Samuel Beckett
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Lord Mhoram
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danlo
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You're right! And you're taking it from someone who has read for Rhinocheros, played Lysander in A Midsummer's Night Dream, Mr. Smith in Ionesco's The Bald Soprano, Theolophilus in Moliere's The Doctor in Spite of Himself, Mother Murphy in Rags to Riches and Mr. Einstien in Arsenic and Old Lace. 
Last edited by danlo on Mon May 01, 2006 6:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
fall far and well Pilots!
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Zarathustra
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I read WFG back in college for an existentialism class. It was indeed very good. It really takes talent to make such a mundane situation come to life and resonate with deeper truths. I wouldn't mind discussing it. What are your thoughts? Do you think it's portrayal of the human condition is depressing or hopeful?
One of my test questions had to do with a reviewer's description of the play as a "threnody of hope" which reveals the grandeur of mankind’s stubbornness in enduring even when there is nothing to be done in terms of prevailing over the futility and absurdity of human existence. My teacher seemed to think this was pretentious and vapid, and that the play was actually a good argument for nihilism and despair. There was nothing stubborn or grand about their waiting, he argued.
My response was that, on one level, Vladamir and Estragon do indeed seem to portray human existence as absurd and pathetic. They are discouraged and depressed about their predicament, but not alarmed enough to do anything about it. They continue to wait even though they are not always sure why or even who Godot is. Meeting Godot is not a purposeful, willful reason for their waiting; rather, it is merely a rationalization for passivity. Godot never comes and never will come. Their remaining is not a valiant enduring as a result of determination and conviction. They stay because they lack the courage and imagination to do anything else. They repeatedly decide to hang themselves, but are too complacent even to commit suicide.
However, on another level--the level of the audience watching the play and engaging it in terms of a symbol of the human condition--the play holds a mirror up to us and allows us to have a view of ourselves that Vladamir and Estragon do not have of themselves. Stepping back from the play, we first see how much of our lives are spent exactly as V. and E. spend theirs: passively, pointlessly, and hopelessly. By seeing how the play mirrors life, we confront our condition directly. We see ourselves on the stage in a way that V. and E. do not. They know they are ‘trapped,’ but do not recognize that they are directly responsible for this fact. They could break the cycle and leave. They could kill themselves. Or they could actively decide to continue waiting in defiance of absurdity rather than in surrender to it. All they would have to do is face existence and themselves honestly, then choose/will their reality. This realization, to me, is hopeful. And, as many of my posts about SRD have made explicit, I think this is one of our most important responsibilities in life: to face our existence authentically.
One of my test questions had to do with a reviewer's description of the play as a "threnody of hope" which reveals the grandeur of mankind’s stubbornness in enduring even when there is nothing to be done in terms of prevailing over the futility and absurdity of human existence. My teacher seemed to think this was pretentious and vapid, and that the play was actually a good argument for nihilism and despair. There was nothing stubborn or grand about their waiting, he argued.
My response was that, on one level, Vladamir and Estragon do indeed seem to portray human existence as absurd and pathetic. They are discouraged and depressed about their predicament, but not alarmed enough to do anything about it. They continue to wait even though they are not always sure why or even who Godot is. Meeting Godot is not a purposeful, willful reason for their waiting; rather, it is merely a rationalization for passivity. Godot never comes and never will come. Their remaining is not a valiant enduring as a result of determination and conviction. They stay because they lack the courage and imagination to do anything else. They repeatedly decide to hang themselves, but are too complacent even to commit suicide.
However, on another level--the level of the audience watching the play and engaging it in terms of a symbol of the human condition--the play holds a mirror up to us and allows us to have a view of ourselves that Vladamir and Estragon do not have of themselves. Stepping back from the play, we first see how much of our lives are spent exactly as V. and E. spend theirs: passively, pointlessly, and hopelessly. By seeing how the play mirrors life, we confront our condition directly. We see ourselves on the stage in a way that V. and E. do not. They know they are ‘trapped,’ but do not recognize that they are directly responsible for this fact. They could break the cycle and leave. They could kill themselves. Or they could actively decide to continue waiting in defiance of absurdity rather than in surrender to it. All they would have to do is face existence and themselves honestly, then choose/will their reality. This realization, to me, is hopeful. And, as many of my posts about SRD have made explicit, I think this is one of our most important responsibilities in life: to face our existence authentically.
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Lord Mhoram
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Well, here it goes on my interpretation. Keep in mind, I'm still in 10th-grade English and I read the play on my own.
I think that Beckett is saying that human existence is, 99% of the time, complete drudgery and often quite miserable - totally absurd, as you said. But it is, in the end, worth it, if only because of the remote possibility of betterment.
I agree with you - Life is absurd, Beckett says, but it is a human triumph to endure it.
I underlined several quotes from it and read it pretty quickly. I'll be buying it and more of Beckett's work over the summer because it interests me a lot. His recurring themes are things I contemplated before I even read him (absurdity, the drudgery of life, boredom). I will contribute more to a discussion after a reread. But here are important quotes and ones that stood out for me:
"The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stop.s The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either."
"I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have been better off alone, each one for himself."
"All my lousy life I've crawled about in the mud! And you talk to me about scenery!"
"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do somethings, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say?"
"We wait. We we are bored."
Of course, the essential Beckett quote is: "I can't go on, I'll go on."
I think that Beckett is saying that human existence is, 99% of the time, complete drudgery and often quite miserable - totally absurd, as you said. But it is, in the end, worth it, if only because of the remote possibility of betterment.
I agree with you - Life is absurd, Beckett says, but it is a human triumph to endure it.
I underlined several quotes from it and read it pretty quickly. I'll be buying it and more of Beckett's work over the summer because it interests me a lot. His recurring themes are things I contemplated before I even read him (absurdity, the drudgery of life, boredom). I will contribute more to a discussion after a reread. But here are important quotes and ones that stood out for me:
"The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stop.s The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either."
"I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have been better off alone, each one for himself."
"All my lousy life I've crawled about in the mud! And you talk to me about scenery!"
"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do somethings, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say?"
"We wait. We we are bored."
Of course, the essential Beckett quote is: "I can't go on, I'll go on."
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Zarathustra
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LM, you are one cool 10th grader. I remember you saying that you are young, but I often forget it because you are obviously intelligent and mature--and you're HERE (just being here makes everyone seem older, for some reason). I wish I had a place like this when I was in high school. I was lucky to have one cool friend who enjoyed intellectual and literary discussions, but everyone else was insufferably shallow (not that I wasn't shallow on quite a few weekends myself--you can only talk about literature for so long 
).
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Lord Mhoram
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