Theme Of Uncertainty in Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot is one of the most prominent plays in the genre of Theatre of the Absurd. It was written by Samuel Beckett in 1952. The play is often referred to as a tragic comedy in two acts. It is about two tramps Vladimir and Estragon who are waiting for a character named Godot with whom they think they might have an appointment. Waiting for Godot portrays the absurdity of human life in a comic form. Uncertainty is one of the most prominent themes in this play. It can be seen in the play’s setting, plot, characters, time and action.

Waiting for Godot is set in an unknown location. The setting is described merely as a country road with a bare tree in the background. The uncertainty of location is also not resolved by the characters who are as much at a loss about their location as the audience. They are not sure where they are and whether it is the place where they are supposed to be.

            “Estragon :- You’re sure, it was here?

            Vladimir :- What?

            Est:- That we were to wait?

            Vl :- He said by the tree. Do you see any others?”

This problem remains unsolved throughout the play, maintaining the theme of uncertainty.

The plot of the play is non consequential. The events that take place and the actions performed by the characters do not lead to any proper consequence. Vladimir and Estragon engage themselves in various activities such as tugging at boots, eating carrots or even contemplating to hang themselves without any definite purpose. They perform these activities merely to relieve boredom and pass the time while they wait for Godot. Their words often do not correspond to their actions. Several times during the play, they say – “Let us go” but nobody moves. The uncertainty about what they are supposed to do is clearly stated by Estragon at the very beginning of the play- “Nothing to be done.” Such a statement at the beginning of a play no doubt intrigues the audience or the reader who becomes aware that several unknown incidents may take place in the course of the play. But Waiting for Godot is unique because of the fact that the characters actually do nothing throughout the play. Thus, it is not only the audience or the reader but also the characters themselves who remain unsure about the actions that may have taken place or should have taken place, thus maintaining the theme of uncertainty in the play through its plot and actions.

The characters of the play and their conversations also contribute to the theme of uncertainty in the play. The two tramps Vladimir and Estragon remain unsure about their actions, why and for whom they are waiting. Vladimir mentions several times that they are waiting for Godot. But neither of them has ever seen him. They are unaware of who he is or what he looks like. The character of Godot itself is undetermined as he does not appear in the play and it remains uncertain if he will ever come or if he exists at  all. Two other characters, Pozzo and Lucky, also appear in the play. However the purpose of their appearance and their contribution to the plot remains unclear. Vladimir and estragon merely continue to wait after Pozzo and Lucky leave. Towards the end of both acts another character appears – a boy who carries a message from Godot. Although the same boy appears in both the scenes, he insists that he never saw Vladimir or Estragon before. This further heightens the uncertain nature of his identity.

The dialogues in this play are extremely incoherent, bordering on meaningless. The conversations between the characters do not follow any logical sequence. They begin with one topic and drift off to another without realizing. There is the use of a lot of repetitions giving the impression that they come back to the same point where they began, only to drift off towards another topic. This reflects the uncertainty in their state of being. They are unsure if they are doing the right thing or not, whether they should continue to wait or leave. But at the same time they are unable to leave as they are constantly reminded of the fact that they have to wait for Godot.

Finally, the theme of uncertainty is seen in the representation of time in the play. Vladimir and estragon do not know when and how long they are supposed to wait.

Vladimir:- He said Saturday. I think.

Estragon:- You think.

Vladimir :- I must have made a note of it.

Estragon:- But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? It is not rather Sunday? Or Monday? Or Friday?

The continuity of time is also uncertain in the play. In the second act, Vladimir insists that it is the next day. But the tree has four or five leaves indicating a change of season. Therefore, how much time has actually passed between the two acts remains unclear.

Thus it is seen that the theme of uncertainty runs throughout the play and is manifested through the setting and plot, the characters and their actions, the language of the play and the time. The uncertain nature of the play has successfully captured the absurdity of human life that Beckett has endeavoured to portray in Waiting for Godot.

English in India and Indian Literature in English : The Early History, 1579-1834 | Vinay Dharwadker | Summary

In this essay the author is trying to trace the roots of the English language in India and the beginnings of Indian writing in the English language. The author focuses on the factors which influenced the literate bilingual Indians to adopt the language and start writing in English. He identifies the social zones of interracial contact which were the catalysts in the process of acculturation of Indians to the British and their language.

The history of English in India begins two decades before the initiation of the East India Company. Father Thomas Stephens, a Roman Catholic escapee, studied Indian languages. He wrote the Christian Purana, a mixed Marathi-Konkani version of the Gospel. It was published posthumously in Goa in 1640. Stephens however did not produce any English text with the intention of publication. A letter written by Father Estavam (as Stephens came to be known locally) was found by Richard Hakluyt and published in The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589) which is the first representation of an Englishman’s actual experience in India. Ralph Fitch was a British merchant whose collection of letters and journals were also published in Hakluyt’s extended version The principal navigations: voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation (1599-1600) and this is the first account of an Englishman’s personal experience which was produced for a reading public. Stephens and Fitch represent the two important classes of historical agents- the missionary and the merchant, whose influence continues throughout the period of development of English in India. Between 1580’s and 1780s, a substantial amount of literature containing the Englishman’s experience in the Indian subcontinent was recorded in manuscript or in print. These were written predominantly in three genres – the personal letter, the epistolary eyewitness account and the formal travel narrative.

Around the year 1660, the East India Company began to prosper and a large number of British people came to live and work in India. The resultant interaction between the British and Indians gave rise to four primary zones of interracial contact and acculturation. These are – the zone of employment, the zone of marriage and family, the zone of religious conversion, and the zone of friendship and social relations. These zones facilitated the flow of English language from its native speakers to a group of potential Indian users whom the author refers to as the literate Indian multi-linguals.

Starting in the 1660s hundreds of Indians sought employment in the British factories as record keepers, translators etc. There was a section of literate multilingual Indians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries known as dubhashis. They were learned in Portuguese, Dutch, French and English as a result of interactions with the European traders. The East India Company employed these dubhashis as intermediaries between company officials and local markets. By the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the dubhashis occupied two types of position- first, as multilingual interpreters between the Englishmen and common Indians as well as Mughal bureaucrats, and second, as personal agents and managers to individual company officials. The personal agents were called baniyas. Moreover the dubhashis trained as scholars were hired as assistants and native informants for colonial administrators – scholars and Orientalist scholars. Historically, the dubhashis can be considered as the first Indians to be literate in English. From the early eighteenth century, Indians found employment as domestic servants for British households and soldiers in the company’s army. However after 1835 the dubhashis gave way to modern Indian middle class professionals who were formally educated in English. The earliest Indian writers in English – Din Muhammad, C.V. Boriah, and Raja Ram Mohan Roy were products of the zone of employment.

Although English women started travelling to the Indian subcontinent as early as 1617, the number of English men exceeded that of the women. Due to the church’s prohibition against Englishmen marrying non Christians, they sought alternative means. They married the daughters or widows of men of Portuguese or other nationalities, Indian women converted to Christianity etc., and, a few took Indian mistresses. The children of these marriages were brought up as Christians and they experienced a mix of both European and Indian cultures. Therefore they learned English as well as native Indian languages. The zone of marriage and family is responsible for the production of a number of significant Indian writers in English including Henry Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Anita Desai, Dom Moraes etc.

The influence of Christian missionaries in the Indian society and the conversion of Indians to Christianity is defined by the zone of religious conversion. This zone appeared in the early sixteenth century with Catholic missions in Portuguese India and Protestant missions in other parts of the subcontinent. However the east India Company prohibited missionary activities in its territory until 1813 due to the disturbances it caused in the Indian society. However after its removal British missionaries flourished in colonial India. The Indians who converted to Christianity acquired literacy in European languages and became accultured to western lifestyles. The zone of religious conversion combined with the zone of marriage and family produced the major Indian writers of the nineteenth century including Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Govin Chunder Dutt, and his brother Girish, his daughters Toru and Aru, and Pandita Ramabai Saraswati.

In the second quarter of the eighteenth century, there emerged the zone of friendship and social relations where British and Indian men developed closed relations based on mutual dependence and indebtedness. These relations include the close ties between young company officials and their dubhashis and the European scholars and their Indian assistants and collaborators. This zone was helpful for the Indian writers in achieving a deeper acculturation to European ways which influenced their writing and is reflected in their works. However it is important to note that these four zones of acculturation benefitted only those sections of Indians who were already learned in multiple Indian languages which helped them to acquire European languages including English at a faster pace.

Din Muhammad, C.V. Boriah and Ram Mohun Roy are considered to be the first Indian writers in English. The lives of these writers were greatly affected by the four zones of acculturation. Din Muhammad belonged to a family with diverse religious and cultural history which served the Mughal rulers before the British. Din Muhammad himself became a camp follower to Godfrey Evan Baker at the age of eleven. With this kind of close association he was able to learn to speak, read and write in English. This level of acculturation also helped him when he moved to Ireland and published his book The Travels of Dean Mahomet in 1794 which is the first text written in English by a man of Indian origin. Similarly, Boriah and Roy’s lives were also influenced by close relations with the British. Boriah was a dubhashi and later became a field assistant to Colonel Colin Mackenzie. Ram Mohan Roy was born in a Bengali Brahmin family. In 1804 he joined the company’s Revenue department. He acquired most of his knowledge about the English language and European culture while working with the company.

The multi-lingual efficiency that these writers possessed allowed the interaction of several pre colonial as well as non colonial elements within the zones of contact. This phenomenon is reflected in their writings as well as in all other Indian writing in English, and this is what differentiates this genre from British literature about India. After analyzing these various socio cultural factors the author comes to the conclusion that Indian writing is not a homogeneous entity and that colonialism cannot be asserted as the only origin of Indian writing in English. 

Social mobility in Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge

England in the later part of the eighteenth century underwent the social effects of the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution opened up several possibilities to the lower classes of society to earn money in the form of technical or clerical jobs that required education and training thus enabling them to rise in social standing. This resulted in a surge of upward mobility in the society as the middle and upper middle classes rose to power mostly through education and occupation.  Family lineage was no longer a requirement to belong to the genteel class and along with this the necessity of strong moral character in a gentleman became questionable. Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge is set in such a time. The events in the novel take place in a small town called Casterbridge in the Wessex region of England. The town is chiefly agricultural but is slowly beginning to show the signs of industrialization such as the use of machinery and scientific methods. As such it provides prospects of upward social mobility in the form of business and administration. The novel is a poignant account of the tragic life of Michael Henchard. The concept of social mobility is constantly intertwined with the tragic events of Henchard’s life. Apart from Henchard several other characters in the novel also display the desire or aptitude to move up the social ladder either through money, skill, or education.

The Mayor of Casterbridge is the highest social position that is accessible to the characters in the novel and we see two characters- Michael Henchard and Thomas Farfrae rise to the post through different means and circumstances. The novel begins with twenty one year old hay trusser Michael Henchard walking along a dusty road with his tool basket in his arm and his wife Susan and baby daughter Elizabeth Jane walking alongside him. They go to a fair where in a drunken state Henchard ends up selling his wife and daughter to a Sailor named Newson for a sum of five guineas. The next morning he realizes his mistake and swears never to drink alcohol for twenty one years. He then goes to the town of Casterbridge in search of a job. He takes up a corn dealing business which gradually grows into a successful one and along with this his respect and position in society also move upwards. He becomes a member of the town council and eventually rises to the position of the Mayor. Henchard used “his one talent of energy to create a position of affluence out of absolutely nothing”. As a Mayor he is very aware of his position and the respect he commands. All through these years he has carefully kept the incidents of his past life a secret so that it does not interfere with his present rise in situation. He is also very conscious of the mannerisms of the people he is associated with. After he remarries Susan, he realizes that Elizabeth Jane, having been brought up in a seaside cottage, is not up to date with the kind of genteel behavior expected from the daughter of a Mayor.  He reproaches her in anger and she leaves the house. The downfall of Henchard begins when he starts growing jealous of his more talented and educated manager Thomas Farfrae. His jealousy mounts to such an extent that he fires Farfrae. Farfrae then starts his own business and the rivalry intensifies. Henchard’s term as Mayor being over he still held the position of a magistrate in the town council. But his endeavors to beat Farfrae in business leave him bankrupt. His business and property is auctioned and Farfrae buys it and employs Henchard as a laborer in his business.  Meanwhile his past sins are also revealed. Thus Henchard loses not only his higher social status but also the dignity and respect associated with it or with his personality itself. Henchard’s journey beginning from a hay trusser, rising to a Mayor and falling to a common laborer is captured by Hardy in the following words. “Then he had worn clean, suitable clothes, light and cheerful in hue; leggings yellow as marigolds, corduroys immaculate as new flax, and a neckerchief like a flower-garden. Now he wore the remains of an old blue cloth suit of his gentlemanly times, a rusty silk hat, and a once black satin stock, soiled and shabby.” “And thus the once flourishing merchant and Mayor and what not stood as a day laborer in the barns and granaries he formerly had owned.” In the end of the novel Henchard leaves Casterbridge and takes up the profession of a hay trusser once again, thus going back to the point where he began.

Donald Farfrae’s journey reflects upward social mobility through education, skill and hard work. In the beginning of the novel he is an enthusiastic young man educated and trained in the latest scientific developments and on his way to America to try his fortune. He meets Henchard in Casterbridge who is impressed by the young man’s talent and employs him as the manager of his business which at that point of time was going through a difficult phase. With his advanced knowledge he implements newer scientific methods and recover’s Henchard’s business. His management skills and charming personality soon make him the talk of the town. After Henchard fires him he starts his own business and succeeds tremendously. For all of Henchard’s jealously Farfrae never bears any ill will towards him and always treats him with the respect he deserves. Eventually his respect in society increases and he becomes a member of the town council. Finally he is appointed the Mayor of Casterbridge, a position that he truly deserves. Thus Farfrae climbs the social ladder with the help of skill and maintains his position with his strong moral character.

In case of women, social mobility solely depends on inheritance of money or higher position in society acquired through marriage. However in order to be married to ‘gentlemen’ they must also belong to a certain level of gentility. This is seen in the three important female characters in Mayor of Casterbrige- Susan Henchard, Elizabeth Jane and Luccetta Templeman. After Susan Henchard comes back to Casterbridge she takes up lodging in The Three Mariners inn which is the most that she can afford. But after meeting Henchard and deciding to marry, he sets her up in a cottage to give her the image of a gentlewoman before he can actually proceed to marry her. Meanwhile he pays off his erstwhile mistress Luccetta. But after Susan’s death Luccetta arrives in Casterbridge as a gentlewoman. She has inherited a sum of money from a dead aunt, and now calls herself Miss Templeman, and takes up residence in High Place Hall. She also conceals her past social position and her relationship with Henchard. Her newly acquired inheritance is the sole factor that makes her an interesting prospect for marriage with attracts not only Henchard but also Farfrae lending another cause to their already existing rivalry. Eventually Luccetta marries Farfrae and rises to the genteel position of the Mayor’s wife. However her past relationship with Henchard is exposed in a public display of effigies and she dies of shock.

Elizabeth Jane is the only character in the novel who displays a conscious effort to gain better social standing through education and by refining her manners. As her newly achieved position as the step daughter of the Mayor she is aware of her expectations. She tries to increase her knowledge by reading lots of books on various subjects and improve her appearance by wearing clothes of the latest style. However she cannot help but utter colloquial language in her conversations which irritates Henchard. She is also not capable of writing in a long hand as is expected of genteel ladies. That is why she leaves her house to stay with Miss Templeman in hopes of better exposure to a genteel lifestyle. Initially she is courted by Farfrae but Henchard forbids it. Farfrae’s subsequent rise in fortune and the arrival of Miss Templeman completely negates this prospect from Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s prospects for a genteel marriage are also negated by the declined social position of Henchard. However after Mrs. Farfrae’s death Elizabeth does end up marrying Farfrae and thus rises to her well deserved position as the wife of the Mayor of Casterbridge.

This novel highlights the fact that social mobility in case of the lower and middle classes comes with its associated expectations. The aristocracy commands respect regardless of its skills or morals. The lower and middle classes on the other hand have to earn this respect through perseverance or rise to a respectable status by earning or inheriting large sums of money. Through Mayor of Casterbridge Hardy shows that social mobility for the progressive classes is ephemeral. It is very difficult to climb the social ladder but at the same time it is also very easy to slide down the ladder at the slightest misfortune.