摘 要

《等待戈多》是一部荒诞派戏剧，萨缪尔·贝克特因此获得诺贝尔文学奖。该戏剧所传达的究竟是绝望还是希望却一直备受人们的关注。这部戏剧以荒诞的戏剧形式表现了西方世界二战后人们的精神荒原，但并不因此就能说明这部戏剧是高度悲观的了。笔者认为在这部戏剧中，绝望与希望是共存的，片面地将这部作品的归为高度悲观或者高度乐观，都太过极端。本文将首先通过分析人物——埃斯特拉贡的绝望，人物关系的荒诞以及痛苦的等待来论述剧本中表现出的绝望；其次，通过分析人物——弗拉基米尔的转变，同伴的支持以及等待中的希望来论述剧本中表现出的希望；最后，系统论述绝望与希望的关系，并且基于萨缪尔·贝克特的性格和存在主义这一哲学基础，论述作者塑造这两大主题的倾向性。由此得出这样的结论：绝望与希望是这部戏剧的两大主题，并且绝望与希望密不可分，但要从绝望中看到希望。

关键词: 绝望, 希望, 等待

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………1 2. Demonstration…………………………………………………………………….2

2.1. Despair in Waiting for Godot…...……………………………............................2

2.1.1. Despair in Estragon................................................................…..…………….3

2.1.2. The absurd interpersonal relationship in the drama........................................ .5

2.1.3. The desperate waiting........................................................................................6

2.2. Hope in Waiting for Godot……….......……………………………....................7

2.2.1. Hope conveyed from the transformation of Vladimir… .……………............7

2.2.2.Hope conveyed from the support of friends in the drama………………..........8

2.2.3.Hope conveyed from waiting...………………………………………………...9

2.3. The relationship between despair and hope .........................................................9

2.3.1. The Inseparable relevance between despair and hope.......................................10

2.3.2.The inclination of Samuel Beckett to despair and hope.....................................10

3. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..11

Notes………………………………………………………………………………..13

Works Cited………………………………………………………………………....14

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………...15

Despair and Hope in Waiting for Godot

1. Introduction

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), an Irish-born novelist and a playwright, is one of the great representatives of Absurd Theatre. Knowlson points out that Beckett achieves no real success as a writer until he is in his mid-forties. Before the war, his essay Proust (1931) and his short stories More Pricks than Kicks (1934) are badly sold. His poems first appear in literary magazines and later appear only in a small private press. His novel, Murphy, is rejected by more than 40 publishers two years before it is published. His novel Trilogy, Molloy, Marlon meurt and L'Innommable, are successful in postwar France. Beckett's creative experience in his life is marked by Waiting for Godot in 1952. This play tells the story of two tramps in the country road waiting for a man names Godot day after day. They talk incoherently and do some boring actions to pass time. Pozzo and Lucky appear, after they left, the messenger tells two tramps that Godot would not come today, tomorrow would come.

When this play comes out, there are countless scholars interpreting the play. Public opinion on the play can be divided into two major schools. At home, Ma Haibo analyzes its absurd nature and its meaningless life from three aspects under the basis of Marx's theory of literature and art in the thesis “Reality in the Absurdity--A Study of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot”. Wang Xiaohua compares Waiting for Godot with the Chinese drama Station, and comments that its main idea is not merely a negative meaning, not merely an expression of the suffering and hopelessness of human existence in “Hope Gained from Hopeless Waiting --A Comparative Study of Waiting for Godot and The Bus Stop”. He Yi explores hope in Waiting for Godot from four aspects. He thinks that Waiting for Godot has positive and purify spirit for the later generations in the thesis “A Gleam of Hope in Nothingness--The Interpretation of Waiting for Godot”. From the literature abroad, Linda-Ben-zvi in Samuel Beckett analyzes the play, holding that the two vagrants of the drama, despite the presence of their bodies, they can not determine who they are, as they are trying to wear the hat of Lucky, which is a reflection of their quest for self - identity, but that search is futile. Camus describes this absurd image as the separation of man from his own life and the separation of actors and stage in The Myth of Sisyphus. Ackerley’s paper “‘Do Not Despair’: Samuel Beckett and Robert Greene” describes an interesting theory about two thieves, which corresponds two thieves to the two protagonists in the drama, expressing the companion relationship in the drama.

In 1969, Beckett was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, for Waiting for Godot, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—makes modern man acquire elevation in the poverty of spirit. This paper bases on the existing research results home and abroad, takes Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot as the main research object. The innovation of this paper is that the two themes of despair and hope will be discussed together and these two contents would not be separated. In addition, the article will explore the relationship between two themes and the inclination of Samuel Beckett to these two themes. This paper will analyze the despair and hope conveying in the play separately. The two parts will explore the two themes from three small parts, which will be formed contrast separately. Finally, by analysing the character of Samuel Beckett and existentialism, the relationship between the two and Samuel Beckett’s tendency towards them will be explored.

1. Demonstration
   1. The despair in Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot reveals the absurdity of mankind after World War II with absurd artistic techniques. The play reflects the spiritual plight of people after World War II, which is one of the themes of the play. The individual is out of touch with his living environment, and his actions and emotions all have no effect on his environment. Life only shows the original colour--gray, and the world here only presents a cold, unfamiliar face. Mankind lacks hope for the future world. Waiting for Godot is an image of this sense of despair.

2.1.1 The despair in Estragon

The absurdity and despair of the characters is the absurd performance of this drama and a microcosm of the actual situation. Estragon is relatively weak in the play, and at night he is often beaten by a group of people. The topics he mentions in the play are always boots-related, and in the play he has been trying to take off his boots. The boots are linked to the ground, no wonder Estragon always concerned about the physical existence, always caring about the problem of eating and sleep. He asks for radishes, carrots and other vegetables to chew on from time to time. He is even envious to the chicken bones that Pozzo drops. He feels tired at every turn, and falls asleep as soon as he is able to, and would start a dream in the twinkling of an eye. He is afraid of the night, when it is night, he would propose to go; he is not interested in transcendental Godot, lacking the patience of waiting, always muttering to leave. He also do not respond to the topic of the Bible, salvation, sympathy and so on.