How much do the characters in Waiting for Godot actually know?

Question

*Waiting for Godot* obviously never actually explicitly says who Godot is or exactly why the characters are waiting for him. How much do the characters know themselves? For example, do they even know who Godot is or why it's important to wait for him, or do they just know that they're supposed to wait? Is there good literary analysis on this point?

Answer 1

Oh gosh. There's so much to unpack here.

Something to keep in mind about Waiting for Godot: the point of the play is not the "for Godot," but the "waiting." Godot is not actually that important. Anyone who says Godot is God didn't understand the paralyzing fear these characters feel about missing him. Does it matter who Godot is? Not really.

However, I have read that Martin Esslin (and this is a very old scholar, but still) believed that Waiting for Godot really is about FOMO. He didn't use those exact words, obviously, but he says Vlad and Estragon are worried about missing Godot more than they worry about what they will say to him when he arrives. The paralyzing fear of not knowing is a major theme in the play, because Vlad and Estr don't even know whether they are beside a bush or a tree or a stump. Estragon jokes about drinking the Dead Sea pictured in a Bible. These characters are extremely dumb.

Epistemically, this play acknowledges a strange disconnect between the characters and the audience. When the characters contradict one another, and the stage, and by extension the audience-- that is when the audience has to, alternatively, connect to the characters. No one knows anything in this play for two full hours. So the audience is also sitting, waiting for an answer that doesn't arrive. That's why people go crazy for Beckett-- he makes them feel very smart after they've sat stupid for two hours.

Also, if you have a chance, you may understand this play more if you read Endgame, also by Beckett.

If anyone has more contemporary scholars, feel free to add them. But Esslin is a decent place to start; he's a meticulous scholar and cite-er.