MovieChat Forums > Waiting for Godot (2001) Discussion > Whats the meaning to everyone ? spolier...

Whats the meaning to everyone ? spoliers

posted 17 years ago by FlorenceLawrence
18 replies | jump to latest

Vladimir (aka Mr Albert or Dede) and Estragon (aka Gobo)

Are told to go to a pretty bleak place and wait each night for Mr Godot
Dede remembers going previous times Gobo doesn't.

They are both caught in this point less time warp, where they cannot attempt to change their lives, to try to improve them, because they feel they have to wait for Godot, who they think may make things better, or may make things worse if he gets angry at them not waiting. So they feel compelled to wait.

Pozzo comes along the road with his slave Lucky, what a name for someone who is treated so badly, is it because even with such cruelty, he has a purpose and that is better than being aimless, having no sense of belonging in the world. Pozzo looses his watch and Lucky his thinking hat before they move on.

Gobo says Dede and he will be better of apart, but the next day they both return to wait for Godot, Pozzo (now blind is this because he does not have his watch ? Lucky now dumb, is this the loss of his hat ?)

The boy the messenger from Godot turns up again, but he does not remember seeing Dede yesterday, we saw him and saw Dede question him about how Godot fed the boy ? and what the boy did for Godot and where he slept and if he was beaten by Godot.

Is there any connection with "The Iceman Cometh"

It seems different from people choosing to have daydreams rather than living a real life, it's more like in this that they have no choice, or more that this is about the whole world.

You can't help think of kids glued to their little personal games consules, or people watching reality tv, myself watching to many films and surfing the net, generally not really living, well not even knowing what really living is even.

anyway would love to here anyone elses opinions.

[–] Lex25288 17 years ago

actually it's Didi and Gogo.

[–] FlorenceLawrence 17 years ago

sorry, how silly of me
http://uklivetheatreand.fotopages.com/

[–] Edward_de_Vere 17 years ago

Godot=God. Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for salvation that never comes, except as rumors told by a small child. They even ask him whether Godot has a long white beard.

[–] FlorenceLawrence 17 years ago

thanks for your thoughts

you can't just wait for salvation, you have to act

just read

A Dream Play

Strindberg

that seems to say there is no hope of Salvation

[–] Edward_de_Vere 17 years ago

I forgot to mention in my last post - when they begin to worry that Godot won't come, they seriously consider hanging themselves. That's another reference to the despair that comes from the absence of God.

By the way (I recognize your name), did you ever get your hands on the Jason Robards version of "Iceman Cometh"?

[–] FlorenceLawrence 17 years ago

I saw the version with Robert Redford, I hired it out from an online DVD rental company, I join up for the winters, as in the summer the day being outside stretches and I rarely have an evening to watch things, so i will look out for some more theatre type films

any recommendations ?

I am also seeing a lot more live theatre, which is fantastic

Where are you from

Amanda

http://uklivetheatreand.fotopages.com/

[–] tiggy1 15 years ago

You can interpret it how you like. Beckett however says:
'I told him [Sir Ralph Richardson] that if by Godot I had meant God I would have said God, and not Godot. This seemed to disappoint him greatly'

[–] hunterSstylee 15 years ago

Beckett said at one point that the play is all about symbiosis. I think Godot is that variable that will unite the mindsets of Didi and Gogo, ultimately making a complete fulfilled whole. That whole, in the utterly universal sense of the word, is what the meaning of existence is. For alot of people, Godot is god. It wasn't the case with Beckett, and yeah not with me either. God implies there is salvation involved. Nothing needs to be saved here, no pilgrimage needed.

The idea of heaven and hell induces passitivity, IMHO.

Didi and Gogo is inside of all of us, a duality of contradiction, Left brain vs. Right, conscious vs unconscious, etc. The ingredients are all internal, ingrained inside of every creature. In eastern philosophy, nothing is sacred, and everyone/thing is divine. I get that sense in this play, a caution against walling yourself under the assumption that you need saving, when all that can "save" you, fulfill you, are inside of you already.

[–] scintilla 15 years ago

The above reply is absolutely fantastic

[–] AnnChovie 15 years ago

In one sentence, it's about the absurdity of all human attempts at meaningful communication.

[–] nave_miller 12 years ago

A BEAUTIFUL way of putting it! If it is about symbiosis, about the creation of meaning or sense through binary opposites (Gogo & Didi are one binary model, contrasted against Lucky & Pozzo ; Act I is opposite to Act II ; the "fictional humanity" on-stage is opposite to the spectators witnessing it, etc.) then ... the ABSENCE of Godot balances out the PRESENCE of reality/gogo&didi/the universe, etc.

But that was back then. Back when we were content with nothingness.

I'd say today, Godot would cease to be an absence. Just look at this thread -- he is FILLED with meaning. He is ALL THE MEANINGS. Today, we have defined Godot.

And to demonstrate the persistence of existential thought (beyond a juvenile and post-modernist urge to rebel), there is a true meaning to Godot and everything else, we are just too dumb to understand what it is.

My opinion? again, today, Godot is EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY COMING AT YOU AT ONCE AT THE SAME TIME. He is today a presence rather than an absence. He is the Internet. He is Inception. He is COMPLEXITY. The indecipherable that is deciphered.

If waiting for godot is absurdity, then by now we've embraced absurdity and normalized it.

-N

[–] theoffender 10 years ago

A couple of years ago I was casted in an amateur production of Beckett's play. I was Estragon. Before we started to learn our lines, the director asked us to have a point of view on what is all about. My take on this play was that Godot was as close to god as Beckett could get.

I know that he said that if he had meant God he would have called him so. But, instead of Godot he could have used any other names: like Modot, f.e. He did not and I can only speculate that he meant to have this ambiguity. Everyone sees Godot in his/her own way.

Everyone in the cast had a different take on the meaning of Godot and what I suspect is that all our accomplishments, feelings, worries, moments of joy in life (and so on) that are reflected (like a mirror does) on how we see Godot. I remember that each of us has a different point of view which we argued passionately. But after the first show, none of us were the same individuals as we were at the beginning. We were different in a way I can't pinpoint with certain words but we become more flexible in how we ascertain our own opinions. Our own beliefs.

Beckett left us a masterpiece. I never met somebody in my life who was not waiting for something, be that Christmas, paycheck or girlfriend coming back from shopping. (Don't take this string of waitings as something trivial because it is not my intention.) But in the meantime, while waiting, what do we do? We live our journey through life. It is not about Waiting for Godot but what we do while waiting...

[–] Haas-c 14 years ago

Godot is not God.
Beckett said if he had wanted to say God, he would have said it.

[–] pgar 14 years ago

True, Beckett did say that Godot wasn't God but it's not certain what he meant by that. The parallels between Godot and God clearly defy coincidence. More likely than not, Godot is a derivation of some other conception of God. To me, Godot is a misrepresentation of God. If God is an entity whose nature exceeds comprehension, perhaps Godot is the white-bearded fantasy mankind has replaced him with.

Here's another point I've been considering. In Act II, it's never clear as to whether Pozzo is actually blind. We can however, be certain that Pozzo is lying when he tells Didi that Lucky is dumb. How do we know this? What does it mean?

www.ShameOnYoutube.com

[–] adamwarlock 9 years ago

The play was originally in French so Godot doesn't sound or look like "God" (Dieu). Beckett supposedly lamented that in English the 2 are similar and the assumption was made that Godot=God. I think he does kind of mean God or some way of living but was mad that Godot in English was too obvious.

Expansion to your ego.

[–] adamwarlock 9 years ago

In life, you wait for God or whatever you think is going to make you happy. And it never comes, at least to one's 100% satisfaction. You wonder or worry that you took the wrong path or waited in the wrong place. You meet people along the way who agree with you & others that don't. Some better off than you, some worse off. You get a message or clue that you search will soon end but there again the next day is the same waiting. Yet, the human spirit will continue to wait or search as hope never dies. Or dies very slowly.

Expansion to your ego.

[–] galileogriffin 7 years ago

I think the meaning varies depending on who you are and where you're at when you're watching or reading it, to be honest, and some lines mean more to people than others. I think that's what I like about Beckett. no bull. you take it or leave it. He's not fancy. He lays it out like it is. I have to say I think I understand his world view a lot more after reading his trilagy of Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable.

I remember sitting in drama class and reading the part of Estragon, coming to the part where he tells Vladimir 'I've puked my puke of a life away here, I tell you! Here! In the Cackon country!'
and suddenly I realised how utterly pointless everything I was doing was. How pointless it was for us 10 students in a registered *beep* of a school to take drama and dream that we could get out and do something memorable with our lives. None of us ever did, so far as I know, and I think I was maybe one of 2 in that class who even went to uni. The cackon country was a mindset to mee that pretty much everyone I grew up with was stuck in.

I even remember throwing down my script in disgust and sharing that thought.

[–] poetcomic1 7 years ago

I have a rare French 20's Modernist print by an artist who was quite familiar to Beckett and prominently in one print there is a mortuary called 'Godot et Fils'. If they are 'waiting for death' it explains a lot of the things.