Samuel beckett was born in an Irish Jewish family on 1906.

Beckett loved drama in middle school. He graduated from Trinity College in Dublin on 1927. Due to his excellent academic performance, he was hired as a teacher of Paris Teachers College and Paris University from the following year to 1930. During this period, he met James Joyce, an English decadent writer living in Paris, and was deeply influenced by him.

During World War II, when Paris fell, he joined the underground resistance.

After the war, he specialized in literary creation.

The war brought disaster to the world and deep trauma to his mind.

Beckett started writing when he was a teenager. By the end of the war, he had written many poems and novels. 1948- 1949. His novels include the trilogy molloy, Death of Malone and Nobody. All these novels aim to show that life is a difficult and empty idleness, a narrow and meaningless idleness.

These novels exposed his pessimistic attitude towards life and his anti-realistic literary thoughts.

This point is more prominent in his later drama creation.

His Waiting for Godot, written in 1948, is one of the most accomplished, influential and representative absurd plays.

This is a two-act play.

In the first act, the protagonists Estragon (Gogo for short) and Vladimir (Didi for short) appear on a village road, and there is only a bare tree in the open field.

They claim to be waiting for Godot, but who is Godot? When did they meet? Even they don't know.

But they are still waiting.

In order to avoid the trouble of waiting, they had nothing to say, so they chatted casually. They talk about confession for a while, honeymoon in the Dead Sea for a while, and the story of the savior and thief in the Gospels for a while. He also said some words: "I feel lonely", "I had a dream" and "I am very happy"-and did many boring actions: Didi took off his hat, looked inside, reached in and touched it, then shook it, blew it and put it on again; Gogo took off his boots, looked inside, reached in and felt ... but Gordo never came, but there were two servants, Zhuo Bo and the lucky one.

Zhuo Bo led the lucky dog with a rope and threatened him with a whip.

The lucky man took the luggage and did as he said.

Didi and gogo waited and waited, and finally a boy came. He is Godot's messenger. He told two poor tramps that Gordo would not come tonight, but he would come tomorrow night.

The content of the second act is still that Didi and Gogo are waiting for Godot. At the same time, at the same place, the change of the scene is only four or five leaves growing on the tree.

They continue to wait for Godot. In order to pass away boredom and loneliness, they continue to say some boring words and do some ridiculous actions.

At this time, Zhuo Bo and the lucky one appeared again, but Zhuo Bo was blind and the lucky one became mute.

Finally, the boy came. He told Didi and Gogo that Gordo would not come today, but he would come tomorrow.

The play highlights the disillusionment of westerners from different planes and the endless cycle of aimless life.

The first act and the second act are in time (both at dusk), place (both empty) and content (both two people appear first, after a long conversation, the master and servant appear, and then the boy appears to take a message).

Especially the content, in the end, back to the beginning.

We can imagine that if the play has the third and fourth acts, it must be a program that repeats the first two acts.

All these show that people's situation is monotonous and rigid, and life is endless suffering.

Beckett argued that "only art without plot and action can be regarded as real art". He really reduced the plot and action of Waiting for Godot to a very low limit, and there was no conflict between plot and drama as people usually understand.

In the words of Gogo, the character in the play, in the second act, the day before, they "talked empty talk" and "had a nightmare", but today it is a repetition of these empty talk and nightmares.

This is the embodiment of Beckett's nihilistic outlook on life, which contains extreme dissatisfaction with reality. What his characters can't stand most is the emptiness and hatred of life: "We are bored to death, which is an undeniable reality." "We have lost our rights." "I've been crawling around in the mud all my life!" "Look at this rubbish.

Never left in my life! "The protagonists Didi and Gogo are always nagging, proving that they still exist, without thinking or listening to others, thus escaping from reality.

Their only hope is to wait for Godot, but who is Godot? What does he stand for? There is no explanation in the play, and the audience doesn't know.

The play was staged in the United States on 1958. The director asked the author: What does Godot stand for? Beckett's answer is full of wit and absurdity: "If I had known, I would have said it in the play".

From the play, Godot only supports the faint hope of the wanderers Didi and Gogo to travel through time, and is a lifeline for their survival: "Godot is coming, we are saved." But he just didn't come. They were so depressed that they wanted to hang themselves.

But will they die? No, because they have to wait for Godot.

In Beckett's view, life is like this, life is not easy to die, there is hope and despair.

But in the final analysis, it is despair.

Nevertheless, "we must wait for Godot, and we will continue to wait."

[San Quentin News] The audience knows that bitter waiting will inevitably bring disillusionment. What a tragic picture of life.

1953, Waiting for Godot caused a sensation in France, with 300 performances in a row. How can such a drama with no plot, no drama conflict, no characterization, only chaotic dialogue and absurd interlude have such artistic charm? I think it's because the author used absurd artistic techniques to express absurd social reality.

It played a disappointed song of the times, reflecting the inner anxiety of a generation.

It makes people see that people, as the pillar of social existence, have reached the point where they can't survive.

Social disasters, the loss of personality, the destruction of personality, one's own boredom and despair have eclipsed survival and life, making existence meaningless.

Beckett tried to make people realize the state of the world, the absurdity of reality, the division of self and the omnipresent death in a shocking way. He portrayed people as trapped in an incomprehensible whirlpool of power. The author hopes to impress people by describing the confusion and boredom of things. It shows people a world with nothing, in which people slowly lead meaningless lives.

As Beckett's masterpiece and the masterpiece of the absurd drama, Waiting for Godot has indeed reached an unprecedented height in art.

Dramatic works include The Last Game, Ah, Beautiful Days, Drama, etc.

1969 Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature because "his novels and dramas inspired modern people from spiritual poverty".

The representative of the Royal Swedish Academy praised his play "with the purification function of Greek tragedy" at the award ceremony.

Absurd drama rose in 1950s and reached its peak in 1960s.

The nightmare of World War II has just passed, and the war has left an incurable wound on the hearts of a whole generation. God no longer exists, old beliefs have collapsed, and good hopes and ideals have been shattered.

Things are unpredictable and society is in turmoil.

People who survived the robbery, touching the scars of the war, began to reflect painfully and held a negative attitude towards traditional values and the existing order.

The spiritual pillar of the past has collapsed and new beliefs have not yet been found. This spiritual emptiness is reflected in literature and art, which naturally forms a "meaningless, absurd and useless theme".

Eugene Yunescu, another representative writer of the absurd drama, pointed out when discussing Kafka's article "Weapons in the City": "Absurdity refers to the lack of meaning. After being isolated from the roots of religion, metaphysics and transcendentalism, man is at a loss, and all his actions become meaningless, absurd and useless. " Ten years after the performance of Yunescu's Bald Singer, Martin Ellings, a famous British drama theorist, published a paper entitled Theatre of the Absurd, thus formally naming this school in theory.

Etymologically, the word "absurd" comes from the Latin word "deaf", which was originally used to describe the disharmony of music.

The dictionary says "unreasonable and conventional, uncoordinated, unreasonable and illogical".

In English, the word "absurd" can be simply interpreted as "ridiculous".

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Beckett's and Yunescu's plays inherit and develop expressionism, highlight the subjective spirit and absurd techniques, and are deeply influenced by existentialism philosophy.

They do not rely on highly clear logical reasoning to express their awareness of the absurdity of the human situation.

The absurd drama, on the other hand, gave up rational means and reasoning thinking to show the meaninglessness of the human situation they realized. They solve conflicts through instinct and intuition rather than conscious efforts.

They gave up the argument of the absurdity of human situation and directly expressed the absurdity of existence with concrete stage images.

Therefore, there are often bizarre and absurd scenes on their drama stage, with no specific plot, no opening, * * *, no ending, no realistic characters and no clear time and place.

There are no vivid characters in the play, but it is full of broken stage images. People seem to have become insane, emaciated old people and dirty vagrants. They are just "puppets" that mechanically repeat actions and words.

For example, in The Bald Singer, there are countless Bobby Watson whose jobs and looks are the same; The scenes at the beginning and end of the whole play are the same, but the characters are changed from Mr. and Mrs. Smith to Mr. and Mrs. Martin, and the characters in the play can be changed at will.

These show the playwright's understanding of reality, and people have lost their self and personality.

The same is true of Didi and Gogo in Waiting for Godot.

The playwright believes that in the absurd world, it seems that only the inner life is meaningful.

Therefore, the main interpreter of this school, sallot, said:

"The protagonist is an invisible, uncertain and unpredictable existence. He is nothing. It is often just a disguised reflection of the author himself-the characters around him have lost the meaning of their own independent existence, just the illusion, nightmare, fantasy, reflection, sideways or vassal of this omnipotent' I'. "

Although the characters in the play are all victims of the world, they rarely shout out the voice of resistance to unfair fate.

Absurd plays repeatedly involve the impossibility of communication and the overall imbalance between man and the environment.

Let's look at Eunice's chair. It's about an old couple in their 90s who live in a lighthouse on an isolated island.

The old man invited many guests to announce the mysteries of life he discovered in his life.

The sound of boating kept ringing, the door was closed, and they moved chairs, symbolically indicating that guests were coming.

The old man couldn't say what he wanted to say clearly, so he had to rely on the speaker who announced the truth for him.

But the speaker turned out to be a mute! Coincidentally, the narrator in Beckett's Such a Situation is also a mute. The narrator in Robert Gerye's works is anonymous, does not speak, and does not appear in the article.

It all means that people can't understand the mystery of life and can't communicate with each other.

In the absurd world, nothing is trustworthy, and people can only satisfy themselves with death.

In this way, absurdity points to two phenomena: the meaningless world and the limited position of people in it.

In addition, the characters' language is absurd.

They keep repeating platitudes, boring conversations and illogical arguments in daily life.

For example, in the first scene of Rhinoceros, several people argue whether the rhinoceros they just saw is an Asian species or an African species, a one-horned rhinoceros or a two-horned rhinoceros. In The Story of the Zoo, Jerry had a long nonsense, several pages long.

The author also wrote in the prompt: "When reading the following lines, there should be many actions to hypnotize the audience."

Generally speaking, it's all nonsense.

They only carry such functions: showing the emptiness and monotony of modern people, the mechanical repression, and the impossibility, strangeness and unreachable distance of mutual understanding and communication between people.

The absurd drama represented by Waiting for Godot reflects the absurdity of life and existence.

Most of the characters in the play live in the shadow of death and madness. They suffered a lot, but they didn't get glory and wisdom. They are all typical waiters-waiting patiently with hope, and the more pious and desperate they are, the absurdity and rationality of hope itself can be seen.

In a word, everything in traditional drama is gone here.

Unreasonable structure, illogical language, figurative stage image and distorted personality make the audience who have also experienced the war disaster peep into the pain and absurdity of life.

(1) content introduction

Waiting for Godot is a two-act play.

In the first scene, two unidentified vagrants, Gogo and Didi (Vladimir and Estragon), wait for Godot to arrive under the dead trees on the roadside at dusk.

In order to kill time, they ramble, try to tell stories, find topics and do all kinds of boring actions.

They mistook master and servant Zhuo Bo and lucky ones for Godot.

Until it was getting dark, a child came and told them that Godot would not come today, but he would definitely come tomorrow.

In the second act, the next night, two people waited for Godot's arrival as they did yesterday.

The difference is that the dead tree has four or five leaves, the next wave of Zhuo became blind, and the lucky one became dumb.

When it got dark, the child sent another message saying that Godot would not come today, but would definitely come tomorrow.

The two men were desperate. They wanted to die, but failed. They tried to leave, but they stood still.

No matter from the content of the plot to the form of performance, the drama shows the absurdity completely different from the traditional drama.

Beckett reveals the absurd, ugly and chaotic reality of the world with dramatic absurdity, and writes about the pain and misfortune of living in such a terrible living environment.

The background representing human survival activities in the play is bleak and horrible.

In the world, people are isolated, disillusioned with fear, unable to survive or die, suffering and despair.

(2) Who is Godot?

In Waiting for Godot, two beggars are waiting for a man named Godot from beginning to end.

They are down and out, hoping that Godot's appearance will save them.

However, Godot did not appear from beginning to end.

So, who's Gordo?

Some people say that Godot is God, and the French title Waiting for Godot seems to imply Wei Yi's book Waiting for God. Some people say that Godot symbolizes "death"; Some people say that the player Zhuo Bo in the play is Godot; Some people say that Godot is a character in Balzac's drama "The Pretentious", and some even say that Godot is a famous motorcyclist ... So someone asked the author, Beckett spread his hands and smiled bitterly: "If I had known, I would have said it in the play."

Whether Beckett is mysterious or really ignorant, this answer just tells the true meaning of the play, that is, people know nothing about the world they live in and their own destiny.

No matter who Godot may be, it is obvious from the works that his arrival will bring hope to the people in the play. Godot is the call and yearning for the future life of unfortunate people.

It represents people's hope for tomorrow in today's society and symbolizes "hope" and "yearning".

1957165438+1October 9, Waiting for Godot was staged in San Quentin Prison in San Francisco, with an audience of 1400 prisoners.

Before the performance, the actors and directors were very worried. Can the rudest audience in the world understand Waiting for Godot? Unexpectedly, it was immediately understood by the prisoner audience, and one by one moved to tears.

A prisoner said, "Godot is society." Another prisoner said, "He is an outsider." Since then, Algerian farmers who have no land and no land have regarded Godot as a promised land reform, which has never been realized; Polish audiences with an unfortunate history of being enslaved by other countries regard Godot as a symbol of their lack of national freedom and independence.

People finally suddenly realized that "Godot" turned out to be "lip service!" .

(3) Theme

The theme and core of Waiting for Godot is waiting for hope.

This is a modern tragedy, which shows the eternal pursuit of hope in despair.

As a synonym, "Godot" is always a hazy and nihilistic phantom, a mirage in a nightmare.

Although Godot did not appear, he was the first person to decide the fate of the characters and became the central clue throughout the whole situation.

Gordo seems to have come, but he has never been here.

Gogo and Didi live in such a harsh environment that they can't even eat bones if they want to live, and there is no rope if they want to die.

But they still cling to hope and desire.

Whether Godot will come or not, and whether he hopes to realize it or not, after all, gives people in despair an extra layer of spiritual sustenance.

If Gogo and Diddy live and hope in an absurd world with humor, then their persistent waiting in hopeless hope is also touching.

They don't know who Godot is or when Godot will come. They just wait.

Didi said: "We are no longer lonely, waiting for the night, waiting for Godot, waiting, waiting." It was dark, and Godot didn't come. He said he would come tomorrow and didn't come the next day.

In the second act, the dead tree grows four or five leaves overnight, and Gogo and Didi are in rags and their living conditions are even worse. Zhuo Bo became blind, and the lucky one became dumb.

The two-day waiting scene in the play is a symbol of longevity.

It is really "Godot is too late to come, and the people waiting for him are suffering to death."

Waiting for Godot reveals a cruel social reality and gives us great enlightenment: hope exists, but it is impossible to wait for the realization of hope, and waiting means disillusionment.

Nevertheless, human beings should "do what they know they can't do".

Waiting for hope in Waiting for Godot embodies Beckett's existential humanitarian thought, that is, he doesn't want to push people in pain into the abyss of despair and leave people with a glimmer of hope in hopelessness.

(4) Artistic features

Waiting for Godot shows the tendency of anti-traditional drama in art and has a strong absurdity.

First of all, the plot of the play is absurd.

There is no beginning and no end.

We don't know where Gogo and Didi came from, or why they waited for Gordo.

The whole content is replaced by boring characters' small gestures, incoherent nagging, vague and fragmented storytelling and juggling of characters.

Take off your boots, look inside, feel and put them on.

Shake the hat, knock on the top, blow it into the hat and put it on. It's full of funny and boring.

Gogo and Didi waited together for one day, but they didn't know each other the next day.

Overnight, the dead tree grew leaves, Zhuo Bo became blind, and the lucky one became dumb.

Lucky man is a heavy box that his master hangs around his neck all day, and it contains sand.

The play lasted only two nights, but the next day was uncertain.

Gordo brought a message from the child that he would come tomorrow, but he never came.

In disappointment, Gogo and Didi tried to hang themselves, but they didn't. They always say they are leaving, but they never take action.

The messy and absurd content and plot show the absurdity of life and the absurdity of life.

Secondly, the language of drama is absurd.

The dialogue between characters and monologues are reversed and full of absurdity, which makes the play look funny and chaotic.

For example, at first Gogo and Didi muttered their own difficulties, but the bull's head was not right, and the words were repetitive and irrelevant.

The lucky man, who was called "pig" by his master, suddenly delivered a speech angrily, making people unable to understand with endless and meaningless nonsense without punctuation.

It shows that in this irrational and dehumanizing world, since people have lost their essential strength, they have no free will, no ideological personality, and so should language.

Sometimes the characters' language occasionally shows philosophy, revealing their true feelings about the absurd world and painful life.

Look at a dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon in the play:

Love: Let's hang ourselves at once.

F: Is it on the branch? I don't believe it.

Love: We can always try.

F: Then try it.

Love: You go first.

F: No, no, you go first.

Love: Why should I go first?

F: You are lighter than me.

Love: That's why!

F: I don't understand.

Love: Use your head, okay?

F: I can't remember.

Love: That's it.

Branch ... Branch ... Use your head, okay?

F: You are my only hope.

Love: Gogo is light-the branches are constantly-Gogo is dead.

Didi is heavy-compared with the broken branches-Didi is lonely.

but

On the surface, these words are nonsense, but in fact they are meaningful and contain philosophy: no one wants to die first, even if it is despair.

On the surface, people are * * *, but in fact they are awake.

As some critics have said, the language in the play, like the monologues of characters in stream-of-consciousness novels, accurately shows the process and trajectory of the inner consciousness flow of characters, and can truly show the mental state and thoughts and feelings of those specific characters.

The vivid and exaggerated use of the grotesque language of the characters constitutes a unique stage emotional information and conveys the distinctive absurd characteristics of the absurd drama.

Third, meaning and symbol.

The theme of this play is "Waiting".

Waiting means a meaningless life.

This is an absurd concept of human living conditions, that is, lack of meaning.

Vladimir and Estrogen symbolize human beings who lived in misery after the war.

As the pillar of social existence, human beings have reached the point where they cannot survive in the deformed capitalist society, especially in the post-war western society. Social evils and disasters make personality lose and destroy.

Society has become a world unfit for human habitation.

They just live under a dead tree without branches and leaves in the wilderness, "living in emptiness!" " "They are in an embarrassing situation where life and death cannot be achieved.

Knowing that Godot won't come, he still has to wait, dying in the waiting.

In the play, the twilight is gloomy, there is only one path in the wilderness, and there is only one bald tree beside the path, which symbolizes the emptiness of the world; Two tramps take off their boots, pour them on, touch and watch, symbolizing getting rid of the bondage and pain of life; This is a bare dead tree, but a few leaves have grown overnight, which symbolizes that there is always a little faint hope.

Bert called this absurd form "metaphor"

He wants to let the stage props speak, turn thoughts into visual phenomena, externalize the emotions of the characters, and fully embody the consciousness of "absurdity".

These absurd stage images greatly enhance the effect of drama and are more important than dialogue and lines.