This document is a paper analyzing Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" in the context of 20th century philosophy, particularly existentialism. It discusses how the play's themes of uncertainty and lack of meaning align with existentialist ideas, but notes that Beckett resisted labeling his own views or characters with any strict philosophy. The paper concludes that while existential issues are present, Beckett treated them with skepticism and humor rather than certainty.

1.  Name :- Aditi Vala
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 MA Sem :- 02
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 Batch :- 2020-2022
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 Roll no. :- 01
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 Enrollment No. :- 3069206420200018
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 Paper No. :- 107 ( The Twentieth Century Literature: From World War II to the End of the Century)
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 Topic :- Waiting for Godot : Philosophical Contexts
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 Email id :- valaaditi203@gmail.com
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 Submitted to :- S.B.Gardi Department Of English,MKBU

2. Waiting for Godot :
Philosophical Contexts

3. Waiting for Godot By Samuel Beckett
 “ Waiting for Godot “ is one of the masterpiece of Absurdist
literature.
 It attacks the two main ingredients of the traditional views of
time , i.e. Habit and Memory.
 “ Waiting for Godot” can also be regarded as an absurd play
because it is different from ‘ poetic theatre .’
 “ Waiting for Godot” is an absurd play for there is no female
character. Characters are there but they are the devoid of
identity.
 The ending of the play is not a conclusion in the usual
sence.

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5.  When considered in terms of 20th century secular philosophy, Waiting
for Godot seems particularly congruent with the tenets of existentialism,
which gained popularity ( and notoriety ) in the decades following
World War ll .
 Although origins can be traced back at least to the mid- nineteenth
century in the writings of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the fiction
for Fyodor Dostoyevsky, its foremost 20th century proponent was Jean
Paul Sartre, whose major work Being and Nothingness was published in
1943 in France and translated into English in 1956.
 Controversial because it was perceived as undermining the basis of
Western philosophy since Plato and subverting virtually all traditional
religions, existentialism asserted that human existence precedes any
form of “ essence” .

6.  There is , therefore , no preexistent spiritual realm , no soul , no god ,no
cosmic compassion for or interest in human life , no afterlife, no eternal life ,
no heaven , no hell , no everlasting rewards or punishment for earthly
deeds, no transcendence of worldly existence , no cosmic metanarrative , no
angles and devil’s vying for human allegiance , no divine will , no salvation ,
no redemption ,no present destiny , no inevitable fate,no revealed truth.
 All of that is simply , human invention or , as Nietzsche termed it , ‘
superstition’,a culturally determined and socially enforced fiction that , in its
effectiveness, fundamentally constricts human freedom and allow human
beings to evade their own responsibility for the conditions of existence
throughout the world.

7.  For Beckett’s characters in Waiting for Godot , however, it is
precisely the probabilities that are uncertain , the decisive action
that is impossible (other than waiting , which is, of course , itself
an action , and the “ will” that remains paralyzed .
 To Satire , however , existentialism “can not be taken for a
philosophy of quietism , since it defines man in terms of action ,
not for a pessimistic determination of man , for… man’s destiny
is within himself .”
 The facts , in Beckett’s Play , are to be found in Vladimir’s
admissions of multiple uncertainties – that they are in the right
place , that it is the right day and time , even that they would
recognise Godot if he came .
The best concise introductory
explanation of Sartre’s
doctrine is his essay now titled
“ The Humanism of
Existentialism ”.

8.  Conclusion is that their purpose is futile , that Godot will never come ,or that their continue ,
unreasonably and implicitly , to hope , to wait , and idly pass the time – actions that do indeed “
border on the comic ” in a play that its author labeled a tragicomedy.
 Ultimately , however , as Sastre argues,” the true problem of bad faith stems evidently from the fact
that bad faith is faith .”
 Accordingly , those who consider Waiting for Godot an existential play tend to assume ( with often
aggressive and sometimes condescending certainly ) that Godot does not abctually exist –that he
will never come for the simple reason that he can never come,that there is no “he “ to come , even if
Vladimir and Estragon were to wait for all eternity .
 In this view , the play’s many Christian allusions are little more than shards of a culture, signifiers of
little or nothing , distractions or delusions that merely help to pass the time.

9.  Notwithstanding the striking congruencies between Sastre’s philosophy and Beckett’s Play , to
read Waiting For Godot as nothing more than a dramatic illustration of a Sastrean thesis is no
less reductive and simplistic allegory ; the committed atheist and the religious zealot have in
common an unyielding ontological certainty , despite their irreconcilably opposite beliefs.
 Theirs is , however ,a conviction that neither Beckett himself nor any of his characters seem to
share .
 When , in 1937, Samuel Beckett was asked in a courtroom whether he was a Christian, a Jew , or
an atheist , he replied “ None of the three ” , each presumably, was too certain about everything
for Beckett to affirm anything that they believed.

10.  Beckett’s characters , “ non- knowers and non –caners” as he himself described them , would be
totally daunted by the prospect of having to be constantly commited ( engage , in existential
terms, continually self – defining , and wholly responsible for both themselves and the state of
world, as Sartre’s ideology contends that they must be.
 Their concerns are for more mundane: hurting feet , lapsing memories, the scarcity of carrots, the
protocols of hanging , their appointment with the unknown Godot.
 Although existential issues are Unmistakably present throughout Waiting for Godot , they are no
less the subject of skepticism and humor than the precepts of Christianity.

11. -: Reference:-
 Beckett, S. (1956). Waiting for Godot. London: Faber and Faber Limited.
 Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in 2 Acts. New York: Grove,
1954. Print.
 Piepenburg, Erik (30 April 2009). “Anthony Page of Waiting for Godot Teaches Us
How to Pronounce Its Title”. The New York Times
 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1460533