Summary of Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett. It is a post-modern play. The play, in general, has no specific time and place, and no features. There are two men that wait Godot to come, but Godot never comes. There are only these two men, a tree, and a country road. At this play, there are lots of metaphors.

At the play, there are two men waiting for Godot. But Godot never comes, and the important thing is what they do while waiting for Godot. They talk, has existential crisis sometimes, and think. At the middle of the play, a man and his servant come to the stage, the servant dances and tells something, and then he calms down and the two men feels bad for him being a servant. But after that, his lord enforces him to walk and run, and the two men cheers him up, and a child comes, tells Godot will come tomorrow, and they go. At the second act, they do the same, they encounter the same man and his servant, but they do not remember the two men. They wait, and the child comes, and tells the same Godot will come tomorrow. They decide to go and come tomorrow, but they think hanging themselves to the tree, but they do not have a rope, so they do not. They wait there doing nothing, and the play ends.

The play is written after the World War II. At that time, people were having existential crisis, and were the effect of the war. It affected the art, too. The post-modernism is under the effect of World War II. The works are pessimistic, having no time and place, having existential crisis, and without any hope. Waiting for Godot is one of the post-modern works. Because of that, we should consider the situation of the world itself.

At the play, Godot is a metaphor. It is not explained by the author, too. There are only predictions. One of them is Godot is hope. After the World War II, people were pessimistic and hopeless. They, of course, wanted to have hopes for the future, but unfortunately, there was no hope. At the play, they wait for Godot, and it never comes. The tree represents life, but the men think to hang themselves on it. It is also a good representation for being pessimistic. The men say the tree is the only thing that lives in there, so they think they do not live. While waiting for Godot, they also have talks. These talks include existential crisis, and life itself. The general idea of the play is the life is full of what you do while waiting for something to come.

To summarize, this play has no time and place, but has lots of metaphors in it. It represents the situation after the World War II, and it is also a good example of post-modernism.

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