Last Saturday, I spent a couple of hours reading Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. First I thought it's just a metaphor for life and how people just wait for something (God, death, fate, circumstances) instead of actually taking their lives into their own hands. Then I thought that perhaps the play is an allegory for purgatory. Or that life is purgatory. And left it at that.
Then I went and googled it and found a Wikipedia article that my interpretation just scratched the surface. Apparently the play can mean anything from the Cold War to Freudian id/ego dynamics to Jungian archetypes to an ethics lesson. The idea I most agree with is the existential one, although apparently Beckett himself has said that Godot isn't God. (I disagree, which is funny, because I seem to think that I'm allowed to choose for myself and completely disregard the opinion of the owner of the story. For another literary reference of writer/reader disagreement, just google "is cursed child canon".)
So here are the interpretational options, according to me:
- Godot is God.
- Godot is death.
- The play is a metaphor for life.
- The play is a metaphor for life, which is suffering or purgatory.
- Everything happens inside Vladimir's head.
- Pozzo and Lucky are a metaphor for opportunities.
- Pozzo and Lucky represent every person on Earth.
- The play is represents Nietzsche's idea for eternal recurrence.
The most obvious lesson seems to be: Do it. Just do it. Don't let your dreams be dreams. Yesterday, you said tomorrow. So just do it. (A segment from the popular Shia LaBeouf meme.)
RK
