the Plays
• Written by Wole Soyinka.
• The play reflects the life
of the people of southern
Nigeria.
• Conflict to ways of living
life: Traditional & Modern.
• The play mirrors the
socio-cultural pattern.
• The struggle between
human beings and
unfavorable forces of
nature is also captured in
the play.
• Written by Samuel
Beckett.
• The play is all about hope.
• Meaninglessness and
nothingness are major
characteristics of this play.
• The play shows human
condition and absurdity in
“life-like” life.

3. Setting of the Plays
• The play open and end in hut.
• “The Swamp Dwellers” as an
“Theatre of Absurd”.
• Unity of Time and Action is also
Followed.
• The Play Open and End in evening
time, country road, a tree.
• “Waiting For Godot” as an
“Theatre of Absurd”.
• Unity of Time, Place action is not
followed.

4. Similarities & Differences in the Plays
• Characters are waiting for
Awuchike.
• Awuchike is not physically
present in the play.
• Character of ‘Beggar’ as
messenger.
• Igwezu as thinker
• Characters are waiting
for Godot.
• Godot is not physically
present in the play.
• Character of ‘Boy’ as
messenger.
• Vladimir as thinker.

5. Concept of Waiting
Waiting For Godot
• Vladimir and Estragon
Waiting for Godot.
• Never Come on the stage.
• Vladimir continuously waits
for the nights and thinks
that night will bring change.
Swamp Dwellers
• Alu and Makuri Waiting for
Awuchike
• Never Appear on the stage.
• Alu, Makuri and other
characters are waiting for
rain to stop and they can
have their routine life back.

6. Absence of God
• “Nothing happens, nobody
comes, nobody goes, it’s awful”
Waiting for
Godot
• “Man is alone in this Godless
universe.”
Swamp
Dwellers

7. Hopelessness in Waiting for Godot
• The play revolves around Vladimir and Estragon
and their pitiful wait for hope to arrive.
• They are waiting without hope for a
deliverance from a being in whom they do not
really believe.
• In Waiting for Godot is an invective against
Christian hope since the modern man,
like Didi and Gogo wait endlessly for Godot who
does not come.

8. Hopelessness in Swamp Dwellers
• The play end in sadness as the lure of the city and
the betrayal of traditional virtues rob the aged
Alu and Makuri of their two sons.
• There is not physical death of any character but
there are several death metaphorical deaths.
• The Swamp Dwellers articulates a sense of the
disorder of human life.