Poll - 'Waiting for godot' a significant Philosophical Work?

[ManMachine]

Question - Is Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' one of the most significant Philosophical works of the 20th Century?

1. I agree

2. I don't agree

3. I've not seen or read it but I'd quite like to

4. Don't know, don't care


MM

[Chas]

Question - Is Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' one of the most significant Philosophical works of the 20th Century?

1. I agree

2. I don't agree

3. I've not seen or read it but I'd quite like to

4. Don't know, don't care


MM

It's a little odd that you give agree/disagree as choices to a yes/no question.

[Alex K]

It's a little odd that you give agree/disagree as choices to a yes/no question.

Absurd wording in keeping with the subject?

[ManMachine]

Question - Is Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' one of the most significant Philosophical works of the 20th Century?

1. I agree

2. I don't agree

3. I've not seen or read it but I'd quite like to

4. Don't know, don't care


MM

It's a little odd that you give agree/disagree as choices to a yes/no question.

Ah, no excuses, I just didn't check my phrasing.

I wrote the question down on my notepad along with the options I was going to use. I left it and came back a little later and re-phrased the question but didn't go back over the answer options.

Take the questions as "I propose that 'Waiting for Godot' is one of the most significant works of Philosophy in the 20th Century."

I'd never considered Waiting for Godot as a serious philosophical work until I read an article on Philosophical Viewpoints which posed some of the following questions (author not identified, the items in square brackets are my additions)

" - Lucky is the only character in Waiting for Godot whose actions are rational, rather than absurd.
- Beckett espouses the Existentialist tenet that the world is without meaning, but disagrees with the belief that one can give the world meaning and purpose through action.
- The barren setting of Waiting for Godot is proof that Vladimir and Estragon will never be able to break their cycle of inactive waiting; it negates the possibility of life or creation.
- Suffering is a necessary and constant state for all men in the world of Waiting for Godot.
- Pozzo chooses to go blind because he has lost his watch [a reference to timepieces used in Philosophical arguments by Cicero, Voltaire, Descartes and famously Paley's blind watchmaker. This, for me, leaves no doubt that Beckett intended a philosophical subtext to his play].
- Waiting for Godot operates on one damning, principal contradiction: the men can only be saved if their personal god, Godot, were to appear. However, since a commonly accepted interpretation of God is that he is without extension (meaning he doesn’t occupy space), Godot’s presence would mean that he is not God. This renders Vladimir and Estragon’s waiting absurdly futile.
- Because Lucky and Pozzo understand and accept the nature of their positions as slave and master, they have a healthier relationship than Vladimir and Estragon.
- Lucky’s position is the most enviable in Waiting for Godot since he has the security of being told what to do.
- Vladimir and Estragon are slaves to their concept of Godot just as Lucky is a slave to Pozzo.
- Vladimir and Estragon suffer not for lack of happiness, but for lack of certainty. It is worse to not know whether or not they are miserable than to be certain of their anguish.
- Estragon and Vladimir put the label of "waiting for Godot" on what is really just a systematic waiting for death."


MM

[LostLocke]

I keep reading Estragon as Estrogen

[abaris]

I keep reading Estragon as Estrogen

Estragon is a mustard brand where I live.

[JuliaL]

Read it a long time ago.
Don't remember plot. I don't feel too guilty about that if it was absurdist.
I do remember the plot of the National Lampoon version, Godot showed up about 10 seconds in and everybody said 'hi' and left.

[bennyboy]

This is not really a hot topic in philosophy is it? What, did you just read it in a college lit class or something?

[ManMachine]

This is not really a hot topic in philosophy is it? What, did you just read it in a college lit class or something?

What isn't a hot topic, Beckett as a philosopher or his perceived absurdism?

MM

[Darkstar]

Uh... I don't remember the plot details enough to say. I didn't really get much out of it at the time. That said, maybe I wasn't trying hard enough to decipher the meaning. The problem I have with digging deep to find meaning, though, is that if you dig deep enough into anything you can find hidden meaning that isn't actually there!