On the surface Waiting for Godot is a hopeless play and was summed up by Jean Anouilh

'Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it is terrible'. However, Waiting for Godot is also a play primarily about hope in a hopeless situation. The act of waiting for hope to arrive. The subject of the play quickly becomes an example of how to pass the time in a situation which offers no hope. Beckett's meaning of existence therefore revolves around hope, hopelessness and chance. He uses various concepts and objects to represent tis ideas such as the hat, the tree, the boots and the bible.

The meaning of the human life is an unanswerable question as it varies from person to person. Existentialism is an idea raised in this play, that is a theory emphasising the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining his or her own development. The underlying premise of Waiting for Godot is that chance is the determining factor behind existence and thus human life is controlled by chance. This notion is established early on in the play when Vladimir mentions the parable of the bible.

V: I'm beginning to come round to that opinion.

We would think that both Vladimir and Estragon would have died from oppression as to the reader their situation is totally hopeless. However, throughout the play Vladimir and Estragon both remain cheerful and seek distraction in their pointless activities. Beckett is trying to show that humans try to ignore and remain oblivious to their conditions. In a sense Vladimir and Estragon, being double negatives become a positive. This is where the humorous element of the play enters. Both tramps try to distract on another from the endless wait by arguing over very petty and pedantic topics. They even contemplate suicide but cannot decide who should go first. They do this to try to forget the fact that they are waiting for something and the fact that they do not know when it is the thing they are waiting for will arrive, if ever.

life into something that is worthless and is played with by luck and fortune. Beckett uses

A similar episode occurs later with the boy, a servant of Mr Godot. The boy claims never to have seen either Vladimir or Estragon before and he does not remember one day from the next. The boy is important as he is the only link that the two men have with Godot but in both Acts the boy serves the same purpose. He tells Vladimir and Estragon that Godot will not becoming today but will surely come tomorrow, thus signalling hope, giving them something, a reason to wait.

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1568
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)