Modern Language Association

Art and the Existential in en Attendant GodotAuthor(s): Lawrence E. HarveySource: PMLA, Vol. 75, No. 1 (Mar., 1960), pp. 137-146Published by: Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/460435Accessed: 01/12/2008 00:27

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mla.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with thescholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform thatpromotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Modern Language Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to PMLA.

http://www.jstor.org

ART AND THE EXISTENTIAL IN EN ATTENDANT GODOT BY LAWRENCE E. HARVEY

IN a recent article, Claude Mauriac remarks pertinently, "On a voulu expliquer En Atten-

dant Godot par un improbable jeu de mots: God ne signifie-t-il pas Dieu en anglais? Fagon de rendre moins inquietante cette piece aussi peu rassurante que les autres oeuvres de Beckett."' Although M. Mauriac may be brushing aside rather too quickly a play on words that is per- haps not so improbable after all, he points per- ceptively in these lines to an inadequacy that mars a number of otherwise illuminating dis- cussions of Beckett's controversial play. Critics, professional and amateur, have, in fact, often been overly concerned with the "message" of the drama, treating it, unconsciously perhaps, as a kind of thesis play and thereby, one might argue, casting implicit aspersions on its excel- lence as art. The reviewer for the London Times writes, for example, " . . . the message of Mr. Beckett as a novelist is perhaps a message of blank despair. The message of Waitingfor Godot is perhaps something nearer a message of re- ligious consolation ... Waiting for Godot-one might sum up these remarks-is thus a modern morality play on permanent Christian themes."2

It is hardly surprising-if one grants that the play is something more than a dramatic homily- that such a view should engender its opposite. A Times correspondent writes (13 April 1956) that "the play, though Christian in its imagery, was not in the least Christian in its theme. It was rather an atheist-existentialist play, insisting on the impossibility of the individual's shifting his burdens to any pair of shoulders other than his own: its moral was, 'If this is where waiting for Godot gets us, why wait for Godot'?"3

In the presence of two such radically opposed views, there is always the cynical solution that the play is a "hoax on highbrows."4 On the other hand, it may be more subtle than naive to admit that "the elusiveness of the core" of meaning may lead "critics to contend that there is no core; that the whole startling effect of the play on the stage depended on excellent production and acting and on Mr. Beckett's own mastery of the mechanics of stagecraft" (10 February 1956). Still, one feels, in reading Godot, that such a view is basically unsatisfactory. The impact of the play is too great and the obscure sense of underlying meaning too persistent. The purpose of this study is to propose an interpretation of Godot that may, in some degree, reconcile the two

extreme positions sketched out above. Such an interpretation rises out of a point of view that considers the play primarily as art rather than "message." And art-the body of the paper will develop this notion-is here thought of as both destruction and re-creation, as a reordering of reality or breaking of surfaces that leads to an imitation of what is discovered at deeper levels of existence.

Before attempting to show that this view of art underlies Beckett's play, I should like to give an example from Godot of the extremely con- scious artistry of its author. I do this because such an assumption, which I have come to feel is amply justified, constitutes the working hypothesis behind this study. On page 29 of the French edition, Estragon asks Vladimir whether they are tied (and one is reminded of the rope linking Pozzo and Lucky).5 On page 32 this motif is picked up in the following dialogue: Estragon. (la bouche pleine, distraitement).

-On n'est pas lie? Vladimir.-Je n'entends rien. Estragon. (mache, avale).-Je demande si on est li6. Vladimir.-Lie? Estragon.-Lie. Vladimir.-Comment lie? Estragon.-Pieds et poings. Vladimir.-Mais a qui? Par qui? Estragon.-A ton bonhomme. Vladimir.-A Godot? Lie a Godot? Quelle idee!

Jamais de la vie! (Un temps.) Pas encore.

The stage directions at this point prescribe no liaison between pas and encore. This is a case of optional linking in French, but one might well expect the linking to be made here by Vladimir, whose language is usually quite elegant. The

1 "Samuel Beckett" in Preuves, no. 61, mars 1956, pp. 71-76.

2 The Times Literary Supplement, 10 February 1956. 3 In a penetrating study called "Drama Stripped for In-

action: Beckett's Godot" (YFS, no. 14, Winter 1954-55), Edith Kern takes a similar position when she writes of "the strong notion which it conveys of the non-existence of a personal Heavenly Father" and of Beckett's characters who "in this play glorify ... the all-surpassing power of human tenderness which alone makes bearable man's long and ulti- mately futile wait for a redeemer and which, in fact, turns out itself to be the redeemer of man in his forlornness" (pp. 46-47).

The Times Literary Supplement, 13 April 1956. 5 Samuel Beckett, En Attendant Godot (Paris: Les Editions

de Minuit, 1952). All quotations will be from this edition and will be followed immediately by the page reference.

137

"En Attendant Godot"

suggestion is that they may very well be bound to Godot, or, at the very least, that what is more linguistically consistent may prove to be exist- entially so as well before long. While this use of language to imitate ideas may, in this instance, escape the attention of many in the audience, it should not be lost on the attentive reader, and plays are written these days for the very large reading audience as much as for the relatively few who attend the theatrical performance. What is most important about this individual example, however, is that it implies a considerable degree of linguistic awareness and sophistication in the playwright and points to a more significant use of the imitative resources of language elsewhere in the play.

1. The given world: compartments, patterns, and surfaces

The starting point in Godot, the given world that is to be transformed, is less easily describable than in more naturalistic works, since, as we see it, it is already well along in the process of dis- solution. Its existence, however, is at least im- plicit in almost every line of the play, and from its scattered remnants it is not too difficult to reconstruct the original, our own surprisingly familiar modern world. This is a world in which clock time plays an extremely important part, and the clock never stops. We busily organize our activities and our rendezvous chronometrically and, like Pozzo, check our watches frequently to make sure we are in the proper temporal com- partment. Localization in space is almost as im- portant. We are Italians, Englishmen, Russians, Frenchmen, etc. If we happen to be French, reality is divided into compartments (called Departements) like Seine, Seine-et-Oise, Seine- et-Marne, etc., and we take trips to the Vaucluse. Of whatever nationality, we are constantly in a hurry, moving from one place to another, and, I suspect, we live in big crowded cities.

What kinds of people inhabit these temporal and spatial compartments? Specialists: suc- cessful business men, aristocrats, intellectuals, researchers, metaphysicians, anthropologists, medical men, nutrition experts, sanitary en- gineers, a few poets, and tremendous numbers of sports enthusiasts. A great deal of time is spent in conversation and speech making. We are very polite and usually apologize effusively after our discussions, as occasionally happens, have be- come over-heated. We believe in progress, adhere to the teachings of the Christian religion, and are generally hopeful and optimistic. We work, en- joy sex, are often gourmets, and are quite in-

terested in fashions in clothes. We believe in liberty, equality, and fraternity, are respectful of others, even our inferiors, have a veritable cult of sympathy, are charitable and selfless. We are happy, busy people with no time for loneliness, and we do not really believe in suffering, old age, or death.

2. The erosive power of art

The negative action of the artistic process operates on this world, or one that very closely resembles it, and tends to reduce it to the status of an insubstantial surface, an illusory fagade. The frequent memory failures of the various characters break the continuity of linear time, to which modern Western society is so accus- tomed. The impression is created that there is no causal relationship, nor even marked differences, between past and present, which therefore tend to merge into each other. "Mais quel samedi? Et sommes-nous samedi? Ne serait-on pas plutot dimanche? Ou lundi? Ou vendredi?" asks Estragon (22). Expressions like "Le temps s'est arrete" (59) and "hors du temps de l'etendue" (71) recur. Pozzo loses his watch and later claims that the blind have no sense of time. But perhaps the most striking instance of the collapse of past and future into an eternal present occurs on page 154:

Pozzo (soudain furieux).-Vous n'avez pas fini de m'empoisonner avec vos histoires de temps? C'est insense! Quand! Quand! Un jour, Sa ne vous suffit pas, un jour pareil aux autres, il est devenu muet, un jour je suis devenu aveugle, un jour nous deviendrons sourds, un jour nous sommes nes, un jour nous mour- rons, le meme jour, le meme instant, ca ne vous suffit pas? (Plus posement.) Elles accouchent a cheval sur une tombe, le jour brille un instant, puis c'est la nuit a nouveau. (I1 tire sur la corde.) En avant!

Another means of destroying our sense of linear or progressive time is by the introduction of the circle. Metaphorically, any return to a given starting point may evoke the idea of cir- cularity, and to this end the innumerable repeti- tions and returns to earlier phrases, motifs, and situations serve very effectively. More explicit is the reiterated stage direction "regard cir- culaire." The broken record is imitated several times in Lucky's speech, notably in the phrases "il est etabli tabli tabli" and "ce qui suit qui suit qui suit" (72) and on one occasion, thinking themselves surrounded, Vladimir and Estragon seek to escape in four different directions only to realize that there is no exit. At the beginning of act ii Vladimir is singing a round:

138

Lawrence E. Harvey

Un chien vint dans l'office Et prit une andouillette. Alors a coups de louche Le chef le mit en miettes.

Les autres chiens ce voyant Vite vite l'ensevelirent Au pied d'une croix en bois blanc Ou le passant pouvait lire:

Un chien vint dans l'office ... (96-97)

Later in the play the stage directions indicate an extraordinary circular hat-passing scene involv- ing Vladimir, Estragon, their hats, and the hat of Lucky (121-122).

Needless to say, these indications act also to create a new sense of space and to destroy the variety that localization brings with it. The phrase mentioned earlier, "Seine Seine-et-Oise Seine-et-Marne Marne-et-Oise" (73) gives the center, the Seine with Paris at its heart, then the geographical encirclement with Seine-et-Oise and Seine-et-Marne. Marne-et-Oise, completing the possible combinations, suggests a purely verbal circle, but it does more. Since it is an imaginary departement, it reinforces the notion, evoked al- ready by circularity, that space is a meaningless category. Estragon makes explicit the effective annihilation of spatial differences in the wonder- fully appropriate and poetic line, "J'ai tire ma roulure de vie au milieu des sables" (103)-fol- lowed, incidentally, by the stage direction "re- gard circulaire." The irony of the suitcase in which Pozzo carries sand from one "compart- ment" to another becomes clear in the light of this remark. Beckett, completely free, as might be expected, of the classical French fear of mixing literary genres, also uses comic vulgarity to reduce spatial variety to uniformity, as, for example, when he transforms la Vaucluse into la Merdecluse. Modern rushing and dashing about is frozen into quasi immobility, and our big cities (if this is a justifiable reconstruction) fade, like Brigadoon, into the solitude of the desolate country landscape.

Lucky, when he begins to "think," not only deflates the intellectual but at the same time satirizes into non-existence our many specialized professional and avocational categories. The dignified anthropology becomes the comical anthropometrics and is further ridiculed by the stuttering repetition of the central syllable, anthropopopometrie. In a more general way, the modern institution of the Academy that awards prizes for excellence in the various fields becomes the Acacacacademie, which by implication dis- penses caca (excrement in child language) for un-

finished research. Into a series of terms for sports-la natation, I'equitation, I'aviation- comes a neologism, la conation, and shortly la camogie, both indicating the sports of the bou- doir.6 The invasion of the modern world by strange new forms of athletics, types for all seasons and all terrains, finally gets out of hand and we have not only ice-hockey and land- hockey but water-hockey and air-hockey as well.

According to Beckett the proliferation of words in the modern world does not necessarily imply communication between people. Often the so-called dialogue between Vladimir and Estragon degenerates into two monologues. The French mania for the conference, which we share, is beautifully caricatured in the public addresses of the atomizer-carrying Pozzo. Our surface etiquette and professed respect for others is met in Godot by the verbal and physical brutality of Pozzo toward Lucky. Estragon comments on the depth of our religious beliefs when he says, as Vladimir brings up the subject of salvation and damnation, "Je m'en vais" (17). The myth of progress falls in Lucky's speech, in which we learn that man, in spite of vitamins, sanitation, penicillin, and physical education, is in the process of shrinking. It is quite significant that this shrinking dates from the time of Voltaire who stands, here, for the century that believed too naively in the dream of human progress and probably, as well, for a time of surfaces, surfaces that Beckett is out to destroy. He reduces our gourmet delicacies to carrots, black radishes, and that staple of the starvation time under the German occupation, the lowly turnip. Our sex life leads to venereal disease; our laughter is silenced in pain; our fashionable clothes turn into rags, our lithe youth into stumbling old age, and our busy lives into a solitary waiting for death. We are not free but bound to each other and Godot; we are not equal but exist in a series of compartments in the social hierarchy; even our feelings of charity and fraternity are hesitant and fearful and inspired chiefly by our own selfish needs. As for our cult of sympathy, a quality that does little to remedy human suffering, Lucky's angry kick is the best commentary.

6 Kenneth Douglas has been kind enough to point out that "Camogie also is a form of hockey: the female form of Irish hurling, a kind of primitive field hockey almost devoid of rules." It is well to note, finally, that in addition to the sexual implications of both prefixes for a French audience, the gen- eral pejorative meaning of con and its compounds like con- nerie is matched by the Irish prefix cam, which indicates error, deceit, perversity, etc., and which is used, for example, to form the word for harlot. Both terms, then, play a double role in the attack on sports.

139

"En Attendant Godot"

Of all the patterns of this given world that dis- solve in the acid-bath of Beckett's art none is more pervasive and controlling than language. Here I should like to repeat the well-known "anecdote of a Tyrolian German discussing with a Tyrolian Italian the merits of their respective languages.... The German brings the discus- sion to a close with the remark: 'You call Pferd a cavallo but it is a Pferd'!"7 Anyone who teaches a foreign language is well aware of this prevalent confusion between language and reality. Perhaps the speech of Lucky is the most obvious instance of Beckett's attack on conventional language. Here sentence and paragraph structure give way to thematic organization. Several topics de- velop in a more or less causal fashion but their progress is impeded by the periodic recurrence of a number of leit-motifs, by overlapping, and by recall of earlier stages in the development. It is quite possible to distinguish a degenerate form of our logical discourse in this speech-and this reflects the degeneration of Lucky's in- telligence-but this dynamic mode is subor- dinated to a static pattern of thematic repeti- tion, which mirrors Beckett's existential pre- occupations.

A general device for undermining the stability of the world as we know it is formal or semantic ambivalence. Estragon points out that the English say caaam instead of calme and suggests that they must be caaam people, implying naively that there may be a difference between c&aam people and des gens calmes. At another point he uses an English accent: "Oh tres bon, tres tres tres bon" (62). This is neither an interest in local color nor merely an easy way to get a laugh from the audience. It is rather a means of calling into question the reality of language. One symbol may be mistaken for the thing itself. Two, in a sense, cancel each other out and enable reality to disengage itself from language. We may be sure that the person is something more than the name when we hear Lucky's master called Pozzo, Bozzo, and Gozzo. Is the rendezvous with Godot, Godet, or Godin? Does Pozzo smoke a pipe, a bruygre, a bouffarde, or an Abdullah? What is it that he carries about with him, a vaporisateur or a pulverisateur? Estragon is also Catulle, but are his shoes black, yellow, gray, or greenish? Is the tree an arbrisseau or an arbuste? Does the divinity reign from the heights of his apathie, athambie, or aphasie? Such uncer- tainty permeates the whole play. We are asked to doubt whether one of the two crucified thieves was saved or whether both were damned. We wonder whether Godot will come or not, whether

his messenger is the same or a different boy, whether we are bound to him, whether he is kind or cruel, what will happen when and if he does come. Such a state of general uncertainty would be impossible without the prior destruction of the many conventional, and often arbitrary, patterns within the comfortable limits of which we live, and which may keep us from coming to grips with the hard reality that is the human condition. And this brings us to the next stage in the artistic process.

3. Beneath the surfaces

"... l'habitude," says Vladimir, "est une grande sourdine" (157). What then do we hear when the great mute is destroyed? At first, there is only silence, emptiness, immobility, boredom, and waiting. Soon, however, sounds begin to become audible. Listening, bent over his own watch pocket, for his lost time-piece, Pozzo hears nothing. He is joined by Vladimir and Estragon. "J'entends quelque chose," says Estragon. It is not the tic-toc of the watch, however, but the sound of the human heart. Chronometric time has been replaced by existential time.8 This movement from surface to underlying reality brings us, when space is the category, to the same obsessive vision: "Alors fous-moi la paix avec tes paysages! Parle-moi du sous-sol!" (103). In one of the most striking and significant scenes in the play, a central image is acted out by Pozzo, the image of the course of day, figuring, as it so often has, the course of man's life. Beckett signals the importance of the passage by stylizing ges- tures and language. He further sets off the lyric tone by an occasional word to be said in an es- pecially prosaic way. I1 y a une heure (il regarde sa montre, ton prosaique) environ (ton a nouveau lyrique), apres nous avoir verse depuis (il hesite, le ton baisse) mettons dix heures du matin (le ton s'eleve) sans faiblir des tor- rents de lumiere rouge et blanche, il s'est mis a perdre de son 6clat, a palir (geste des deux mains qui des- cendent par paliers), a palir, toujours un peu plus,

7 Reported by Leo Spitzer in "Language of Poetry" in Language: An Enquiry into its Meaning and Function, ed. Ruth N. Anshen (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), p. 202.

8 In order to avoid any possible misunderstanding, let me repeat here a convenient distinction, set forth by Robert Champigny in "Existentialism and the Modem French Novel" (Thought, xxxi, cxxii, Autumn, 1956), between ex- istentialist literature, in which "fundamental themes are deliberately linked to an existential philosophy" (p. 367), and existential literature which has to do with the hlnran condition and man's fate but which lacks such a direct link. This study is concerned only with the existential nature of Beckett's play.

140

Lawrence E. Harvey

un peu plus, jusqu'a ce que (pause dramatique, large geste horizontal des deux mains qui s'ecartent) vlan! fini! il ne bouge plus! (Silence.) Mais (il leve une main admonitrice)-mais, derriere ce voile de douceur et de calme (il leve les yeux au ciel, les autres l'imitent, sauf Lucky) la nuit galope (la voix se fait plus vibrante) et viendra se jeter sur nous (il fait claquer ses doigts) pfft! comme ca (l'inspiration le quitte) au moment ou nous nous y attendrons le moins. (Silence. Voix morne.) C'est comme ca que ca se passe sur cette putain de terre (60-61).

Here again, the veil is lifted for a moment and appearance gives way to reality. "Le temps s'est arrete," Vladimir had said, and, indeed, Beckett had, again and again, bent apparently linear chronometric time into the static form of the circle. "Ne croyez pas ca. Monsieur, ne croyez pas ga. (II remet la montre dans sa poche.) Tout ce que vous voulez, mais pas ca," Pozzo had replied to Vladimir (59). But Pozzo was speaking of existential time that carries man inexorably along in its swift downward trajectory. Against the monotony of the circle is set the fearful descending line that ends in the grave. Perhaps nowhere in the play is this combination of static and dynamic suggested more vividly than in Vladimir's round song. The circular pattern is interrupted, momentarily at first, when the singer comes to the lines, "Les autres chiens ce voyant / Vite, vite l'ensevelirent.... " He re- peats the two lines and goes on to complete the circle. On the second time around, however, he is stopped again. This time he repeats the two lines, then the second line again, plus bas, and the song ends in a silence and immobility ("II se tait, reste un moment immobile... ") that seems almost an imitation of the meaning evoked by the words. The surface circularity has been broken again in order to expose the terrible linear direction of man's destiny.

The manifestations of this line are many in the play. In Lucky's speech man has grown thinner, shorter, and generally smaller. Lucky himself has degenerated in his ability to dance and to think. During the course of the play all the characters find it more and more difficult to stand up. One by one Pozzo loses articles of the paraphernalia he carries with him on his journey. His whip loses its crack and he much of his confident superiority. From master and slave driver he becomes a helpless blindman led by a deaf guide. Vladimir and Estragon might at one time have been among the first to jump off the Eiffel tower. Now they would not even be allowed to go up. The sucked chicken bones are likened later to fish bones; the more you eat of

the carrot, the worse it gets. The carrot, suc- culent at least toward the tender end, is re- placed later by a radish, not a radish of the former rose-colored variety but a black one. The second pipe is always inferior to the first. In acting out his lyric scene Pozzo says, "J'ai un peu faibli sur la fin" (62). Even in details like tones of voice indicated in the stage directions, this movement is evident. At one point, Vladimir repeats, with variations, the same idea, first joyously, "te revoila," then in a neutral tone, "nous revoila," at last sorrowfully, "me revoila" (99).

A number of other aspects of the existential become apparent when the surfaces are shat- tered: fear, suffering ("L'air est plein de nos cris," says Vladimir) (157), ignorance (in Lucky's speech, "On ne sait pourquoi" is a constant refrain), man's incompatibility with his environment ("l'air et la terre faits pour les pierres," raves Lucky), unhappiness, fatigue, loneliness, need, and dreams which may imitate reality in the nightmare of falling (but which may, on the other hand, be an escape into the illusion of happiness that blinds us to the suffer- ing of our fellows). The basic biological needs, the rudimentary physical facts of existence, also take on an increased importance. (And I think it would be a mistake to believe that the play- wright brings in these elemental aspects of life with any pornographic purpose in mind or even to believe that they serve solely as comic de- vices.) Linked to all these things, and therefore in a way the most terrifying of all, into the void left by the destruction of the patterns comes thought, drawn as by a magnet toward the idea of man's fate. The dead thoughts of the past are metamorphosed into cadavers and bones in a great cemetery, which, as though magnetized itself, pulls the eye toward it. "II n'y a qu'a ne pas regarder," says Estragon. "?a tire l'oeil," replies Vladimir simply (109). Into the void too come some feelings, however mixed, of charity and fraternity, and the small hope that, aided sometimes by fear, keeps men either waiting for Godot or struggling on toward Saint- Sauveur. It is hardly Dante's "present certainty of future happiness," but it is a kind of hope nonetheless.

The void, we must agree, does not fill itself up (some may feel to overflowing) with signs of the existential without considerable assistance from the author. And the resources of Beckett's art are many-too many, in fact, to permit men- tion of more than a few here. There is, of course, the use of subject matter that is of its very

141

"En Attendant Godot"

nature existential. It is interesting in this regard to see the ambivalent attitude of the playwright toward Christianity. If, on the one hand, he belittles some of its tenets, he does, nevertheless, allow it to play a large part in Godot. Perhaps the answer, here, is that insofar as Christianity represents a habit, a conventional pattern, it makes a legitimate target for Beckett's artistic arrows. Insofar as it makes contact with the realities of the human condition and man's fate, however, it is useful and even commands his sympathy. One extreme interpretation of the play, the liberal, humanistic one, will hold that waiting around for Godot is a futile way of spending one's time; that the play glorifies in- stead compassionate fraternity; that Estragon's reactions during Vladimir's opening discussion of Christianity ("je m'en vais," "Je n'ecoute pas," "Et apres?" "Les gens sont des cons.") provide a key to the author's meaning; that Lucky's speech effectively disposes of the apathetic "Dieu personnel... a barbe blanche"; that Estragon's vision of swimming in the beautiful blue waters of la Mer-Morte is ironic, since the sea is linked not only to happiness but also to death, and utopian, since it was a youthful dream based on the artificial representation of a colored map (one more in the series of surfaces) and has never been realized; etc. The proponents of the other extreme position, the one that views En Attendant Godot as a Christian morality play, will suggest that compassionate fraternity is balanced by brutal misanthropy. They will point to the pervasive Christian symbolism; to the re- lationship between the cross and crucifixion, the talk of suicide by hanging on the undersized tree, and the physical exercise designated by the expression faire l'arbre;9 to Estragon's statement that he has always compared himself to Jesus; to his cry, "Dieu aie pitie de moi!" (129); to the analogy between Estragon and Vladimir, the two thieves crucified beside Christ, salvation and damnation, and the two messengers from Godot to man who keep, respectively, the goats and the sheep; etc.10 Each position will fail to see the satire Beckett directs against it, while utilizing his attack on its opponents as an argument in its favor."

Any satisfactory interpretation of En Atten- dant Godot, it would seem, will have to account in some way for such a clash of thesis and anti- thesis. In the above discussion, the Christian thesis may seem the stronger of the two posi- tions. However, the extreme form in which it has been stated and the confusion of Christian imagery with Christian "message" have to

some extent vitiated its arguments and pro- vided the opposition with valid objections. Beckett's ambiguous treatment of Christianity suggests that such a subject matter is simply useful as a way of bringing up the existential themes of hope, despair, death, suffering, steril- ity, sacrifice, charity, salvation, etc. The ques- tion, "Is Godot God?" is convenient as a case in point. M. Mauriac speaks of an "improbable jeu de mots." The critic of the Times writes, "That Godot himself stands for an anthropomor- phic image of God is obvious" (10 February 1956). I do believe that it is more than probable that "Godot" and "God" are related. Not only is one word contained in the other but the significant variation, "Godet ... Godot ... Godin... " (46), repeated as "Godin... Godet... Godot" (58), undermines the suf- fixes. They neutralize each other, as it were, leaving the root word, "God."'2 However, there is, no doubt, more to the question than this. The comical nature of the diminutive endings in this context tends to undermine the seriousness of the root word. Besides, the term "God" calls up a number of conventional responses that may mask the reality: the image of an old man with a beard, for example. From this point of view, even "Godot" is too precise, and "Godet" and "Godin" are needed to provide the desired dosage of uncertainty. The new convention is hardly established before it is in danger of be-

9 One is reminded of the medieval legend that tells how a branch of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, planted in the mouth of Adam after his death, grew into the tree that eventually furnished the wood for the cross.

10 The critic of the Times elaborates this view, "The ortho- doxy of this symbolism, from a Christian point of view, is obvious. The tramps with their rags and their misery repre- sent the fallen state of man. The squalor of their surround- ings, their lack of a 'stake in the world,' represents the idea that here in this world we can build no abiding city. The ambiguity of their attitude towards Godot, their mingled hope and fear, the doubtful tone of the boy's messages, repre- sents the state of tension and uncertainty in which the aver- age Christian must live in this world, avoiding presumption and also avoiding despair ... Didi and Gogo stand for the contemplative life. Pozzo and Lucky stand for the life of practical action, mistakenly, as an end in itself ... Didi and Gogo are bound to each other by something it is not absurd to call charity... their odd relationship, always tugging away from each other, but always drawn together again, is among other things an emblem of marriage" (10 February 1956).

11 Thus the Times critic writes, "What is dismissed in Lucky's speech is perhaps Liberalism, Progress, Popular Education... The Nietzschean and the Liberal hypothesis being put out of court, the Christian hypothesis is left holding the stage" (10 February 1956).

" If one wishes to seek out Christian symbols-and every word counts in this play-it would not be hard to see in this three-in-one pattern a verbal representation of the Trinity.

142

Lawrence E. Harvey

coming a stereotype and must be shaken up a bit. These two divergent interpretations of the variation on "Godot" are not really contradic- tory or mutually exclusive, for Beckett is doing two things at the same time: breaking down con- ventional ways of thinking that interpose them- selves between man and reality and evoking this reality that lies hidden behind the convention. He simultaneously attacks and utilizes the pat- terns of existence. Godot, therefore, is not the stereotype "God," but he is, at the very least, the imperfectly known reality that M. Mauriac calls " . . . une mysterieuse et imperative in- stance superieure qui rassure en quelque sorte ceux-la memes qu'elle terrifie."'3 And, inciden- tally, Godot may have a long white beard, as we learn at the end of the play. Even the original stereotype may regain the power to call up the existential, once it has been through the artistic mill.

Another device used by Beckett, so obvious that it scarcely needs mentioning, is the sym- bolic setting and props: the plateau, the country road and weeping willow, the whip, baggage, and other accessories of Pozzo and Lucky, the shoes with the non-existent stone of Estragon and the hat with the non-existent flea of Vladi- mir, the inadequate messengers from Godot to man, if they can be included under this rubric, the stage lighting, the carrots, radishes, and turnips, the rope, of course, that links Pozzo and Lucky and becomes shorter in the second act, and even the spectators inhabiting the fearful swamp beyond the footlights.

In a recent film, "Me and the Colonel," Danny Kaye says to the Colonel, "Together we'd make a hero." In Godot, there is really only

*one character, Man, but here too he is divided into two halves, the idealist or intellectual and the materialist, the man with the hat and the man with the shoes. However, Vladimir is re- flected in the mirror of Lucky, while Pozzo is the counterpart in the social order of Estragon. This may be a slight over-simplification (and I do not want to go further than Beckett in obliterat- ing individual differences), but in general I think it is a true statement. Such a cross-pairing of pairs has many interesting implications. Who is the real master? Who leads and who needs whom? Does society make materialists out of poets? And in general what are the relationships between body and mind?14

In his recent article on the language of poetry, Leo Spitzer writes of the representative potential of the number two. In such expressions as "it rains and rains," for example, " . . . language

has chosen only two links in the chain, which are called upon to represent the infinite expansion [rains and rains and rains and rains, etc.]."'5 This idea, it seems to me, explains beautifully the overall structure of En Attendant Godot with its two acts that portray two days in a long series. One act would be too few, three too many. The single repetition suffices to evoke the monoton- ous recurrence inherent in the human condition.'6 We have seen the destructive powers of one juxtaposed to one. Such juxtapositions have their positive side as well, since two specifics are enough to make possible an expansion to the universal and existential: Cain plus Abel = Pozzo or, as Estragon says, "toute l'humanite" (142), man the sufferer and the cause of suffering. In an extension of the same process, the many na- tional types doing research reduce to man seek- ing knowledge about his fate, and the various national dances to three, "La mort du lampisite," "Le cancer des vieillards," and "La danse du filet" (66). It is unnecessary for the author to in- dicate further that these in turn reduce to a single dance, the "danse macabre." The exten- sive use of repetition, recall, and parallelism, in the final analysis, calls into play this same principle. Once the basic method is well estab- lished, Beckett can even go so far as to omit

13 "Samuel Beckett" in Prevues, no. 61, mars 1956, p. 72. 14 Two examples of this correspondence of characters: in

the hat-passing scene, Vladimir ends up with the hat of Lucky, the erstwhile thinker; later Vladimir and Estragon play at being Lucky and Pozzo, and the "casting" fits the scheme of analogies (123). Pozzo and Lucky are somewhat older than Vladimir and Estragon, who, therefore, become the spectators of their own future fate. Death, of course, levels all, and in the second act extreme old age has already ob- literated many of the differences between Pozzo and Lucky. One further remark on this subject: Gogo and Didi, as Pro- fessor David Roberts, a colleague raised in China and him- self nicknamed Gogo, informs me, mean older and younger brother in Chinese. It may seem strange, therefore, to find Estragon in the superior position in the hierarchy, since he is obviously the more dependent of the two. But Pozzo likewise becomes dependent on his slave, Lucky. The irony here turns the social categories inside out. Society's superficial judgement is reversed and the intellectual guides the materialist. (This is not to say that the intellectual himself is in any way immune from satire.)

" In Language, p. 205. 16 Robert Poulet in La Lanterne Magique (Paris: Debresse,

1958) writes, "II est difficile d'expliquer pourquoi cette com6die comprend deux actes, plut6t qu'un seul ou que dix tous semblables" (p. 241). In a similar vein, Thomas Barbour in "Beckett and Ionesco" (in The Hudson Review, summer 1958) seems to feel that the second act, essentially a repeti- tion of the first act, is, therefore, less successful. Mr. Spitzer's insight, applied to Godot, would suggest on the contrary that, far from being an arbitrary appendage, the second act com- pletes a structure that harmonizes with and helps to express the essential meaning of the play.

143

"En Attendant Godot"

parts, even the essential parts, of a recurrent phrase, thereby forcing the audience into an ac- tive role in the expansion to the existential. "Tout ga, c'est des . . . " (114) remains un- finished, and the reader must fish back into his own memory for the important missing word, "mensonge" (84). From this device to the enig- matic or allusive phrase there is but a short step. Estragon says, "C'est curieux, plus on va, moins c'est bon." Vladimir replies, "Pour moi c'est le contraire ... Je me fais au gout au fur et a mesure." There is a long pause. Then Estragon asks, "C'est ga, le contraire?" (33). His question is never answered, and once again the reader must involve himself.

Beckett employs often a kind of stubborn repetition, and usually this is a signal heralding a particularly significant theme. "Pourquoi ne depose-t-il pas ses bagages?" (39, 46, 47, 48, 49) and "Vous voulez vous en debarrasser?" (49- 51: seven times in all) certainly have extra- literal implications. Suffering is involved, per- haps the question of suicide, and no doubt the Godot-man relationship, analogous to the mas- ter-slave tie that links Pozzo and Lucky. What might be called the technique of the "duet" is another means of calling attention to the exis- tential. More than ten fully-developed examples of this highly stylized use of language are scat- tered through the play. The following is a sample.

Qu'est-ce que c'est? On dirait un saule. Oii sont les feuilles? II doit &tre mort. Finis les pleurs. A moins que ce ne soit pas la saison. Ce ne serait pas plut6t un arbrisseau? Un arbuste. Un arbrisseau. (20)

The organization of conversational irregularity into a more rhythmic pattern, the brief return to normal speech, and the merging of variety into unity at the end, which relates so well to the marked tendency of the play to reduce several particulars to one general, are typical of this effort-singularly successful, it seems to me-to transmute the order of everyday reality into a new order of artistic reality. Finally, Beckett uses to his ends language that may be under- stood on two or more levels. In the climate of En Attendant Godot, everything soon begins to be caught up in the oscillation between surface patterns and the universal themes of human existence. A representative example of what hap- pens again and again is the remark of Pozzo about smoking, " . . . a fait battre mon coeur.

C'est la nicotine, on en absorbe, malgre ses precautions" (44).

4. The vacuum, the existential, and art

At this stage one might think the artist's task complete. In a sense, however, it is only begin- ning. For one thing the situation he has created is unstable. Most men are incapable of gazing at the Medusa-head for long. Estragon and Vladimir agree that thought is painful, and we are given a clear idea of the effects of Lucky's "thinking" on Pozzo. It is true that some men, like Perseus, own magic shields, but with long looking the eyes grow dim, and with the fading of what was at first vivid, boredom, or the vacuum, returns. The existential, then, is inade- quate to fill the void, and the void, perhaps be- cause it resembles death, is intolerable. Estragon says, "Rien ne se passe, personne ne vient, personne ne s'en va, c'est terrible" (70). He and Vladimir try to do something, anything, in order to "[se] donner l'impression d'exister" (117). The term "pastime" regains all the force of its literal meaning and begins to take on philosophical significance. "Ce qui est certain," says Vladimir, "c'est que le temps est long . . . et nous pousse a le meubler d'agissements ..." (135). Now what better source of materials with which to build furniture for the empty house of time than society's storehouse of patterns, con- ventions, habits? Pozzo takes out some speeches. After one, he asks, "Comment m'avez-vous trouve? Bon? Moyen? Passable? Quelconque? Franchement mauvais?" (62). He excuses him- self for his weak ending by saying that his mem- ory is defective, and one is reminded of the very important role that memory plays in this process. Estragon and Vladimir pull out various forms of etiquette: quarreling and making up, urging the departing guest to stay a little longer, the Alphonse-and-Gaston act. They are often the "magiciens" (117) of the old vaudeville stage who tell jokes like the "histoire de l'Anglais au bordel" (24) or exhume gags like the following: "Estragon (d'une voix mourante).-Mon pou- mon gauche est tres faible. (II tousse faiblement. D'une voix tonitruante.) Mais mon poumon droit est en parfait etat!" (66). The influence of Chaplin and the clown tradition is also evident in the play.17

At one point they become really rash in their attempts to fill the void and indulge in calisthen- ics, but Estragon quickly becomes fatigued. Ob-

17 See Edith Kern, p. 45; David Grossvogel, The Self- Conscious Stage in Modern French Drama (New York, 1958), p. 324; and Robert Poulet, pp. 240-241.

144

Lawrence E. Harvey

viously there must be better ways to accomplish their ends. When Pozzo and Lucky are in need of help assisting them also becomes a way of passing time. It seems that the validity of charity itself is being called into question. At second glance, however, we perceive that where philosophical discussion has led to no practical action and natural sympathy has likewise failed, playing the game in order to fill the void has at least produced results. The scepticism does not seem to be total. If there are few actions in the store- house, there is no dearth of words. The calis- thenics may be of poor utility but the duet that precedes them is quite effective:

Si on faisait nos exercices? Nos mouvements. D'assouplissement. De relaxation. De circumduction. De relaxation. Pour nous rechauffer. Pour nous calmer. Allons-y. (128)

With enough synonyms almost any pretext, however slight, will serve, for in this case verbal elaboration, sound to fill the silence, is what is needed. It is interesting to note that Estragon usually runs out of synonyms first, while Vladimir may invent a word on occasion. At one point, there is a five-page elaboration of this sort, after which Estragon comments with justifiable pride, "Ce n'etait pas si mal comme petit galop" (109). Later, when Pozzo has just dropped what is known in some circles as a "conversation stopper," Estragon becomes ir- ritated and says, "Developpez! Developpez!" (146). Even the most brutal realities of the hu- man condition can be used as materials for word-play-witness the highly stylized duet on death that extends from page 105 to page 109. Such is the distance of the created pattern from the reality it represents and such is its proximity to the lifeless, fixed form which habit has de- prived of its evocative power that it too may serve as a divertissement. The mind turns from things to words and sounds, " . . . elles chucho- tent. Elles murmurent. Elles bruissent. Elles murmurent" (105), and formulation has be- come exorcism.

In this conception of imitation and elabora- tion in which memory and imagination work together we have obviously come around to con- siderations of art, its nature and its role. It is clear that all the characters in En Attendant Godot are themselves playwrights in embryonic form and that we have many fragmentary plays

within Beckett's larger work. Nowhere is this more evident than in the following scene:

Estragon.-I1 est marrant! II a perdu sa bouffarde! (Rit bruyamment.)

Vladimir.-Je reviens. (I1 se dirige vers la coulisse.) Estragon.-Au fond du couloir, a gauche. Vladimir.-Garde ma place. (I1 sort.) Pozzo. -J'ai perdu mon Abdullah! Estragon (se tordant).-I1 est tordant (56)

Here Estragon and Vladimir constitute the theatre audience while Pozzo performs. Then, in the absence of Vladimir, Estragon calls Pozzo over, and together they watch a scene off-stage. The actor has become part of the audience. The categories have been broken up and have re- formed in a new way. Preceding this skit, we have a duet that is a signal for what is about to happen:

-Charmante soiree. -Inoubliable. -Et ce n'est pas fini. -On dirait que non. --a ne fait que commencer. -C'est terrible. -On se croirait au spectacle. -Au cirque. -Au music-hall. -Au cirque. (56)

This is one of many indications in Godot of the self-conscious nature of Beckett's art, for there is no doubt that here the characters are speak- ing for the real audience and commenting on the real author's play, a device, incidentally, that effectively forestalls any such criticisms that might be forming in the minds of the spectators.

The shifting of the roles of author, characters, and audience, the breaking of the dramatic illu- sion, as well as the sundry devices for involving the audience in the process of expansion to the existential, all seem to point to the idea that every man is an artist and that life and art are one. We have human existence in the play, and play in human existence. The one gives depth and gravity, the other pleasure and diversion. Here, for example, we see the other face of the comic, which serves not only to destroy patterns but also to fill the void with the laughter of pure enjoyment that eases anguish and relaxes ten- sion. Convention and habit, however, in their stultifying rigidity, are neither good existence nor good art. They form surfaces that mask reality without providing the "diversion, distraction, and delassement" (116) of art. They, as well as dead art, no doubt, must constantly be shat- tered and re-formed. The last scene of the play reflects this process. Estragon's trousers, which

145

"En Attendant Godot"

don't really fit him, fall down when he furnishes Vladimir with the rope of death, but they are pulled up again as they decide to go on living. Similarly, Lucky, the performer, causes pain, for he is a teacher who reveals the hard facts of the human condition. But Estragon and Vladimir want him to perform again. After all, he not only thinks; he also dances. And, as we have seen, the dance may be meaningful and the thought diverting. The dulce and utile of Horace are with us still.

The philosophical approach to literature has many advantages. The penetrating studies of the Times critic and of Edith Kern, insofar as they may tend in this direction, are proof that such an orientation can be valid and fruitful. The opposed views of Godot that emerge from the two analyses-Christian morality play versus glorification of human tenderness-suggest, how- ever, that some more comprehensive approach may be needed to account for the complexity of Beckett's work. Claude Mauriac, focusing his attention on the novels, suggests such an ap- proach when he writes, "Chaque affirmation a laquelle ils osent consentir est aussitot suivie d'une aneantissante negation" (p. 74). The present study has attempted to develop the im- plications of this statement for Godot; to find, contrary to the views of a number of critics who see in Beckett's work a kind of anti-art, a uni-

versal artistic process that may serve to explain the co-existence in the play of apparently in- compatible elements.

To consider En Attendant Godot in terms of art is by no means to divorce it from life. The dynamic mechanism that informs the play cor- responds to vital movements in human existence, and each stage represents a response to man's condition. The complacent bourgeois, tradi- tionally attacked in France by the artist, re- mains within the fabric of the given world and takes this for reality. Those who come to recog- nize the arbitrary nature of conventional pat- terns may recoil into the trap of cynicism, while some will sink in despair on contact with the void and its spectres. On the difficult way leading toward maturity, however, others will reach the precarious and painful balance achieved by the true artist, who understands the utility of con- vention and the necessity of reality. Until the final stage, which may never materialize, when divertissement becomes unnecessary, when Godot either comes or sends better messengers, the most honest and worthy posture, Beckett seems to suggest, is perhaps this lucid alternation be- tween illusion and reality, this anguishing oscilla- tion that is "Waiting."

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Hanover, New Hampshire

146