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2.SUMMARY OF "WAITING FOR
GODOT"
Two tramps , Vladmir and Estragon, are waiting for a certain
Godot next to a tree near a road. They are visibly in a desperate
position: they are hungry (all they have for food is a carrot
and a turnip), they are shabbily and uncomfortably dressed
(Estragon's boots, which are too small for his feet, hurt
him, and his pants are so large that they sometimes fall off
without him realizing), they have no shelter (at night they
sleep in a ditch), and at one time they contemplate committing
suicide (they only decide against it because they are afraid
one of them might survive the attempt). Indeed, their sight
on stage, one can imagine, is pitiful. A stage direction in
one instance describes them as being "motionless, arms
dangling, heads sunk, sagging at the knees" (9). Their
only salvation from this condition of despair, they hope,
lies in the coming of Godot, about which they are uncertain;
and even if he were to come they are not sure of what he
would offer them. Both Acts One and Two, which comprise the
play, end with the messenger from Godot informing them that
he is not coming that day, but that he would "certainly"
come the next day.
"WAITING
FOR GODOT" AS AN ANTI-CHRISTIAN TEXT
That WAITING FOR GODOT is an anti-Christian text is evident
from the very beginning of the play. Vladimir, the more
reflective and philosophical of the pair, has closely read and
rigorously analyzed the gospels on the subject of salvation,
probably to see if he and Estragon have any chance of being
saved from the drudgery of their lives by the coming of Godot.
His focus of study is the two thieves who were crucified with
Christ. One of the thieves, Vladimir tells Estragon, "is
supposed to have been saved and the other damned" (9).
By mathematical logic, this gives the two characters fifty percent
chance of being saved, a percentage which is abundant for the
skeptical Vladimir. His skepticism is, however, aggravated by more
mathematical logic: "How is it that of the four evangelists
only one speaks of a thief being saved. The four of them were
there — or thereabout — and only one speaks of the thief
being saved.... One out of four" (9). This logic then further
reduces the percentage of the chance of salvation to twenty
five. Even worse, however, Vladimir says that "of the other
three, two don't mention any. thieves at all and the third says
that both of them abused him" (9). This, for Vladmir, dashes
any hope of salvation, for the percentage has been reduced to
almost null.
Clearly, Vladimir
does not approach the Bible from a Christian world view, which
holds the Bible to be "inspired, inerrant, and authoritative"
(Bruce L. Edwards and Branson L. Woodward, Jr. 303). Rather,
for Vladimir, the Bible is just like any other text whose "truth
" must be tested by logic. In this case, Vladimir has found
the "truth" of the Bible to be fallible, hence the
anti-Christian stance of the play.
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