Posted by K on November 24, 19102 at 15:19:02:
I've just read a great book on Godot, I can't remember the author's name, but it was published in 2001, and details the various important productions of godot, including the san quentin production and beckett's own direction of the play.
some things i've found out in my research that may help you or perhaps cause you a coronary, who knows...
"gogo" and "didi" are very similar to the chinese words for big brother and little brother, respectively. there is a word in chinese which sounds sort of similar to godot, but i think that would be stretching it a bit- the word is "gai dao" and means "a change in the path". however, i can find no evidence that beckett knew any chinese. the names may also come from their longer names- vla-DI-mir and estra-GO-n. apparently, estragon in the original draft was supposed to be jewish, and had a very stereotypical jewish name that escapes me at the moment.
gogo and didi need each other- didi remembers more than gogo does but doesn't trust his memory.
lucky is perhaps lucky because he does not carry the burden of having to think for himself. gogo and didi have the choice to end their lives, and can't decide, and pozzo can't decide whether he wants to get rid of lucky.
lucky's speech is, i think, merely his attempt to get pozzo to keep him...he would like very much to impress pozzo. a lot of the names in the speech are complete nonsense, and beckett himself said that "fartov and belcher" are derived from the english words "fart" and belch".
"godot", in my opinion, merely represents "something". the characters of this play are surrounded by nothingness, and meaninglessness. i think that complex explanations of "godot" are counterproductive to what the play strives to do: avoid complexity, avoid clarifications and meaning.
beckett has said that gogo and didi are the same characters from endgame, and that they somewhat represent he and his wife, susanna. in the war, beckett and his wife spent much time hiding out, waiting for the fighting to be over.
as to the question of whether godot is a tragic comedy, i don't see how there can be a question about it. this play is humanity at its most broken and pitiful, especially in the last few pages of dialogue. yet this is truly one of the funniest play ever written. it's the same dual-image of a clown...they can be happy and fun, but there's something depressed and frightening about them.
one of the most important concepts in this play is that of timelessness. the second act is supposed to take place the next day, but pozzo and lucky have become much older, while gogo and didi haven't suffered much change. it is the next day for gogo and didi, but it is years later for pozzo and lucky.
does anyone have any thoughts on who is beating estragon, and why the boy's brother gets beaten?
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