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Alexandra Victoria
Second year, English Major, Group 4
Twentieth-Century English Literature
Seminar instructor: Dr. Bogdan tefnescu
28 May 2014

Formalism in Samuel Beckett s Play,
Waiting For Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

At the beginning of the twentieth century, critics sought to explain the nature and aim of
art. Shklovskys statement that " The technique of art is to make objects unfamiliar, to make
forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of
perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged (20) represents one of the main
ideas promoted by the Russian Formalists, who considered literature to be form-oriented, an
autonomous domain, a closed universe, not related to extrinsic systems.
The first Russian Formalists believed that any domain pertaining to human experience
has no relevance in literary criticism. (Selden 29) They sought to prove that form generates
meaning, the two of them being inseparable, that no detail in a literary work is accidental or
insignificant. Shklovsky argues that art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists
to make one feel things, to make the stone stony. The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of
things as they are perceived and not as they are known. (20) Therefore one can identify several
techniques and concepts employed by writers, in order to accomplish this purpose, such as close
reading, the technique of defamiliarization, which denies and overcomes habitualization,
decontextualization, framing objects and the use of a special language, which gives literariness to
a written text.
In order to present the aforementioned critical approach and the way meaning can be
generated by form, I will analyse Samuel Becketts play, Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in
Two Acts, in his own translation of the original French version, drawing attention to the structure
of the play and to the particularities of the language used by Becketts characters.
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Apparently, the plot of the two act absurdist play is simplistic, the main characters,
Vladimir and Estragon, being introduced in the first act. They are waiting for Godot, a
mysterious person who does not appear throughout the play.
Firstly, one of the main pieces of evidence which allude to a Formalist interpretation of
the text is its structure. The play is divided into two acts with almost identical action and set. The
first act opens with the two men waiting for Godot in an ambiguous location, near a leafless tree,
but not knowing with certainty if they are waiting in the right place or if it is the right day. Two
strangers, Pozzo and his servant Lucky, appear soon but exit after a short, pointless interaction,
leaving Vladimir and Estragon still waiting. A boy arrives and tells them that Godot is not going
to come, but he will surely do so the next day, to which Vladimir responds that he made that
promise the day before too. The second act also opens with Vladimir and Estragon, waiting near
the same tree, trying to fill their time with ordinary activities, when they see Pozzo and Lucky
again. But this time the former is blind and the latter dumb. They leave and the boy appears
again, telling Vladimir and Estragon the same thing as before. The two acts are almost identical,
suggesting a repetitive cycle which is most likely to continue throughout the existence of the
main characters, despite the ending of the play after the second act.
Secondly, one important factor in the formalist analysis of Becketts play is the denial of
habitualization, not only through this emphasis on the monotony and futility of Vladimir and
Estragons life, but also through the setting, which lacks any details about the surrounding
scenery, being detached from any possible real place, or about the time of the action, which gives
the impression of a static time and indistinguishable moments which in the end are irrelevant.
The plot is also unclear, as the subject of the play and the only certain activity happening in it is
the waiting, which actually represents lack of action: GOGO: Nothing happens, nobody comes,
nobody goes, its awful! (Beckett 43).
Another essential part of the analysis is the language Beckett uses in his play. The
message sent by his text, refering to the nothingness and absurdity of life, of mans inability and
refusal to make choices and to initiate action, is not only transmitted through the lack of plot and
setting, but also through language. The dialogue is monotonous and contradictory and the
repetitive vocabulary, pronoun shifts and all other comic effects are used to communicate the
message of the literary work. Therefore, the dialogue fails to respect its function of
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communication, because it does not convey any factual meaning and thus it cannot give
significance to a nonsensical universe.
The form of the language points to the aforementioned message sent by the text.
Throughout the play there are several cases of speech disintegration, stuttering: the
Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard (Beckett
45), syntax errors, ellipsis: POZZO: I cant bear itany longerthe way he goes onyouve
no ideaits terriblehe must go(he waves his arm)Im going mad (He collapses his head
in his hands)I cant bear itany longer (Beckett 34), hesitant and halting speech:
VLADIMIR: Waitwe embracedwe were happy...what do we do now that we are
happygo on waitingwaitinglet me thinkits cominggo on waitingnow that were
happylet me see (Beckett 72).
All of these reinforce the subject of the play, the waiting, the nothingness and the
ambiguity of life, corresponding to the absurdist tradition. The opening line follows the same
characteristics: ESTRAGON: (giving up again) Nothing to be done. (Beckett 1). Although we
would expect the first utterance to start a conversation between the main characters, the
statement has different meanings for the two of them hence we are presented a misunderstanding
of the original meaning, intended by Estragon, regarding his boots, and directed towards
Vladimirs own interpretation, regarding their dull existence and lack of activity. This happens
several times throughout the play, as all characters have different ideas and ways of interpreting
the statements of their supposed interlocutors, resulting in numerous pauses, moments of silence
and repetitions of words, phrases and entire lines, their own, or the others, which emphasize
again the idea of a monotonous, habitual, wasted life, in relation to the passing of time, which is
essential to human existence.
Although there are moments when the characters, especially Vladimir, try to break
through this monotonous cycle of endlessly waiting and to make sense of their existence, as
something more than a sum of constantly repeated actions, their momentum is lost immediately:
VLADIMIR: Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! (Pause. Vehemently.) Let us do
something, 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? (Estragon says nothing.)(Beckett 91)
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This type of disagreement between the statements of the characters and their behaviour
can be identified several times in the play, and not only disagreement, but also opposition
between their significant declarations and meaningless, empty actions.
To conclude, I believe that the provided arguments, based on a Formalist critical
approach, indicate the fact that the message of a literary work can be transmitted through its
form, by analysing the structure of the text and the details which can be identified in the
language because, as Shklovsky observes, Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an
object; the object is not important." (20)


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Works cited:

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: a tragicomedy in 2 acts. New York: Grove Press, 1982.
Selden, Raman. Widdowson, Peter. Brooker, Peter. A readers guide to contemporary literary
theory. London: Pearson Longman, 2005.
Shklovsky, Viktor. Art as Technique. In Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Ed. David
Lodge. New York: Longman, 1988.