By: Azmat Ali

Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953) remains one of the most iconic literary expressions of existentialism in twentieth-century drama. According to Flynn (2006), “Existentialism is a philosophical movement that focuses on individual human freedom, choice, and existence. It holds that individuals are responsible for giving meaning to their own lives in a world that does not provide inherent purpose. The movement emphasizes subjectivity, authenticity, anxiety, and the absurd condition of human life.”

Pioneered by thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Martin Heidegger, existentialism argues that humans are born without predetermined purpose and must define their own essence through acts of will. Sartre’s proclamation that “existence precedes essence” captures this central tenet. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus describes the absurd as arising from the conflict between humanity’s search for meaning and the universe’s indifference. Heidegger, in Being and Time, asserts that human beings are ‘thrown’ into existence, embedded in inherited contexts and limitations. This thrownness means that we find ourselves in situations without ultimate ground or choice.

Originally written in French as En attendant Godot and translated into English by Beckett himself, the play carries the subtitle “A Tragicomedy in Two Acts.” Tragicomedy, as developed by John Fletcher, denotes a drama that avoids death while still touching upon tragic themes: “A tragi-comedy is not called so in respect to mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths… yet brings some near it.” Beckett’s innovation lies in fusing tragic and comic elements into a portrayal of the human condition that is both bleak and farcical.

The play is closely associated with the Theatre of the Absurd, a post-war European movement influenced by existentialist philosophy, particularly Camus’s essay The Myth of Sisyphus. Beckett’s dramatic structure reflects a world where traditional meaning is absent. The play begins arbitrarily and ends just as arbitrarily, mirroring the senselessness of life. Unlike well-made plays with coherent plots and resolutions, Waiting for Godot subverts dramatic conventions to underscore the futility and repetitiveness of human existence.

Central to the play is the act of waiting, rendered meaningless yet strangely persistent. Vladimir and Estragon wait for a mysterious figure, Godot, who never arrives. Their repetitive conversations and circular reasoning express the condition of absurdity. When Estragon says, “Nothing to be done,” he voices a resignation that typifies Camus’s absurd hero—aware of life’s futility but persisting regardless. This defiance of despair, despite the absence of meaning, aligns the characters with Camus’s concept of rebellion.

Beckett’s portrayal of existential defiance is nuanced. Unlike nihilism, which denies all meaning, Waiting for Godot affirms a paradoxical hope. Vladimir and Estragon believe that Godot will come and redeem their situation. They consider suicide but cannot go through with it. Their hesitation and dependence on the possibility of Godot’s arrival reflect an underlying conviction that life might still acquire meaning. As such, they remain figures of existential struggle rather than surrender.

The absurdity of their predicament is underscored through the cyclical structure of the play. Every day resembles the last, with minor variations. Even their decision to leave is suspended in stasis:
“Shall we go?” / “Yes.” / “[They do not move.]”
This anti-climactic closure perfectly captures the condition of existential paralysis. The recurrence of the boy messenger and the vague postponement of Godot’s arrival accentuate the sense of deferred meaning.

Time in Waiting for Godot is both ambiguous and oppressive. Events recur with only superficial changes. The characters’ memories are unreliable, and the setting remains static. Vladimir and Estragon argue over what happened the previous day, suggesting that time itself is disjointed. Beckett presents a vision of existence trapped in an eternal present, where the future (symbolized by Godot) is endlessly postponed, and the past has no coherence.

This treatment of time reflects Heideggerian existentialism, which emphasizes being-in-the-present. Valentine notes that Beckett’s interest lies neither in the past nor future but in grounding the characters in the now. This is poignantly expressed by Pozzo: “They give birth astride of a grave,” collapsing life and death into a singular temporal moment. The tree’s brief budding and return to barrenness mock any expectation of progress or regeneration.

The tension between hope and pragmatism is embodied in the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon. Vladimir seeks metaphysical meaning and clings to the hope of Godot, while Estragon focuses on immediate needs like food and rest. Their exchanges reveal a dialectic between the transcendent and the immanent, the spiritual and the bodily. Yet even Estragon participates in the shared illusion of waiting, unable to break free from the cycle.

The figure of Godot remains elusive and undefined. Some have read him as a religious symbol, others as a personification of hope or meaning. Yet Beckett deliberately avoids confirmation. Vladimir and Estragon speculate that Godot will “solve all problems,” but his identity is never clarified. The futility of waiting for an external redeemer underscores existentialist assertions that no fixed meaning or salvation will come from beyond.

Ultimately, Beckett offers no resolution. The play ends as it begins, with two men suspended between action and inaction, meaning and absurdity. This open-endedness forces the audience to share in the characters’ uncertainty. Yet, in their continued waiting, Vladimir and Estragon affirm a minimal form of agency. They persist. They endure. As Camus writes, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” In Beckett’s universe, this happiness lies not in fulfillment but in the shared struggle against absurdity.

Waiting for Godot thus functions as both a philosophical inquiry and a theatrical experiment. It strips life to its bare essentials—time, dialogue, companionship, suffering—and presents an existence devoid of guarantees. Yet even in its bleakness, the play reveals a quiet resilience: a refusal to capitulate entirely to despair. Through repetition, irony, and emptiness, Beckett invites us to confront the absurd not with resignation, but with a persistent, if fragile, hope.

Azmat Ali is a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

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References:

Beckett, S. Waiting for Godot. French original 1952; English trans. E. Seaver, 1964.
Camus, A. (1942). The Myth of Sisyphus. (Tr. J. O’Brien, 1955).
Heidegger, M. (1927). Being and Time. (T. Stambaugh, trans. 1927).
Karalı, Ş. N. (2013). The Elements of Jean-Paul Sartre’s Existentialism in Samuel Beckett’s Five Plays: Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape, Play, Not I [Senior thesis, Boğaziçi Univ.].
Sartre, J.-P. (1943). Being and Nothingness. (H. Barnes, trans. 1956).
Valentine, J. (2009). “Nihilism and the Eschaton in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.” Florida Philosophical Review, 9(2), 136–149.
Erdem, İ. (2025). “Godot as the Divided Self: Waiting for Godot while Godot Has Already Been on the Stage.” Journal of International Social Research, 18(120), 1–6.