• Log In

The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

A Philosophy Podcast and Philosophy Blog

Subscribe on Android Spotify Google Podcasts audible patreon
  • Home
  • Podcast
    • PEL Network Episodes
    • Publicly Available PEL Episodes
    • Paywalled and Ad-Free Episodes
    • PEL Episodes by Topic
    • Nightcap
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Pretty Much Pop
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • (sub)Text
    • Phi Fic Podcast
    • Combat & Classics
    • Constellary Tales
  • Blog
  • About
    • PEL FAQ
    • Meet PEL
    • About Pretty Much Pop
    • Philosophy vs. Improv
    • Nakedly Examined Music
    • Meet Phi Fic
    • Listener Feedback
    • Links
  • Join
    • Become a Citizen
    • Join Our Mailing List
    • Log In
  • Donate
  • Store
    • Episodes
    • Swag
    • Everything Else
    • Cart
    • Checkout
    • My Account
  • Contact
  • Mailing List

Nick Mount on Samuel Beckett and Existentialist Drama

November 21, 2013 by Daniel David 1 Comment

Nick Mount
Nick Mount

As our Philosophy in Fiction Not School group has begun to dig into Samuel Beckett's “Waiting For Godot” this month, questions about how to interpret the play have started to crop up. Who or what is Godot, and why are these guys waiting for him? What do we make of the seemingly aimless and repetitive dialogue, the bare stage, and these abstruse characters? Unless you happen to be an inmate at San Quentin, “Waiting for Godot” can be a difficult work to unlock.

One approach often taken to the play is to interpret it as existentialist drama.  An association of Beckett's plays with existentialism was popularized Martin Esslin's 1961 book, "The Theatre of the Absurd" and the phrase has stuck ever since.  It's not hard to see why: there are a number of reasons why existentialism might seem like the key to interpreting the play.  Both Sartre and Camus were Beckett's contemporaries, and their most famous plays were being produced throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s.  All three joined the French Resistance during the war, and after the war Beckett chose to begin writing in French instead of English.  “Waiting for Godot” (1953) has obvious thematic similarities to certain existentialist literary works. Beckett's characters find themselves suffering and alone in a world without God or prescribed meaning for human beings.  But are Didi and Gogo really just two tramps in bad faith who have failed to acknowledge their radical freedom and responsibility?  Is an existentialist reading the way to "get" Beckett's play?

Many people think that such a reading is at cross purposes with some aspects of the play, and one of them is University of Toronto professor Nick Mount. In this video of a talk on “Waiting for Godot”, Mount takes up the issue at about 38:05. While he agrees that Beckett's characters share an “existential angst," he argues that Sartre's faith in humanity's enduring ability to choose and to create its own meaning is nowhere to be found in the play.  I think he's correct, and that this hints at another difference.  Both Sartre and Camus (who had his own objections to being labeled an existentialist) wrote drama that dealt with the absurd in content, but remained traditional in form.  The identity of their characters remained reliable, their situations understandable, and their knowledge dependable.  In "Waiting for Godot," things are never certain; anything can be doubted.  Identity has a way of sliding and perception itself is tricky.  In his closing remarks, Mount says:

If the play did endorse existentialism...that would mean that one religion, one explanation has survived. And the play is about the loss of all explanations, all answers.

As for Beckett himself, he said that when he did read philosophy, it was Descartes that he went to, not the existentialists.  Though he knew Sartre peripherally, he said that both Sartre and Heidegger's language was “too philosophical” for him, and that “One can only speak of what is in front of one, and that is simply a mess.” (Cronin, Anthony. Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist p.231-32).

By the way, there's still plenty of time to jump in on our Not School group's reading of this play. (Go sign up!)  We'll be reading the play until early December when we'll do a live discussion over Skype, but some interesting discussion is already going on in the forum.

-Daniel Cole

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Filed Under: Not School Report Tagged With: existentialism, philosophy blog, Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Comments

  1. dmf says

    November 24, 2013 at 10:14 am

    http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2009/09/erik-tonning-theodicy-and-the-re-invention-of-nature-from-william-paley-to-samuel-beckett/

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

PEL Live Show 2023

Brothers K Live Show

Citizenship has its Benefits

Become a PEL Citizen
Become a PEL Citizen, and get access to all paywalled episodes, early and ad-free, including exclusive Part 2's for episodes starting September 2020; our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat more causally; a community of fellow learners, and more.

Rate and Review

Nightcap

Listen to Nightcap
On Nightcap, listen to the guys respond to listener email and chat more casually about their lives, the making of the show, current events and politics, and anything else that happens to come up.

Subscribe to Email Updates

Select list(s):

Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription.

Support PEL

Buy stuff through Amazon and send a few shekels our way at no extra cost to you.

Tweets by PartiallyExLife

Recent Comments

  • Bibliophile on Pretty Much Pop #143: Pinocchio the Unfilmable (Yet Frequently Filmed)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 302: Erasmus Praises Foolishness (Part Two)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 308: Moore’s Proof of Mind-Independent Reality (Part Two for Supporters)
  • Mark Linsenmayer on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)
  • MartinK on Ep. 201: Marcus Aurelius’s Stoicism with Ryan Holiday (Citizen Edition)

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

Become a PEL Citizen!

As a PEL Citizen, you’ll have access to a private social community of philosophers, thinkers, and other partial examiners where you can join or initiate discussion groups dedicated to particular readings, participate in lively forums, arrange online meet-ups for impromptu seminars, and more. PEL Citizens also have free access to podcast transcripts, guided readings, episode guides, PEL music, and other citizen-exclusive material. Click here to join.

Blog Post Categories

  • (sub)Text
  • Aftershow
  • Announcements
  • Audiobook
  • Book Excerpts
  • Citizen Content
  • Citizen Document
  • Citizen News
  • Close Reading
  • Combat and Classics
  • Constellary Tales
  • Exclude from Newsletter
  • Featured Ad-Free
  • Featured Article
  • General Announcements
  • Interview
  • Letter to the Editor
  • Misc. Philosophical Musings
  • Nakedly Examined Music Podcast
  • Nakedly Self-Examined Music
  • NEM Bonus
  • Not School Recording
  • Not School Report
  • Other (i.e. Lesser) Podcasts
  • PEL Music
  • PEL Nightcap
  • PEL's Notes
  • Personal Philosophies
  • Phi Fic Podcast
  • Philosophy vs. Improv
  • Podcast Episode (Citizen)
  • Podcast Episodes
  • Pretty Much Pop
  • Reviewage
  • Song Self-Exam
  • Supporter Exclusive
  • Things to Watch
  • Vintage Episode (Citizen)
  • Web Detritus

Follow:

Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | Apple Podcasts

Copyright © 2009 - 2023 · The Partially Examined Life, LLC. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy · Terms of Use · Copyright Policy

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in