Role of Pozzo and Lucky in Waiting for Godot
Pozzo and Lucky plays significant role in Becket’s Waiting for Godot. Together they represent the antithesis of each other. They are strongly and irrevocably tied together both physically and metaphysically. Any number of polarities could be used to apply to them. If Pozzo is the master and father figure, then Lucky is the slave or child. If Pozzo is the circus ringmaster, then Lucky is the trained or performing animal. If Pozzo is the sadist, Lucky is the masochist. Or Pozzo can be seen as the Ego and Lucky as the Id. An inexhaustible number number of polarities can be suggested. Pozzo appears on stage after the appearance of Lucky. They are tied together by a long rope; thus, their destinies are fixed together in the same way that Pozzo might be a mother figure, with the rope being the umbilical cord which ties the two together. Everything about Pozzo resembles our image of the circus ringmaster. If the ringmaster is the chief person of the circus, then it is no wonder that Vladimir and Estragon first mistook him for Godot or God. Like a ringmaster, he arrives brandishing a whip, which is the trademark of the professional. In fact, we hear the cracking of Pozzo's whip before we actually see him. Also, a stool is often associated with an animal trainer, and Pozzo constantly calls Lucky by animal terms or names. Basically, Pozzo commands and Lucky obeys. In the first act, Pozzo is immediately seen in terms of this authoritarian figure. He lords over the others, and he is decisive, powerful, and confident. He gives the illusion that he knows exactly where he is going and exactly how to get there. He seems "on top" of every situation. When he arrives on the scene and sees Vladimir and Estragon, he recognizes them as human, but as inferior beings; then he condescendingly acknowledges that there is a human likeness, even though the "likeness is a n imperfect one." This image reinforces his authoritarian god-like stance: we are made in God's image but imperfectly so. Pozzo's superiority is also seen in the manner in which he eats the chicken, then casts the bones to Lucky with an air of complete omnipotence. In contrast to the towering presence exhibited by Pozzo in Act I, a significant change occurs between the two acts. The rope is shortened, drawing Pozzo much closer to his antithesis, Lucky. Pozzo is now blind; he cannot find his way alone. He stumbles and falls. He cannot get along without help; he is pathetic. He can no longer command. Rather than driving Lucky as he did earlier, he is now pathetically dragged along by Lucky. From a position of omnipotence and strength and confidence, he has fallen and has become the complete fallen man who maintains that time is irrelevant and that man's existence is meaningless. Unlike the great blind prophet of' past who could see everything, for Pozzo "the things of time are hidden from the blind." Ultimately, for Pozzo, man's existence is discomforting and futile, depressing, and gloomy and, most of all, brief and to no purpose. The gravedigger is the midwife of mankind: "They give birth astride the grave, the light gleams an instant, and then it is night once more." As noted above, Lucky is the obvious antithesis of Pozzo. At one point, Pozzo maintains that Lucky's entire existence is based upon pleasing him; that is, Lucky's enslavement is his meaning, and if he is ever freed, his life would cease to have h ave any significance. Given Lucky's state of existence, his very name "Lucky" is ironic, especially since Vladimir observes that even "old dogs have more dignity." All of Lucky's actions seem unpredictable. In Act I, when Estragon attempts to help him, Lucky becomes violent and kicks him on the leg. When he is later expected to dance, his movements are as ungraceful and alien to the concept of dance as one can possibly conceive. We have seldom encountered such ignorance; consequently, when he is expected to give a coherent speech, we are still surprised by his almost total incoherence. Lucky seems to be more animal than human, and his very existence in the drama is a parody of human existence. In Act II, when he arrives completely dumb, it is only a fitting extension of his condition in Act I, where his speech was virtually incomprehensible. incomprehensible. Now he makes no attempt to utter any sound at all. Whatever part of man that Lucky represents, we can make the general observation that he, as man, is reduced to leading the blind, not by intellect, but by blind instinct. Although the entering Pozzo is reasonably mistaken for Godot, he and Lucky import enough meaning by themselves. From the moment they appear, the bellowing master and his shackled slave stand as contrasts to the impoverished other couple and seem to embody much that is absent in their personalities and situation. If the two other characters, Vladimir and Estragon are defined by their weakness by what they and we don’t know of their histories and purpose, by the nervous
questions they ask and the answers denied to them, Pozzo and Lucky announce themselves immediately as substantial creatures of context and direction. Religious Reading of Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot has given rise to a lot of controversy. Critics have not been able to reach any kind of agreement about this play. Beckett himself did not offer much help to critics so far as their efforts to interpret the play were concerned. There have been plenty of both favorable and unfavorable commentaries on this work. But the play, Waiting for Godot may be explained from a religious perspective. Waiting for Godot can be considered as a modern morality play on permanent Christian themes. It can be supposed, Godot stands for an anthropomorphic image of God. The symbols of the tree and the rags worn by the tramps have a distinctly Christian relevance. Waiting for Godot has the same breath as Everyman and The Pilgrim’s Progress. The tree, which puts forth leaves in Act II of the play, may represent the Cross. . The first utterance of Godot phonetically brings God to mind, and evidence throughout the play assures the reader that this path is a valid one to follow. On the most mundane level, Vladimir supports the premise with his guess at the timeframe of the play: "He said it was Saturday. I think". We discover, however, that even this statement hides beneath the uncertainty as Estragon challenges, "But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? Or Monday? Or Friday?” His questioning reasserts that this work defies explanation and reminds us that we are following only one possible solution to an unsolvable problem. If we read this drama with the intention of fitting a religious reading to the play, a vast number of unnoticed interpretive opportunities arise. Though the nondescript tree can be universally symbolic, when viewed from a religious standpoint it conjures an image of Christ's cross. The setting places this tree alongside an unspecified country road of which time, location and destination all are irrelevant. Metaphorically, the undefined beginning could easily be Christ's crucifixion and the end his resurrection, but the road also could represent the journey from his birth to his death or from the beginning of the human struggle to its salvation. Before the first word of dialogue ever is spoken, a key paradox explodes open: crucifixion, a seemingly fatal end, instead marks the beginning of Christian faith and possibly the metaphysical beginning of this play. Of course these suppositions may border on the absurd, but still they show just how easily this play can take on a life of its own. The opening conversation between Vladimir and Estragon provides the reader with initial proof that the "Godot=God" hypothesis can be an accurate one. Beckett later will tempt the reader to make such an assumption with the unmistakable correlation between Lucky's conception of God as "with white beard" and the child messenger's identical description of Godot. In the first few pages Vladimir immediately steers the conversation towards religion, ambiguously reminding Estragon, "One of the thieves was saved" . As he attempts to enlighten his friend on the message of the Bible, Vladimir provides initial evidence of Beckett's views on religion. He explains that only one of the f our Gospels portrays the thief as being saved, and yet "everybody" believes this version. Estragon explicitly states the thought when he says, "People are bloody ignorant apes" . Though we must make our judgements carefully, the early pages of the text suggest a cynicism that seems to parallel the religious metaphor throughout the rest of the work. Despite Beckett's apparent wariness of religion (or perhaps because he wishes to make folly of it), the question of faith appears frequently in Waiting for Godot. Most obviously, the metaphor stems from the eternal waiting that the Christian faces in his belief that Christ will return but at an unknown time. This "coming back and waiting" is the identifying image of Vladimir and Estragon and is one of the points that Beckett parodies most heavily. Several Christ-like images accompany the religious symbols and references scattered throughout the play. When Estragon and Vladimir must lift Lucky, one on each side, we see an image much like that of Christ in his dying moments. The same representation appears again when Pozzo suffers in blindness and must be supported by Vladimir and Estragon. Unbelievably enough, Estragon himself makes appearances that seem to mirror Christ's final earthly days. He talks of spending the night in a ditch, an analogy to the cave that housed the Lord after his death. After discussing the ditch and learning that Estragon has been beaten, Vladimir takes the persona of Veronica and tenderly reaches out to
embrace him. He then plays the impious Peter and claims to have never left his side. In a moment of tenuous friendship, Estragon shortly after suggests that "the best thing would be to kill me, like the other" the name of this "other" should by now rest firmly in our minds. The final expression of the image comes when Estragon rises from sleep and Pozzo examines the cut on his leg, thus recalling the Apostle's examination of Christ's wounds after his rising. At the end of the play there is no entrance of godot. They wait and wait but godot fails to come. At last, they decide to give up their long timed waiting. But they do not leave the place. They stand still in the place. This incident can also be described from a religious angle. Actually they don’t give up the hope. Here godot can be referred to god as God is invisible and never come to ordinary people. If godot means Christ, then here is a different explanation. May be the time of his return do not yet come.
To conclude, it can be said that the play waiting for godot may warrant a religious reading. It’s title, settings, incidences lead the readers to think and explain it religiously.
