The Chief Traits of French Drama:
Absurd drama is the drama which treats human life and human situation as absurd, unfit or foolish. The absurd dramatist takes things rationally and not romantically. It is a drama without traditional plot, story, or division into acts and scenes. It has fewest possible characters. In this type of drama, dialogues are very short and crisp. The playwright tries to communicate the meaninglessness of life through dialogues. The Theatre of Absurd prefers existential themes, occasionally it woos nihilism too. The characters are insubstantial. They become significant for the symbols they represent. Things are not explained; they are merely hinted at or suggested.
Waiting for Godot having the Qualities of Modern French Drama:
The brutality of French drama in the post war years derives in part from the physical explicitness with which the symbol of the antihuman has been portrayed. Samuel Beckett is one of those who have fascinated by the precarious world of the contemporary situation. After the first performance of Waiting for Godot, in 1953, Critics were convinced that Beckett had contrived an absolute negation of human existence, a drama situated beyond extinction.
Want of Action, No Significant Happening:
Want of action is one of the major features of an absurd play. Except waiting and waiting, nothing significant happens. The waiting also becomes useless because Godot does not arrive despite such a long waiting. In the world of Godot even the minimal action is impossible. A pair of battered shoes, the tramp's symbol, is the first centre of focus - Estragon is trying to remove his shoes. Estragon's first comment is, “Nothing doing”.
Tramps’ Losing Identity:
In an absurd drama, the characters generally lose their identity. In Waiting for Godot too tramps lose their identity in the II Act. Their relationship is in doubt. They spend the night apart. Life of them is an endless rain of blows. Suicide is a recurrent temptation, but it requires an assertion of which they are not capable.
Allegory of the Play:
The allegory of the play thus, carries the interest of a detective story, but one in which the clues are found in ourselves and the discoveries are about ourselves. Didi and Gogo, Pozzo and Lucky, are each a part of ourselves. There is an excitement in recognizing truths in what seems to be a grossly fantastic morality play. There is another excitement in recognizing how we differ from our representatives on the stage, where we expose or conceal a greater share of Didi or Godo or Pozzo or Lucky.
The Vindictive Environment:
In Godot, we see the vindictive environment in which tramps live, while Didi worries whether they have come to the right place, or on the right day, and the oblivious Godo takes his pleasures in teasing his companion about place and time. Beckett's device of the second visit of the boy, whom the audience sees as one and the same although he claims to be another, helps to induce the uncertainty that Didi also feels. Time stands still, yet the tree grows a leaf or two. Nothing has changed, yet Pozzo and Lucky are blind and dumb.
Manner of Presentation:
The special feature of Godot is its manner of presentation. “The saddest play and yet the funniest,” declared the English press. Beckett chooses to paint his urgent portrait of life - in - godlessness in the lowest and simplest terms for which he has a precedent. He writes an overdrawn music - hall or vaudeville sketch, with its comics and their cross - talk dialogue of cohesive and suggestive rhythms, a connection of mimicry and fooling. They speak the compressed behaviour - language of the circus, and sometimes of the primary force of the Italian light comedy.
Dealing with the Absurdity of Man's Existence in this Universe:
In the very beginning of the play both Estragon and Vladimir agree that they have nothing to do, they think that they have lost each other. Estragon has spent the last night in a ditch and is often beaten by the people. He admits that the struggle has been of no use. Estragon becomes desperate when his efforts to take off his boots prove futile. Both the tramps ultimately cherish thoughts about suicide. Sometimes they feel that they should jump from a tower and kill themselves; at other times they want to hang themselves immediately with a tree. The existence of the other pair of characters - Lucky and Pozzo is also absurd. They too are in an absurd human situation. Pozzo is driving Lucky by means of a rope tied round his neck. Seeing the tramp, Pozzo gives a sudden jerk to the rope and Lucky falls to the ground along with his burden. The tramps feel like helping Lucky to his feet but one restrained both by their own apprehension and by Pozzo's warning that Lucky is vicious. Lucky is a serf, tortured and unhappy. Even his master Pozzo is not happy. He wants to get rid of Lucky by selling him, though it would be far better to kill him. When Estragon tries to wipe Lucky's tears, he is violently kicked by Lucky, and Estragon howls with pain. Lucky goes dumb and Pozzo goes blind.
Something Enigmatic in the Atmosphere:
Its mixture of comedy and near - tragedy proves baffling, and at first we are not sure as to what attitude we should adopt towards the different phases of its non - action. The situation of the tramps is both funny and tragic: it is human situation. We do not know why and for whom the tramps are waiting. Like the tramps we all are waiting for something - some Avtar, some golden age of civilization, or for death to relieve us from all pain and misery, cares and anxiety. The characters are in a state of bewilderment, misery and revolt. The situation in which the characters are is the situation in which we all are. We all feel that all of us, at some time or the other, pass our life in transparent deceptions just as the two tramps are. The modes of civilized way of life and civilized behaviour are put to winds. There is a mixture between reality and unreality in the behaviour of the two tramps in the II Act.
The Setting of the Play:
The setting of the play is bare. There is only a tree in the first act which is without leaves . In the second act it attains some new leaves. The whole background reminds of man's loneliness and alienation. There is suffering, agony, anxious wait, futility and all sorts of absurdity. Man is baffled at his existence, at his transitoriness and that his existence therefore is futile. Man must end as soon as possible. These existential overtures too make the play an absurdist drama. So from the point of view of structure, theme, motif, characters, atmosphere, setting and language, we find the play an absurdist one.
Conclusion:
Thus, Crux lies in the funny situation, the absurdist existence of man. Life as well as death is treated as a joke. All human action and nit - wittery and drama is a hollow joke. Nothing can relieve man of his misery; he must suffer gladly.
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