Godot–Zhuoya Li
I watched the play Waiting for Godot. At the beginning of the play, I can have a full sense of the whole scene. There is a road at the rural area and a tree at the background. GoGo and Didi are talking about their waiting for Godot. They’ve got many significant characteristics, all of which make the play absurd and make people wonder about them.
One is that they are so boring all the time that they can do many incredible things normal people cannot possibly do. In general, they just find things to do and find words to speak. They do not really need to do all those meaningless things and repeat them again and again. They repeat each other’s words so many times that I can almost remember and predict what they are going to say. They argue with each other and then become reconciled with each other. They even talks about that willow and discuss how are they going to hang themselves.
The other thing is that they are helping each other as if they are one person. Didi helps Gogo with his boots and gives Gogo a carrot. It seems that Gogo is much more immature than the other, that Gogo relies much more on Didi than vice versa.
The first time Pozzo and Lucky appeared, Pozzo is high above Lucky. Pozzo calls him a pig and treats him like a pig. The next day the four people meet, Pozzo is blind and Lucky is dumb. Pozzo completely lost his prestige and forget about having seen them before. It is so strange that all of those people seems to lost their memory every once in a while. This could happen in a few seconds, or in one night. It is so ridiculous and unrealistic.
Beyond these absurd scenarios, there are some situations in which it is warm and comforting. When Gogo and Didi plans to hang themselves, they do not mention a single point about death itself. They are afraid that losing one will make the other feel lonely in this world.
They are waiting endlessly for Godot, who never appears in this play. On one hand, Gogo and Didi do not even know what Godot is like. They don’t know who he is and why they are waiting for him. They are told by the boy twice that Godot is coming and disappointed once by him not coming. They are afraid that if they leave Godot will punish them. They sacrifice their comfort, their time, and they even have to bear the punch every night. They are tired of waiting, but they still have the faith that Godot will save them out of their misery. I have to think about what Godot embodied. Is it an omnipotent god? But why does it never appear. Moreover, he or she even makes the boy “cheat” them by promising to come tomorrow and fail to keep the words.
The play has no normal plot arrangements like normal plays. It does not have a significant opening, climax or ending. Besides its absurd outlooking, it is definitely a thought-provoking play.
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