Name : Manoj Kumar

Course: B A English (Hons)

Subject: Waiting for Godot
Roll n.  :  753

Question:Significance of time in Waiting for Godot

Answer:-  Waiting for Godot is an original French play written in 1948 by author Samuel
Beckett. The play was first performed in 1953, and then later translated into English. The
aftermath of World War II left the entire country of France unstable and in desperate need of
government and economic reform. Beckett uses the crisis of this time period in France to
emphasize the time passing for two characters, Estragon and Vladimir who hopelessly wait for
Godot, whom is believed to be a God that will “save” them from their turmoil. Time is a
psychological measurement, in which we can observe and measure. The passage of time is one
of the central themes of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, which is understandable given
that the characters spend the majority of the play doing just what the title says: waiting.
Vladimir and Estragon (Gogo) experience time as circular, forgetting what they've already
done and repeating the same actions scene after scene as they kill time waiting for someone
who ultimately never arrives. As the play continues, time starts to lose all meaning. When the
characters can't remember what they have or haven't already done. The characters also seem
to be trapped by time, endlessly repeating essentially the same day again and again. This
creates a despair that leads them to repeatedly contemplate suicide, although they never
remember to bring the rope they would need to actually hang themselves. Time is one of the
main ways people organize their lives and memories, so the uncertainty of time in the play
contributes to the feeling of meaninglessness.  Throughout the play, Vladimir and Estragon’s
trivial actions are used to fight the emptiness they are feeling in their lives. Beckett purposely
uses a tree as a symbol of the fluxity oftime. An example of their trivial actions is the switching
of hats between Vladimir and Estragon. Another example is Vladimir feeding carrots, radishes,
and turnips to Estragon. Vladimir ends one of these trivial feedings saying, ‘This is become
really insignificant’. Time is indeed a significant factor to the interpretation of Waiting for
Godot, but serves no meaning within the lives of the characters in the play. The insignificance
of our life in waiting for Godot corresponds to the importance of the routine of waiting to pass
the time in the play. Time is essentially a kinetic one, not static; it is an act of illusion in the
play. At once Vladimir says that ‘Time has stopped.’ Vladimir and Estragon end the play, just as
they began it: waiting for Godot.

In the modern era, man has to run a hard race against time. In an absurd drama, however,
dramatic personalities are cut off from the world, living in a no-mans-land. They have moved
from holiness to madness, because no human mind can withstand the terrible state of human
plight. They have shed their human qualities and live in vain emptiness. Such men are not at
all about time. "Time has stopped", Vladimir says, when Pozzo tries to see time from his watch.
The distinction between clock time and subjective time is one of the themes of the play,
Waiting for Godot. The passage of time is not absolute but relative to one’s mental condition.
The tramp’s doubt about ‘time’ makes the doubt their existence and their identity also. Their
main problem is to make time pass in such a way that they are the least bothered by it. In the
play neither time nor existence, nor reality, nor memory, nor the past has any meaning or
significance. Acts are meaningless, time does not flow consecutively, memory seems deceptive,
existence is an impression or perhaps a dream, happiness is acutely absent. The tramps,
Vladimir and Estragon are on the point of being hollow men in a possibly hollow universe.

This explains why the first act of waiting for Godot is repeated in the second. Nothing has
changed; Nothing new happens; The characters forget what they have said or heard in earlier
scenes; The language is repeated. If told that they are doing the same thing or talking on the
same thing again, they are rejoicing. There is no purpose in life for Vladimir and Estragon. And
does not exist naturally for such a person's time. As the play progresses, time advances rapidly,
and the characters develop. But since everything is repeated, we feel that time is not moving
forward. Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher once said: "You cannot take your bath
twice in the same river", because there is a constant flow of water. Hence there is also a
continuous flow of time. In Waiting for Godot, however, the flow of time has stopped. The play
is static, the characters are static. In fact, everything in the play has stopped. As situations and
dialogues are being repeated, no one seems to notice it. Everyone has lost their memory. The
two suggest Trump should move, and yet they remain transfected and as if frightened.

Vladimir and Estragon still devise ways and means to kill time, so that their wait for Godot is
less dull and monotonous. Therefore, they indulge in stupid things; They play when pozzo and
being lucky; They climb trees; They resort to antics and do physical exercises.
Both trumps wishfully think they are taking some action. But it is not an action worth the
name. Beckett has pointed out that Vladimir and Estragon are representative of modern-day
people, who constantly talk and feel that they have few activities, but critically investigated,
they are nothing. We are all Sisyphus, taking the rock to the top of the mountain and letting it
roll. The same process continues. Vladimir and Estragon rectify the past, which are all
mechanical. Viewers looking at their past and activities find that their activities and past are
equally mechanical and useless. In Waiting for Godot, time is elusive and difficult to pin down.
Both Act I and Act II, which have the same beginning and the same ending, occur in the same
place at the same time of day. At the end of each act a boy arrives to inform the men that Godot
will not arrive but will surely come tomorrow. In this repetitive pattern, everything has
happened many times and chances are the pattern will repeat itself, perhaps endlessly, unless
Godot ever does in fact arrive and save them. For Vladimir and Estragon, this repetition
demonstrates the meaningless of time. Just like the day before, each day has the same purpose
—to wait for an unknown someone who never comes. The men cannot tell one day from
another: “I don't remember having met anyone yesterday. But tomorrow I won't remember
having met anyone today. So don't count on me to enlighten you” . When Vladimir questions
Estragon, “so, what did we do last night,” Estragon replies “yesterday evening we spent
blathering about nothing in particular. That's been going on now for half a century” . Thus,
because of this remarkable lack of change, time has no meaning, and if yesterday was
meaningless, and the days before yesterday were also meaningless, then time itself must
indeed be meaningless. The meaningless of time, Beckett would argue, can be applied to the
plight of all of humankind.
However, Pozzo and Lucky are time conscious. Pozzo lost his watch, and Vladimir, Estragon,
and Pozzo trembled horribly in search of the lost clock. Pozzo remembers the last time he left
his watch in his fiefdom. But he has also lost his memory when, for only a few minutes, he
advised his watch to "follow his schedule". After Pozzo becomes blind, he can no longer see
time with his watch. He says curiously: "The blind have no notion of time; the words of time
are hidden from them as well." Thus, he is on the same stage with Estragon and Vladimir. For
Estragon, today, tomorrow and tomorrow are the same. Vladimir's condition is not as bad, but
he thinks that one day it will become true that the place where he is waiting for Godot may
have a burden of leaves.