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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND
June 2015 CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926

Waiting for Godot: A Deconstructive Study

Javed Akhter
University of Balochistan Quetta Balochistan Pakistan

Abstract

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) is the most eminent French philosopher and literary theorist of
deconstruction. He challenges the logo-centric Western tradition of the metaphysics of
presence, which has been dominant from Plato’s “Phaedrus” until Edmund Husserl’s
“Origin of Geometry” in Western philosophy. His trend-breaking theory of deconstruction
attacks the metaphysical presuppositions of Western philosophy, ethics, culture, politics and
literature. It may give a new meaning and perspective to Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for
Godot”, which has always been a focal point for the world’s literary critics. They have
applied various theories to it, but this paper tries to scrutinize the different facets of the play
from Derridean deconstructive theory.

Applying Derridean deconstructive hermeneutics to the text of the play under discussion, the
author of this paper introduces a new portrait of the personages of the play. The study will
retrace the pathways of Western tradition of the metaphysics of presence and its compelling
influences, which have proved to be the inhibiting and fossilizing deadlocks of aporia of
meaning and authoritative structures of human thought to explore the new horizons. In its
concluding mode, the study exposes preventive stumbling aporic blocks of centralized
structure of the minds of characters in the given play.

Keywords: Jacques Derrida, deconstruction, metaphysics of presence and messianic,

aporia, binary oppositions, delogocentrism

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Introduction

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is the most eminent Irish based French playwright of
the theatre of the Absurd, who tries to depict human absurdity and uncertainty in the late
modernist bourgeois world of shattered beliefs and uncertainties through the medium of meta-
theatre. Meta-theatre, Lionel Able asserts that, “marks those frames and boundaries that
conventional dramatic realism would hide” (Able, Lionel, 2003, p. 133).

Samuel Beckett wrote “Waiting for Godot” in French in 1949 and then translated it
into English in 1954. “Waiting for Godot” is the most popular play in every corner of the
world. Therefore, this play has been performed as a drama of the absurd with astonishing
success in Europe, America and the rest of the world in post second world war era. For this
reason, Martin Esslin calls it, “One of the successes of the post-war theatre” (Esslin, Martin,
1980, p.3). The central theme of the play revolves around waiting. The two tramps, Vladimir
and Estragon, are waiting expectantly to visit Godot near a stunted tree in the middle of
nowhere. They do not even know his real name, whether he promises to visit them, or if, in
fact, he actually exists. However, they are still waiting and waiting for him. Nevertheless, he
did never appear.

The slave-owning Pozzo and his subservient slave, Lucky and the boy (the
messenger of Godot) whose name was not mentioned in the play, interrupted their waiting.
Godot has nothing significant to do with their lives. They do every possible thing; even
prepare to commit suicide, just to keep the dreadful silence. The play begins with waiting for
Godot and ends with waiting for Godot. Play does not end formally, when the boy, who is as
well messenger of Godot, reveals the fact to the tramps that Godot is not expected to come
this evening and he will come tomorrow. In fact, these characters are entrapped and entangled
in the illusory trap of the slavery of the metaphysics of presence. Therefore, they represent all
the human beings in the world, who are imprisoned in one way and the other in the blind alley
of different illusions of the logos of language, philosophy and religion. Therefore, the present
study tries to discuss the different facets of this famous play from Derridean deconstructive
perspective.
Research Objectives

The research objectives of this study are as follow:

To push Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” within Derridean
deconstructive perspective for investigating and scrutinizing the different facets of the text in
terms of Derridean deconstruction.

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To open up the techniques of meta-theatre, which enable Samuel Beckett to go beyond

the boundaries of the traditional stereotypes and fossilized notions, values and traditions of
language, theatre and the literary text, which revolve around messianic logocentrism or
phonocentrism in the history of philosophy from Plato to the present times.

To scrutinize the text from Derrida’s deconstructive hermeneutics for dismantling the
fixity, singularity and unified meaning of the text of the thought raging play under discussion.

To retrace the zigzag and complicated philosophical pathways of West European

tradition of the metaphysics of presence and its compelling influences and repercussions,
which have proved to be the inhibiting and fossilizing deadlocks of aporia of meaning and
authoritative centralized structures of human thought to explore the new horizons.

Research Questions

The study will concentrate on the following questions:

How does Samuel Beckett disseminate the logos of life in “Waiting for Godot”?
Which characteristics of his art do bring him close to deconstruction?

Research Methodology

The study is narrative research and follows descriptive-cum analytical method.

The textual references are given as evidence to support the argument of this research. The key
concepts of deconstruction, metaphysics of presence and messianic, aporia, logos, binary
oppositions and delogocentrism are discussed in relation to the text in this research. Derridean
deconstructive hermeneutics of studying and interpreting the text is an important ingredient of
this research. Therefore, the different facets of the text of the play are studied and analysed on
Derridean deconstructive bedrock. Relevant quotations, references and extracts have been
taken in APA (American Psychological Association) style from the primary and secondary
data on the subject of this research. The list of the cited sources is given in under the heading
of References at the end of this paper

Literature Review
The complex structure of “Waiting for Godot’’ is based upon symbols and
ideological content, in which the vertical repression and layering or sedimentation is dominant
structure of the text of the play. For this reason, it has been always a focal target for world’s
researchers. Most of the researchers interpreted its different elements from different angles.
Therefore, the complex and entangled structure of the play has drawn multifarious research
attentions. There are so many books and dissertations composed on this play. Harold Bloom
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edited a book entitled “Samuel Beckett: Modern Critical Views” (1985), which is an
important criticism nearly on all the important works of Samuel Beckett, including “Waiting
for Godot”. The book consists of various critical commentaries by different scholars on the
author under analysis, from different angles. Ruby Cohn edited a book entitled “Beckett:
Waiting for Godot” (1987), which also presents different critical commentaries by different
critics on “Waiting for Godot”, from different angles.

Martin Esslin edited a book entitled “An Anatomy of Drama” (1976), which is a
thought provoking book. He also edited another book, entitled “Samuel Beckett: Twentieth
Century Views” (1980), which consists of various views on the author under discussion,
relating him to the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’ and philosophy of existentialism. William S.
Haney in his essay,” Beckett out of His Mind: The Theatre of the Absurd” states that Samuel
Beckett crosses “the linguistic and cultural boundaries by dispensing with narrative sequence,
character development and psychology in conventional sense” (Haney, William S. 2001,
p.40). He further states that, Samuel Beckett goes beyond “the psychic structures that select,
organize, interpret, and limit our knowledge about the world around us” (Haney, William S.
2001, p.42). Gabriele Schwab also believes that Samuel Beckett’s plays go beyond the
“boundaries of our consciousness in two directions toward the unconscious and toward self-
reflection” (Schwab, Gabriele, 1992, 97).

Abhinaba Chatterjee wrote a research paper entitled “Camus’ Absurdity in

Beckett’s Plays: Waiting for Godot and Krapp’s Last Tape” (2013), which is very important
analysis of the two dramatic texts of Samuel Beckett, from Albert Camus’ existentialist point
of view. Darsha Jani wrote a research paper entitled “Futility, Hopelessness and
Meaninglessness: Central Forces Leading towards Absurdity in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot”
(2013), which is also an existentialist study of the play. Komal Rakwal wrote a research paper
entitled “Today’s Fear of Being in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot” in which she
explores existentialist themes in the text.

Noorbakhsh Hooti wrote a research paper entitled “Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for
Godot: A Post-modernist study” (2011), which is a Post-modernist analysis of the text. He
discussed it from postmodernist point of view in general. Elin Diamond wrote his research
paper entitled “Re: Blau, Butter, Beckett and the Politics of Seeing” (2000), which is a
political and ideological study of Samuel Beckett. Fereshteh Vaziri Nasab Kermany’s
dissertation entitled “A Study of the Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett, Tom Stoppard and
Caryl Churchill” (2008) is a research based on a general deconstructive look at the play,
discussing it along with the plays of Tom Stoppard and Caryl Churchill. This dissertation
tried to prove the overall deconstructive mood of delogocentrism of the play.

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These books and research papers are very interesting, informative and thought
provoking on the subject in many respects, but no one applied Post-Structuralist Derridean
deconstructive hermeneutics to it. The present study interprets the play on the bedrock of the
ground breaking Derridean deconstructive hermeneutics. Therefore, the present study would
be an analysis from a new and innovative perspective on “Waiting for Godot”; applying
Derridean deconstructive hermeneutics to the text of this highly debate raging play.

Deconstruction
Jacques Derrida is the most eminent Algerian-born French philosopher, who
originates the path breaking theory of deconstruction. He argues that the tradition of west
European philosophy since Plato has been the metaphysics of presence or logocentrism. Its
compelling influences and repercussions on human thought have proved to be the inhibiting
and fossilizing deadlocks of aporia of meaning and authoritative fossilized logocentric
structures of human thought to explore the new horizons, grounding it in the stable and pre-
determined meaning of the logos of the metaphysics of presence. We cannot imagine the end
of the metaphysics of presence, we can criticise it from within it by identifying and reversing
the hierarchies it has established.

However, Jacques Derrida originated the term deconstruction but he did not define
it anywhere in detail. However, defining the term deconstruction is by no means simple and
easy task but very complex one and not defined explicitly by its initiator Jacques Derrida.
Nevertheless, he gives some important signposts and clues about how to deconstruct a literary
text, which can help us to define the term. M.A.R. Habib writes that deconstruction is “a way
of reading, a mode of writing, and above all, a way of challenging interpretations of the texts
based upon conventional notions of stability of human self, the external world, and of
language and meaning” (Habib, M.A.R, 2005, p. 649). This theory revolutionised many
disciplines from philosophy and history, from film studies to law, architecture, politics,
anthropology and theory of aesthetics. Jacques Derrida writes about it:

“Deconstruction “is “destruction” and desedimentation of all the significations that

have their source in that of the logos” (Derrida, Jacques, 1997, p. 10).It is an attempt to
deconstruct this centre in “logos”. However, this does not mean to destroy as Derrida writes,
“Rather than destroying, it was also necessary to understand how a “whole” was constituted
and reconstruct it to the end” (Derrida, Jacques, 2007, p. 3). Therefore, deconstruction is an
attempt to reconstruct and “to dismantle” logocentrism or phonocentrism.
In this sense “….deconstruction is firstly this destabilization on the move in, if one
could speak thus, the things themselves”, but it is not negative destabilization is required for
“progress” as well as. In addition, the “de-“of deconstruction signifies not the demolition of

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what is constructing itself, but rather what remains to be thought beyond the constructive or
deconstructionist scheme” (Derrida, Jacques, 1998, p. 147). When we deconstruct or
destabilise the text and logocentrism, our perception leads to progress. Derrida says, “The
movements of deconstruction do not destroy structures from the outside. They are not
possible and effective, nor can they accurate aim…” Deconstruction should “necessary”
operate “from the inside” (Derrida, Jacques, 1997, p. 24).

Deconstruction criticises the Western philosophical tradition of the metaphysics of

presence, which takes place the form of what Jacques Derrida calls logocentrism or
phonocentrism. The logo is a Greek word, which in a specific sense of pure meaning that
precedes language. The domain of pure meaning is also the domain of logic, which derives
from the logos. “In the beginning, was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos
was God” (Good News Bible, 1981, p. 118).Jacques Derrida opines that both logic and
logocentrism depend upon a covert linguistic operation that posits a realm of meaning prior to
language, and in turn, privileges thought over utterance, speech over writing, and origin over
copy. Derrida argues that Saussure’s theory of linguistics is both invested in and troubling the
project of logocentrism or phonocentrism. He finds counter-logic already in Ferdinand de
Saussure. Structuralist linguistics is just the supposedly whole first term –man, speech- but
also logos (self-identical meaning, God) in general.

For Jacques Derrida writing is not secondary copy of a whole, prior meaning
represented by speech. It is primary, in so much as meaning is itself afflicted by self-divisions
and deferrals, the endless slippages of signifiers, which constitute writing. That is why
Jacques Derrida says, “There is nothing outside the text” (Derrida, Jacques, 2003, 227). His
deconstruction is associated to the study of complexities of literature: Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’s “Confessions”, Stephane Mallarme’s “Mimique”, and James Joyce’s “Ulysses”.
He concludes that literature with its slippery language demonstrated the deferral of the logos.

Deconstructive Analysis of Waiting for Godot

The researcher tries to interpret Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” from
Derridean deconstructive perspective in terms of deconstruction. Therefore, the present study
tends to interpret the different facets of the text. The following terms of Derridean
deconstruction are simply relevant to the nature of this research.

Metaphysics of presence and Messianic

According to Jacques Derrida, the tradition of west European philosophy from Plato
until Edmund Husserl has been the metaphysics of presence or logocentrism. Its compelling

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influences and repercussions on human thought have proved to be the inhibiting and
fossilizing deadlocks of aporia of meaning and authoritative fossilized logocentric structures
of human thought to explore new horizons, grounding it in the stable and pre-determined
meaning, origin or presence. We cannot imagine the end of the metaphysics of the presence,
we can criticise it from within by identifying and reversing the hierarchies it has established.

Jacques Derrida calls all Western philosophic tradition logocentric because it places
at the centre of our perception of the universe a concept (logos), which organises and explains
the universe for us while remaining outside of the universe it organises and explains. Jacques
Derrida says that it is Western philosophy’s greatest illusion. Each grounding concept---
Plato’s idea of perfect Forms, Rene Descartes’ cogito, structuralism’s notion of innate
structures of human consciousness---is itself a human concept and therefore, a product of
human language. In this way, he attacks the basic metaphysical assumptions of Western
philosophical tradition since Plato. He also criticises that the notion of innate structures of
human consciousness in structuralism has always presupposed a centre of meaning of
something, which governs the structure, but is itself not subject to structural analysis (to find
the structure of the centre would be to find another centre.)

For this reason, Jacques Derrida claims that Western philosophy has always had a
desire “to search for a centre, a meaning, origin or a “transcendental signified” (Derrida,
Jacques, 1997, p. 49). He calls this desire for centre “logocentrism or phonocentrism (Derrida,
Jacques, 1997, p. 11). However, he opines that all Western philosophy since Plato has tried to
ground its basis on meaning, “presence”, or “existence” (Derrida, Jacques, 2005, p. 353).

This tradition revolves around a central set of supposedly universal principles and
beliefs. He concludes that the different theories of philosophy since Plato are versions of a
single or authoritative system, and, though we cannot hope to escape this system, we can at
least identify the conditions of thought it imposes by attending to that which it seek to
impress.

Therefore, the tradition of Western philosophy of the metaphysics of presence

derives from and organised around one grounding principle from which we believe we can
figure out the meaning of existence. For some philosophers the ground of being is some
cosmic principle of order and harmony, as illustrated for example, by Plato’s idea of perfect
Forms that exist in an abstract, timeless dimension of thought. For others, the grounding
principle is rational thought engaged in the act of self-reflection, as illustrated by Rene
Descartes’ famous philosophical proposition: “I think therefore, I am” (cogito ergo sum).

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For some other philosophers still, the grounding principle is some innate quality in
human beings as illustrated by structuralism’s belief that human language and experience are
generated by innate structures of human consciousness. For this reason, Jacques Derrida
opines that structuralism is a form of philosophical totalitarianism, a totality of phenomenon
by reduction of it to a formula that governs it totally. This Western tradition of philosophical
thought revolves around a central set of supposedly universal principles and beliefs. While
these grounding concepts produce our perception of the dynamic, evolving universe around
us---and of our dynamic, evolving selves as well---the concepts themselves remain stable.
Unlike everything, they explain they are not dynamic and evolving. They are “out of place” as
Jacques Derrida calls logocentric because it places at the centre of its perception of the
universe a concept (logos) that organise and explains the universe for us. Logocentrism would
thus support the determination of the being of the entity as presence (Derrida, Jacques, 1997,
p. 12).

When we study “Waiting for Godot”, we come across the central theme of the play,
which revolves around the waiting for Godot, who does not appear in the play. Nevertheless,
the two characters of the play, Vladimir and Estragon, who are homeless vagabonds, seem to
be entrapped in the trap of illusory world of the metaphysics of presence. They are tied up
with messianic logocentrism or phonocentrism of the term Godot. Messianic is one of the
forms of the metaphysics of presence, which is evident in the concepts of theocentrism and
anthropocentrism. Any ideological, religious and political system, which claims to be
authorised legitimacy, is messianic logocentrism or phonocentrism. This messianism is
dominant in human thought. Jacques Derrida also calls this way of thinking messianicity,
according to which Christian hope of a future to come.

Therefore, the word Godot in the play signifies both theocentric as well as
anthropocentric messianic logocentrism, which may be noted is, the privilege given to it as
Jehovah of “The Old Testament”, his wrath frightens, and like Messiah (Jesus Christ) of “The
New Testament”, his Second Coming will redeem the humankind. He may stand for
salvation, donation, rebirth and promise, which is able to be a link between these logi and the
two waiting tramps. However, the tramps are fallen in the trap of illusory world of the
metaphysics of presence and messianism. Therefore, they are mentally tied up with the
logocentric messianic term Godot. Nevertheless, they have taken it for granted that it is a
dominant source of redemption and salvation. They attempt to discover the meaning, origin
and truth under the umbrella of the presupposed messianic logos Godot.

Therefore, Godot can punish them if the tramps leave, redeem, and reward them if
they keep waiting for him. The tramps have strong desire to turn Godot’s absence to presence.
This desire is identical to the yearning of west European philosophy for centre or the stable

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and fixed signified by the metaphysics of presence. This messianic logocentric metaphysical
presence makes a concrete physical anthropocentric entity for the tramps. For instance,
Vladimir’s yearning to perceive an exact image of Godot’s appearance in an anthropomorphic
manner, bringing him on the level of human perception is an attempt of this kind:

“Vladimir: (softly) Has he a beard, Mr Godot?

Boy: Yes sir.
Vladimir: Fair or… (He hesitates)… or black?
Boy: I think it’s white, sir” (Beckett, Samuel, 1956, Act 2, p. 92).

In this manner, Vladimir cannot perceive the image of Godot without what west
European philosophy’s tradition of the metaphysics of presence and messianism has set for
him as the foundation of messianic logocentrism of his beliefs and thoughts. An absent entity
of Godot in the play refutes definition, and at this point, it becomes very close to Jacques
Derrida’s definition of differance than to the metaphysical notion of messianic theocentric or
anthropocentric logos. Jacques Derrida explains that differance is “formation of form”
(Derrida, Jacques, 1976, p. 63)” and the historical and epochal unfolding of Being” (Derrida,
Jacques, 1982, p. 22), something that negates origin.

However, the absent Godot puts the idea of the origin of true meaning, into the
radical question, because it cannot be easily defined, categorized or adjusted to an object
outside the text. It can signify multiple meanings of more things simultaneously and non-
existence or nothing at all. It is in fact, an aporic being, which resist interpretation. As a result,
the two tramps are seeking for something to give meaning to their existence. For them Mr
Godot is a source of solution of their miseries, the logos that may fill the meaning in their
absurd existence. The identity of this absent entity remains unknown in the whole text of the
play. As Worton writes:

“Much has been written about who or what Godot is. My own view is that he is
simultaneously whatever we think he is and not what we think he is, he is an absence,
who can be interpreted at moments as God, death, the Lord of the manor, a benefactor,
even Pozzo. Nevertheless, Godot has a function rather than a meaning. He stands for
what keeps us chained- to and in-existence. He is the unknowable that represents hope in
an age when there is no hope; he is whatever fiction we want him to be- as long as he
justifies our life-as-waiting” (Worton, Michael, 1995, p. 70-71).

The tramps’ attempts to capture this non-entity or unknown being in terms of the
known messianic logocentrism, by visiting him, are all in vain. Finally, Godot did not appear
and tramps turned disappointed and frustrated. Therefore, the bond between language and
reality is shattered and words lose their vocation of communicating feelings and thoughts:

“Vladimir: Say I am happy

Estragon: I am happy

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Vladimir: So I am
Estragon: So I am.
Estragon: We are happy. (Silence). What do we do now, now that we’re happy?”
(Beckett, Samuel, 1956, Act 2, p. 60).

Therefore, Godot’s final absence, however, frustrates the hopes of the tramps and
they have become nervous. The following dialogue of the tramps shows their hidden desire to
set themselves free from the tiresome act of waiting for an unknown or non-existent messianic
metaphysical being:

“Estragon: (His mouthful, vacuously.) We are not tied!

Vladimir: I don’t hear a word you’re saying.
Estragon: (chews, swallows.) I’m asking if we’re tied.
Vladimir: tied?
Estragon: ti-ed.
Vladimir: How do you mean tied?
Estragon: Down
Vladimir: But to whom? By whom?
Estragon: To your man
Vladimir: To Godot? Tied to Godot? What an idea! No question of it. (Pause) For
the moment”
(Beckett, Samuel, 1956, Act 1, pp.20-21).

Finally, the tramps are unable to act, even to commit suicide. For example, the
following dialogue makes the point clear:
“Vladimir: We will hang ourselves tomorrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes.
Estragon: And if he comes?
Vladimir: We’ll be saved” (Beckett, Samuel, 1956, Act Two, p. 94).

We can mostly notice their incapability and undecidability to do anything throughout

the whole play:
“Estragon: “Why don’t we hang ourselves?
Vladimir: With what?
Estragon: you haven’t got a bit of rope?
Vladimir: No.
Estragon: Then we can’t.
Vladimir: Let’s go.
Estragon: Oh wait, there is my belt.
Vladimir: It’s too short.
Estragon: You could hang on to my legs.
Vladimir: And who would hang onto mine?
Estragon: True” (Beckett, Samuel, 1956, Act Two, p.93).

Therefore, Samuel Beckett refutes the certainty and stability of the Holy Scripture
by dismantling its authorised metaphysical meaning. He uses Christian mythology without
having to believe in it. As he states, “Christianity is a mythology with which I am perfectly

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familiar, and so I use it. But not in this case” (Bair, Deirdre, 1995, p.386). For this reason, he
involves the tramps in serious religious debates between the four Evangelists about the saved
thief. Vladimir, like the assiduous religious scholar seems to search for truth and certainty in
the Holy text of “The New Testament”. However, he finds that there is no certainty in this
text. In fact, his perplexity is the confusion of a layperson in perceiving the philosophy of the
metaphysics of presence, presented to him as messianic logocentrism. The following dialogue
between the tramps makes the point clear:

“Vladimir: And yet… (pause.)… How is it-this is not boring you I hope- how is it that of
the four Evangelists only one speaks of a thief being saved. The four of them were there-
or thereabouts-and only one speaks of a thief being saved. (Pause.)
Come on, Gogo, return the ball, can’t you, one in a way?
Estragon: (with exaggerated enthusiasm). I find this most extraordinarily
interesting.
Vladimir: One out of four. Of the other three, two don’t mention any thieves at all
and the third says that both of them abused him.
Estragon: Who?
Vladimir: What?
Estragon: What’s all this about? Abused who?
Vladimir: The Saviour.
Estragon: Why?
Vladimir: Because he wouldn’t save them.
Estragon: From Hell?
Vladimir: Imbecile! From death.
Estragon: I thought you said hell.
Vladimir: From death, from death.
Estragon: Well what of it?
Vladimir: Then the two of them must have been damned.
Estragon: And why not?” (Beckett, Samuel, 1956, Act 1, p.13-14).

We find the characters of the play entangled within an illusory web of logocentric
illusions of thought that they want to grasp the ultimate truth of life and the universe in a way
as logocentric Western tradition of the metaphysics of presence confines their mind to think
about the authoritative universal truth, meaning and origin. Nevertheless, they are unable to
find it and on the contrary, they confront uncertainty and absurdity as illustrated in the
conversations between Estragon and Vladimir about the Holy Scripture, the memories of the
past or identity of Godot. Suspecting all the messianic logocentric authorities of founding the
texts of Western culture, Samuel Beckett studs Godot and Endgame with references to these
very texts in order to make us “think and participate in his anxious oscillation between
certainty about what is untrue and uncertainty about what may be true” (Worton, Michael,
1995, p. 85).

However, Vladimir wants to find a proof for existence. His desire for a centre,
origin, or logos of Godot is fully illustrated when he says the boy:

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“Words, words. (Pause.) Speak” (Beckett, Samuel, Act 1, p.50).

The tramps finally lose their hope for salvation and redemption. Vladimir expresses
doubt in the following dialogue between Boy and Vladimir:

“Boy: What am I to say Mr Godot, sir?

Vladimir: Tell him... (he hesitates)...tell him you saw us. (Pause.) You did see us,
didn’t you?” (Beckett, Samuel, Act 1, p.52).

In this way, Samuel Beckett deconstructs messianic theocentrism and

anthropocentricism of the logocentric word of Godot and after disseminating Godot and the
Holy Scripture, Samuel Beckett further goes in Lucky’s speech to expand his deconstructive
techniques to undo Western philosophical tradition of the metaphysics of presence.
Describing the philosopher’s mental and physical slavery to bourgeois power system of
capitalism, he disseminates all philosophical inquiries for ultimate truth, origin or static
signified as well as deconstructs all logocentric Western tradition of the metaphysics of
presence.

Therefore, the rational philosopher is presented in the personage of Lucky as a mock

figure of philosopher in the play. His slave-owning master Pozzo dictates him by the power of
words and logi. His one-word commands dictate and handle Lucky. Therefore, like a puppet
or remote controlled robot, he obeys the orders of his master Pozzo. “Back”, “stop”, “turn”,
“stand”, “up”, “basket” are the one-word commands of his master, he obeys. In this way, he
behaves and reacts in accordance with the command-methods of his master. Here Pozzo
stands for the late modernist bourgeois power structure of capitalism and Lucky, the Lackey
of it. Jaffey Nealon writes as follows:

“Becket directs Lucky’s long monologue against the popular notion that philosophy’s
job is to restore unity to man’s learning, a job, which philosopher can only do by
recuperating some meta-narratives, which link together all moments in human history
within a single, continuous metaphysical system. Lucky’s think, though, is a narrative
that disrupts and deconstructs all notions of universal ahistorical meta-narrative- all
Godots” (Nealon, Jaffey 1992.44).

However, Samuel Beckett puts the power of reason in question by demonstrating the
dominance of non-rational bourgeois forces of capitalism, which contradict the traditional
anthropocentric notions and values of humanism. In his speech, Lucky fails to defend human
being as central subject of the anthropocentric Western philosophical thought. In this manner,
Samuel Beckett satirises the Cartesian philosophical proposition: “cogito ergo sum” in
Lucky’s speech. However, he dements thought/ discourse, which violates the limits of
logocentric Western European tradition of the metaphysics of presence. As Brewer states it:

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“Drawn to the side of the signifier rather than the signified (though as immaterial
meaning), the hybrid “thought-performance” breaks down the distinction between words
and their meaning. The disjunction between characters’ actions and their speech is here,
repeated in the disjunction between discourse as performance and his cognitive content”
(Brewer, Maria Minich, 1994, pp. 152-153).

Finally, Samuel Beckett attacks the metaphysics of presence and messianic

logocentrism. He does not only disseminates the theocentric text of Holy Scriptures, but also
dismantles the anthropocentric lines of Western philosophical thought, delogocentring the
theocentric authority of the Holy Scripture in the dialogue of the tramps cited above and the
anthropocentric authority of philosopher in the delogocentrized figure of Lucky.

Aporia

Aporia means a logical impassable, contradiction, doubt and a moment of

undecidability. It is the inherent contradiction in the import of the text or theory. Jacques
Derrida, for example, cites in his book “Of Grammatology” the inherent contradictions at
work in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s use of the words culture and nature by stating that Jean-
Jacques Rousseau’s sense of the self’s innocence (in nature) is already corrupted by the
concept of culture and existence. Aporia is in fact, a logical deadlock of relationship,
decision-making and interpretation, which makes one to undecidable to grasp logical
reasoning and justification. It is precisely a situation, which reflects the impossibility of
thought, language, meaning, ethics and justification.

Aporia also means debitio, which is an expression of real and feigned doubt or
uncertainty, especially for rhetorical effect, by which the speaker appears uncertain as to what
he/ she should do, think or say. The speaker already knows the answer, but he/she still asks
himself/herself or his/her audience, what the appropriate manner, to grasp some matter is. The
ambiguity of the text forms an aporia, because “it is impossible to decide by grammatical or
other linguistic devices, which of the two meanings…prevails (De Man, Paul, 1979 p. 10).

Discussing Stephane Mallarme’s “Mimique”, Jacques Derrida refers to the

symbiosis of grammar and rhetoric. Words like “hymen,” and “pharmakon”, he points out:
“have a double, contradictory, undecidable value that always derives from their syntax,
whether the latter is in a sense “internal,” articulating and combining under the same yoke,
huph’ hen, two incompatible meanings, or “external,” dependent on the code in which the
word is made to function (Derrida, Jacques, 2005, p. 221).

In this view, Samuel Beckett’s rejection of the fossilized signifying process of

traditional theatre and adoption of the techniques of meta-theatre lead him to anti-narrative

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structure of the text, which creates an aporic effects on the minds of the audience and readers
that resist interpretation of the text. Therefore, the structural aporia of meaning happens in the
text. The opposite poles of meaning are so evident that messianic logocentrism or
phonocentrism cannot function anymore. There occurred in the text many “simultaneously
eithers ors” in Derridean term (Derrida, Jacques, 1978, p. 59).

Therefore, the text of the play resists be defining, interpreting, and analysing in a
closed system. In addition, the semantic aporia renders Samuel Beckett’s dramatic text into
multi-dimensionality of meaning, and puts it in opposition with the traditional dramatic texts.
The ontological impassivity or aporia of the text prevails the fragmentary form of the play that
prevents the audience and readers from fixing a meaning or putting the text in a closed
system. For this reason, one finds himself in an aporetic situation in which he/she cannot
decide if Samuel Beckett is giving significance of absurdity or its superficiality in comparison
to human predicament. In this sense, the open-endedness of the text of the play always invites
the audience and readers to interpret it in a new and novel way. Therefore, the readers and
audience are prevented from falling in the categorized perception or stereotyped interpretation
of the text.

However, the stereotyped perception, categorized reception and traditional

interpretation of the text fall the readers and audience in the straightforward recognition,
which is situated by novelty, inaccessible by stale reception and stereotyped traditional
interpretation of the text. That is why Samuel Beckett uses the symbol of Godot in the play, to
portray uncertainty and absurdity of human situation in modern capitalist social formation,
which makes the text of the play ambiguous, showing the limitations of language and aporetic
effects of it on the minds of human beings.

The symbol Godot sometimes employs other verbal tricks when Vladimir and
Estragon speak about him. Therefore, aporia or impasse of meaning is found when they are
confronted with boy messenger’s message that Godot will not come today but he will come
tomorrow. As a result, the tramps are fallen in aporetic situation in which they decide to move
but they remain undecidable and inactive to do so:
“Estragon: Well? Shall we go?
Vladimir: Pull on your trousers.
Estragon: What?
Vladimir: Pull on your trousers.
Estragon: You want me to pull off my trousers?
Vladimir: Pull on your trousers.
Estragon: (realizing his trousers are down). True.
He pulls up his trousers.
Vladimir: Well? Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let’s go.
They do not move” (Beckett, Samuel, 1956, Act 2, p.94).

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The word Godot in the play is put in a structure capable of more or multiple
meanings and its immediate recognition are deferred or postponed by defamiliarization and
ambiguity. The ambiguity and estrangement perturb the referentiality between Godot and its
real entity, and its ideal or symbolic presentation in the text, which brings Samuel Beckett
very close to Derridean rejection of the semantic singularity and fixity of meaning or hidden
transcendental meaning. The aporetic effects on the minds of the tramps manifest themselves
in their following dialogue, in which they are unable to express their pains and sufferings:

“Vladimir: It hurts?
Estragon: Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
Vladimir: (angrily) No one ever suffers but you. I don’t count. I’d like to hear
what you’d say if you had what I have.
Estragon: It hurts?
Vladimir: Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!” (Beckett, Samuel, 1956, Act
1, p.10).

Binary Oppositions

According to structuralism, the concept of binarism is fundamental and

indispensable to human language, cognition and communication. Therefore, binary
oppositions help us to shape the entire world-view and to mark differences in an otherwise
unrecognized universe (Raman, Selden, 1989, 56). However, binarism underlies human
thought and action. Cultures and languages often function through binary polarities. In
philosophy and religion, paired oppositions (matter and idea, cause and effect, body and mind,
virtue and evil, content and form, subject and object, beauty and ugliness) serve as very
foundations of human thought. When we cast a glance at history of human thought, we find
logocentric binarism in it.

Even in literary analysis, the discovery of thematic binary polarities within the
literary texts is one of the central hermeneutic tools of interpretation of meaning of the literary
text. Jonathan Culler suggests, “certain oppositions are pertinent to larger thematic structures,
which encompass other antitheses presented in the text” (Culler, Jonathan, 2002, p. 226).
Therefore, deconstruction operates from the inside of the text in two ways. One is
to point to neglected portions in the text and to put them in questioning and find their
inconsistencies. The other way is to deal with the binary oppositions in the text. Jacques
Derrida gives an analogy about the neglected portions of the text, telling how to deconstruct
them. He compares the text to architectonic structures and writes that in some texts there are
“neglected” or “defective” corner stones, which need to be levered in order to be
deconstructed (Derrida, Jacques, 1989, p. 72).

Jacques Derrida claims that in Western tradition of philosophy, there has always
been an opposition between the two concepts and in each pair of concepts always “governs

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the other (axiologically, logically, etc.), or has the upper hand” (Derrida, Jacques, 1981, p.
41). These polarity opposites have a certain tension between them. For this reason,
deconstruction is most simply defined as a critique of the hierarchical oppositions that have
structured Western thought: inside -outside, mind-body, literal- metaphorical, speech –
writing, presence –absence, nature- culture, form –meaning. Deconstructing an opposition
means to show that it is not natural and inevitable but a construction, produced by discourses
that rely on it, showing that it is a construction in a work of deconstruction that seeks to
dismantle it and reinscribe it –that is, not destroy it but give it a different structure and
functioning (Derrida, Jacques, 1981, p. 120).

That this reversal of the oppositions should not immediately pass to “neutralizing
the binary oppositions of metaphysics and simply residing within the closed field of these
oppositions” (Derrida, Jacques, 1998, p 41). Reversing the oppositions and giving superiority
to the suppressed concept does not mean to deconstruct it because the suppressed concept
would have the upper hand and thus it would mean to stay “within the closed field of these
oppositions”. In order to get out of the closed fields of the binary oppositions, Derrida adds
that “it must, through a double gesture, a double science, a double writing {reading} – put
into practice a reversal of the classical opposition and a general displacement of the system. It
is on that condition alone that deconstruction will provide the means of intervening in the
field of oppositions it criticizes …” (Derrida, Jacques, 1998, p. 21). This “displacement” and
intervention creates a new text and context. That is why Derrida states that “deconstruction” is
also a “reconceptualization” (Derrida, Jacques, 1998, p 136).

The reconceptualization produces new meanings and interpretations of the

original text. It suggests the possibilities and alternatives inherent in the original text.
Therefore, every text that repeats the original text in a new context produces a new text,
which is a new production. .This new production is different from the original text in some
points and shows the iteration of the literary text .Derrida claims that iteration ,the
characteristic of repetition of a text, alters the original text so that ‘’ “something new takes
place” ( Derrida, Jacques,1998, p 40).

Deconstruction stands against all predetermined, prescribed and fossilized norms

and values. The notions of binary opposites like white and black, light and darkness, smart
and dull, virtue and evil, ideal and physical, and man and woman, beauty and ugliness may
be noted in “Waiting for Godot” that highlight the lack of stability and coherence of the text.
However, binary oppositions between Vladimir and Estragon and Pozzo and Lucky are also
exist in their ways of thinking, feelings, appearances, social statuses and even their levels of
intelligence. We come across the characters come in pairs: Didi/Gogo, Pozzo/Lucky,
Ham/Clov, Nagg/Nell in “Waiting for Godot” and other plays of Samuel Beckett.

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Therefore, we find in the play “Waiting for Godot”, the characters are entangled
within the web of binary oppositions. These polar opposites are used in the text as highly
applied line of condemnation to the one, which is depreciated. The characters of the play
resort to contrast and comparison, whenever they confront an aporetic and manically
offensive mode. This is the most pertinent method to convince their addresses about the
justification of their claims. In this sense, Samuel Beckett’s text is based on individual
inferences and linguistic experiences of the reader/ audience and decentring logocentric
binaries. In this manner, the logocentric binaries lose their validity and determination in the
text, fulfilling Derridean deconstructive aspiration. Therefore, the text refrains the readers
from determining only one fixed meaning, and prepares more room for different and deferral
meaning and interpretations.

In this way, Samuel Beckett presents the illusory logocentric metaphysical

presence in the aporetic form of Godot, which contradicts the logocentric preference for
presence, the futility of binary signification and the non-rationality of the logos Godot.
Therefore, the text of the play refutes the identity or the meaning of this absent being. Godot’s
absence in the play that invalidates the characters’ presence, probe an insoluble ontological
problem, which challenges the conventional interpretive assumptions of the literary text. In
this way, Samuel Beckett resists to fix one meaning for Godot, asserting, “If I knew I’d have
said so in the play.’’(Bair, Deirdre, 1993, p. 382).The concept of the word Godot is like
Jacques Derrida’s differance, escapes a one-to-one correspondence in the signification system
because it does not refer to concrete real being in the objective world.

Delogocentrism

In “Waiting for Godot” Vladimir and Estragon are homeless tramps. Therefore,
homelessness is shown to be a gift of capitalism. In this way, Samuel Beckett deconstructs
sentimentalism of home and family by demythologization of sentimental concepts of home
and family in the play. For this reason, he demithifies the traditional concept of home and
family as a centre of shelter in the play to present his characters Vladimir and Estragon as
homeless and familyless tramps.

However, Vladimir and Estragon create the logos in the name of Godot, which is an ultimate
source of donation and salvation for them. Therefore, they are waiting for him. Nevertheless,
Godot did never come to visit them. In this way, Samuel Beckett protests against different
ontological problems. His interest in “the shapes as opposed to the validity of ideas”
(Dearlove, 1982, 3) brings him very close to Derrida’s deconstruction. His play is ambiguous
to define the word Godot and ambiguity and fluidity are the characteristics of non-relational

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arts. His meta-dramatic text of the play refuses to fall in the order and strong sense of reality,
which prevails most the modernist literature. As Michael Warton mentions:

“What Beckett says in his plays is not totally new. However, what he does with his
sayings is radical and provocative; he uses his play-texts to remind (or tell) us that
there can be no certainty, no definitive knowledge, and that we need to learn to read in
a new way, in a way that gives us space to bring our contestations as well as our
knowledge to our reception to the text” (Warton, Michael, 1995, p. 81).

Samuel Beckett understands impasses and aporia to find definitions for his art and
has a sceptical attitude towards all definitions and categorizations. This characteristic makes
his art delogocentric. In this connection, he once asserted that, “I produce an object. What
people make of it is not my concern (Warton, Michael, 1995, p. 67). Moreover, some
characteristics of his art like self- reflectivity, repetition, and antimimetic theatricality,
displacing the authoritative central role of the author at the centre of the text, and
decentralizing the narrative bring him very close to Derridean deconstructive theory of
language and literature. However, Samuel Beckett postpones as well as differ the meaning
and origin of the word Godot as the logos, which is produced by inherent “difference” of
language, creating inaccessible domain in language, which both Samuel Beckett and Jacques
Derrida call “unnameable”. In this connection, Jacques Derrida writes:

“There is no essence of differance , it (is) that which only could never be appropriated
in the as such of its name or its appearing, but also that which threatens the authority of
the as such in general, of the presence of the thing itself in its essence. That there is not a
proper essence of differance at this point implies that there is neither a Being nor truth of
the play of writing such as it engages differance… ‘There is no name for it’- a
proposition to be read in this platitude. This unnameable is not an ineffable Being, which
no name could approach: God, for example. This unnameable is the play which make
possible nominal effects, the relatively unitary and atomic structures that are called
names, the chains of substitutions of names in which, the chain of substitutions of names
in which, for example, the nominal effects differance is itself enmeshed, carried off,
reinscribed, just as false entry or false exit is still part of the game, a function of the
system” (Derrida, Jacques, 1982, p. 27).

Therefore, the nameability is also one of the forms of Derridean delogocentrism

because nominalism is a logocentric phenomenon in language. We find in the play the boy
who is messenger of Godot is unnamed; Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo and Lucky are unfamiliar
type of names and even Godot is no name of any person. The title of one of Samuel Beckett’s
plays is also “Unnameable” in which Unnameable is the central character. In this manner,
Samuel Beckett uses the infinite play of signifiers through a refusal of narrative closure, an
idea that often finds expression in its tendency to embrace contradictions instead of resolving
them. This is what Jacques Derrida says that, language is the ground of being, and the world
is an infinite text in which an infinite chain of signifiers is always in play. Though human

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beings are constituted by language, they speak, so they, too, are the texts. In other words,
deconstructive theory of language has implication for subjectivity, for what it means to be a
human being.

Therefore, deconstruction in Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” is both

admitting this “unnameability” and parodying all efforts, especially of the characters, for
deciphering this domain. For instance, Vladimir gropes for meaning but fails in his
logocentric effort to overcome the differance of language and achieve meaning and origin.
However, he is unable to access the meaning, essence and origin of the self. At last, he
remains unable to move in as incoherent structure of the self. ” one of the fundamental
projects of the traditional theory” was to access a silent voice. (Kearney, Richard, 1987, p.
359). The possibility of such project, however, is “its very impossibility (Kearney, Richard,
1987, p. 359).

By depicting his characters’ defeat in their impossible understandings, Samuel

Beckett deconstructs the logi of this project. He does not only deconstruct his characters, but
also deconstructs himself, whose struggle for mastering language remains futile. For this
reason, his characters as well as he himself are ridiculed in his work. As Richard Kearney
observes:
“Beckett’s writing masterfully deconstructs itself by directing our attention to itself as
writing that is a system of sounding signifiers irretrievably at odds with the ideal of
corresponding silent signified. It is only by deconstructing the world’s pretention to
achieve self-adequation by means of silence, that we can uncover its hidden self-
alienation. That irony, which Beckett makes such great play of, is, of course, that one
obliged to use language to deconstruct language” (Kearney, Richard, 1987, p.
360).

Moreover, Samuel Beckett has a tendency towards playful treatment of subjects.

Treating the text of “Waiting for Godot” as literary game, he seeks to develop his playfulness
to everything, even to most philosophical concepts in his plot. He wants his audience or
readers to revise their position towards theatre and text by putting the concepts of God, truth,
origin, meaning and language in question in the inappropriate concepts of his language games.
However, the game playing in his text appears in two levels in Derridean deconstructive
manner: outside the text, either he plays game with the audience and readers, or he plays the
game between the characters or elements of performance.

However, Samuel Beckett’s characters seem perpetually playing with narration as

game. For instance, Estragon tries to recollect the fragments of his lost past in a narrative. In
this manner, the characters of the play change their tone from narrative to normal and
constantly amend the text that this voice produces. They reshape their narration every time

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that they have their voices; and they seek to entrap their past voice in a framed narration.
They feel pleasure to construct and deconstruct their narration. It is a very interesting game
for them. As Gabriele Schwab suggests, “The game is a private use of language, which gives
one the freedom to play with the familiarity of old and empty rules” (Schwab, Gabriele, 1987,
p. 90).
Moreover, the characters of the play seem to gather all these fragments in a loose
performing strategy and technique of meta-theatre, which is very different from a
conventional theatrical performance. Samuel Beckett himself asserts that, his characters
unlike Kafka’s hero who “has a coherence purpose…..seem to be falling to bits” (Malkin,
Jeanette R., 2002, p. 40). However, the impressions of the fragmented suffering characters of
“Waiting for Godot” imprint vividly in the memory of the audience and readers, even if the
stories behind them are forgotten. In this manner, Samuel Beckett produces characters, images
and notions in language-by-language game in his play, which opens for us the window of
plural and variable meanings. As Gontarski comments, Samuel Beckett creates images (on the
stage and in language) that suggest the mutability and plurality of meaning (Gontarski, S.E.,
1985, p. 16).

Conclusion

The present study tried to interpret Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot”
from a new and innovative perspective through Derridean deconstruction. It showed how the
metaphysics of presence and messianic logocentrism imprint preventive effects on mental
structure of human beings, and fall them in the aporetic trap of omnipresent and omnipotent
logi. Therefore, they slavishly accept the authority of the messianic theocentric and
anthropocentric logi. The study tries to prove that the techniques of meta-theatre used in
Samuel Beckett’s play, reject the conventional dramatic realism, make the text of the play
delogocentric text, and brings it very close to Derridean deconstruction, which rejects and
deconstructs the semantic singularity and fixity of meaning or hidden transcendental meaning
of the text.

The study attempted to unfold how the preventive stumbling aporic blocks of
centralized and fossilized structure of the minds of characters make them imprisoned within
the illusory web of the anthropocentric and theocentric messianic logi. The study also
concludes that man cannot perceive and interpret the text until and unless he dismantles the
messianic logocentrism of the prevailing tradition of the metaphysics of presence, which
positions the presupposed messianic logos in the centre of our perception of the universe.

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