But What of Beauty?

I just finished reading Waiting For Godot. It is a play where nothing at all happens and the two main characters seek endlessly to distract themselves from this fact. One of the most bothersome things about this play (and I think the author, Samuel Beckett, wanted it to be bothersome) is the utter futility represented in both acts. The characters ramble on in vain conversations about a variety of things. They occasionally border on the interesting, but more often merely frustratingly engage with meaninglessness. If ever they begin to go somewhere, they soon come around to exactly where they were before: and so the cycle goes. This, I think, is Beckett’s point:

“Estragon: ‘Well, shall we go?’

Vladimir: ‘Yes, let’s go.’

They do not move.” (Beckett, Waiting for Godot)

The characters speak of moving. They talk about changing their circumstances. But they never actually do anything that finds them different than they were before they did it. Both of the characters seem largely blind to this fact. Estragon, for his part, never remembers the day before; so why should he change? Vladamir, while he remembers some, refuses to take the risk of leaving, lest he should miss Godot.

The question as to whether or not this is an allegory of Beckett’s on the nature of human existence seems like the wrong question. This is a story, not a treatise, and that does not rob it of meaning: if anything, it amplifies it. If this is the fullness of the reality of Estragon’s and Vladamir’s, world, then it seems a futile place to live indeed: for nothing there matters. For those who encounter this story, their recognition of themselves in it, the recognition of their world in it, and the fear that recognition touches off, are proof of its power.  Its worth is in this ability to take the reader by the collar and shake him up and ask,"Do you see this?  Do you see what a frustrating mess we all are if this is all there is?"

But there is a problem: we have seen beauty.  Undeniable reality broke through with a revelation of himself.  Eucatastrophe has swept over everything. Waiting for Godot is a lie, but it is one worth reading, as long as you remember it's a lie.  It is a powerful expression of the logical conclusions of God-denial, and a clear view of where we would be.