Name :-Niyatiben A. Pathak
Batch :- 2017-2019
Enrollement no. . 2069108420180042
Paper : Modernist Literature
Guide : Dilip Barad
Submitted to : Department Of English MKBU
Words....2441
Here is my assignment on ...
Hindu mythology and Christian identity in waiting for godot
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Introduction ……
The present study aims at discussing the questioning attitude of Samuel Beckett towards Christianity, in his play Waiting for Godot. The work belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd movement of the 1950s which propagates the existentialist philosophy of Albert Camus and Jean Sartre. It is suggested through textual analysis that the play questions the basic claims, tenets, andideology of Christianity. It raises questions about the position of man in the cosmos, the Christian concept of damnation and salvation, and the authenticity of the Christian history.
Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett may be considered one of the most famous plays intwentieth century, at the same time it may also be among the most controversial plays. Moreover, being attributed to the absurd theatre, adds ambiguity to its content. In this type of drama, there is not a real plot, so it is very difficult to the viewer to understand what is exactly meant by the writer of the text. The main question that has been discussed by many critics is;who is Godot? "Any interpretation that strives to know who Godot is (or is not), whether he is realistic character, whether he will ever come, whether he has ever come, or even whether he may have come without being recognized (or possibly in disguise) is, if not absolutely wrong, at least not absolutely right" Htchings. Critics are of different views about the character of Godot in this play. Samuel Beckett himself didn’t give answer to this question when he was asked.
He said that if he knew he would reveal but he claimed that he himself didn’t know. Classica
l works always have the possibility for being understood in different way. This might has been a good reason for Beckett not to reveal the real personality of Godot to make readers and critics think seriously about his characters.
Keywords: Christianity, God, Man, Absurd, Hindu psychology
Religion….
Religion and religious perspectiveReligion represents the main part of life for the greatest majority of people all over the world and remarkably touches the core of their lives. It may orientate lives ofpeople into different ends which extent even to sacrifice themselves and die for religious issues,so explainingthe meaning of religion is important. There are three definitions of religion mentioned in oxford dictionary. "The belief in the existence of God or Gods; and the activities that are connected with the worship of them", "One of the systems of faith that are based on the belief in the existenceof particular God or Gods"," A particular interest or influence that is very important in your life"Samuel Beckett's religion is Christianity, so it is important to understand what dose religionmean according to Christianity and how might this sense affecte him. The Gospel thought, as Pastor Keller says:
"The universe is not empty, but created by a good and heavenly Father. It is a universe that is both filled with good things to enjoy, as well as moral laws that give structure to our lives. But the chiefgoal and aim of life is neither enjoying the good gifts, norobeying the laws, but in knowing and being known by the Creator who made the universe. When we try to fill our lives with created things and not the Creator, we end up empty and burned out".
Incompatible with IN WAITING FOR GODOT characters who attempt to understand religion logically are left in the dark , and the system is compared to such absurd banalities as suiting bowler hats or taking a boot on and off. Religion is also tied to uncertainly since there is no way of knowing what is objective true in the relation of faith .Beckett uses imagery from the bible that suggests a link between his play and religion .
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot has been said by many people to be a long book about nothing. The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend all their time sitting by a tree waiting for someone named Godot, whose identity is never revealed to the audience. It may sound pretty dull at first but by looking closely at the book, it becomes apparent that there is more than originally meets the eye. Waiting for Godot was written to be a critical allegory of religious faith, relaying that it is a natural necessity for people to have faith, but faiths such as Catholicism are misleading and corrupt.
VLADIMIR
(musingly) The last moment . . . (He meditates.) Hope deferred maketh the something sick, who said that? (1.32)
(musingly) The last moment . . . (He meditates.) Hope deferred maketh the something sick, who said that? (1.32)
Actually, Vladimir, the line is, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick; but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life," and it’s a Biblical proverb. If Dido and Gogo’s hope is for Godot to show up, then this is a hope perpetually deferred since, as we know, Godot never comes. As for the tree of life, there is a tree on stage when Vladimir utters his line, but it’s not so much a tree of life as it is a dead, shrub-looking thing. So what should we make of that?
If waiting for godot until now compared the suffering of the men on stage to the suffering of Christ, it is now condemning that very comparision. This is in keeping with the presentation of religion as illogical contradictory. (jadeja)
hesymbolic significance of Godot and the stages of the lives of Vladimir and Estragon.Itexplores the various aspects of time and the circle of karmain the context of the Hindu concept of Karmayoga,
Sankhyaphilosophy and Kalchak. According to Sankhya philosophy, nature is composed of three forces called, in Sanskrit, Sattva Rajas and Tamas. These as manifested in the physical world are what we may call equilibrium, activity, and inertness.Tamasis typified as darkness or inactivity;Rajasis activity, expresse,as attraction or repulsion; and Sattvais the equilibrium of the two. Initially the play reflects the tamsic state, which is the result of ignorance. Next, Vladimir andEstragon become active after getting the message about the arrival of God,whichreflects the rajsic state. The realization of the motive of their ultimate existence reflects Satw. The fundamental existential base of Vladimir and Estragon is Kaal and Karma.Vladimir and Estragon know that waiting is a temporaryengagement but somehow their waiting continues without culmination. Time is passing, the wheel of time never takes anything with itself, and it never gives place to anyone in its journey. The wheel turns from one place to another, turns from one road to another and
lives the life of continuity. As the time passes, the wheel becomes weak by numberless burdens
of time's tyrannies. The journey never ends, incidents never stop, one wheel goes, and another wheel comes upon the road of life.Man feels entrapped in the world of activity.The very important theme of Karma Yoga is not focused on renouncing the work, but again and again Krishna focuses on what should be the purpose of activity. Krishna mentions in the following verses that action must be performed to please the Supremeotherwise these actions become the cause of material
lbondage and cause repetition of birth and death in this material world:
"To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction." (Radhakrishnan The Bhagavadgītā(19)
Christian mythical interpretations:
Christians believe, Christ was God as well as a human, with all of humanity'saccompanying strengths and weaknesses. He was literally God as a person ("personalGod"), and he lived among heights of humanity's shortcomings, which Lucky paraphrasesin three cryptic "A" words. "Apathia" is a lack of caring; "aphasia" is an inability to speak;and "athambia's" meaning is unknown to me, but I would point out its proximity toatheism, or the belief in no God. Christ was introduced into the "A's" of a spirituallyempty world, which lacked interest, expression, and belief in God. With his simple, yetpowerful words and his miracles, Christ had the tools and the opportunity to fill man'shollow. Yet the emptiness is still present-it is even the stimulus for Lucky to mention thethree "A's" in his present discourse. Christ failed to fulfill his purpose.Lucky continues his tirade in the same manner, speaking of the antipodal places inChrist's teachings, heaven and hell:...that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm so calm with a calmwhich even though is intermittent is better than nothing... (p. 28b)Lucky's stilted rhetoric generally restates what Christ preached, but it also shows howChrist's teachings can be confusing and contradictory. One way to interpret thepunctuation-less passage is to separate "blast hell" from "to heaven" and treat them astwo separate commands. The command then becomes an instruction to turn away fromthe temptations of hell and look toward the peace of heaven. This is, of course, thecentral theme of many of Christ's teachings. Why then would Lucky express it in such away that allows one to read the phrases together? Connected, the passage tells us to"blast hell to heaven," or place sin and temptation together in the middle of heaven. Thiswould not only disrupt heaven's peace, but also flatten the entire structure and hierarchyof Christianity, placing God and the Devil, Good and Evil, on a level plane. Furthermore, why would Lucky point out the weaknesses of the faith, that heaven's calm is"intermittent" and merely "better than nothing?" Because the creation of a faithimmediately creates the shortcomings of the faith as a corollary. Christ's words, as retoldby Lucky, establish the spatial hierarchy of the Christian faith and simultaneously flattenthat same space, as well as the same faith.Lucky is not finished; he persists, exploring a similar idea:…that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecationwastes and pines wastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously… The body's excretory system parallels Christianity. The act of eating necessitates theremoval of what was eaten; likewise, the act of believing necessitates the questioningand ultimate removal of the same belief. Constant eating yields constant defecation,with no net satiation. Similarly, ingesting the faith removes the same faith immediatelyafter the body processes it and finds only enough value to sustain, never to satisfy. Andsustenance is not enough. Just as the value of $100 today will be worth much less in justten years, as man progresses though time with no net improvement, his value actuallydecreases, or "wastes." And man pines for more. Christianity, therefore, has only a
limited sustaining effect in the short-term (just as it touches man's lips), and as a long-term, advancing faith, it is a waste. It flows out of man's bowels the very next moment.Lucky then begins to explore how the faith is reduced, placing his argument in thecontext of his pseudo-scientific talk: "no matter what matter the facts are there" (p. 29a). The dual "matters" allude to Bishop Berkeley, whose name appeared in the book fivelines above this quote (p. 29a). Berkeley was an Irish Bishop who attempted in hiswritings to reconcile science and the Christian doctrine. He said that matter exists if it isperceived by some mind, and that matter, therefore, exists because God is alwaysthinking of everything. In effect Berkeley was able to harmonize God and science.Science exists because God thinks about it; thinking about science constitutes God. Nowthe Bishop is dead, literally and metaphorically. Lucky's tirade makes a weak attempt torevive the Bishop's ideas by putting the language of science and faith together. Butinstead of harmonizing, they clash. In the context of this dissonance, in a desperateattempt to save faith in the face of questioning, the quote is a command just to acceptthe evidences of faith even if science disagrees- "no matter what matter." Faith nowdisregards science, and because of this, it is in a much weaker position to defendquestions without scientific support to back it up. Christianity's strength has beenreduced.Lucky also shows the devaluation of the Christian faith with the constant obliquereferences to "Cunard." Sir Samuel Cunard founded the line of Cunard steamships in themid- nineteenth century. His ships played a pivotal role in the Crimean War (1853-1856),which was caused by a dispute between Russia, France, and Turkey over Holy Places in Jerusalem. This reference is particularly apt because in early 1948, the year Beckettwrote this play,Israelbecame a nation containing many of the same Holy Places. Thevery next day the Arabs, composed partially of Christians, attacked the Israelis andstormed East Jerusalem and the Holy Places. Men, at the very time Beckett conceivedGodot, were murdering each other to possess the city where one religion of peace andsharing began. Christianity, in part, made the city of Jerusalem special, and that act, inturn, destroys what is most special: life.Lucky finally brings to a close his discourse with an encyclopedia of unheeded evidence of Christianity:…in spite of the tennis on on the the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue socalm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis thelabors abandoned left unfinished… (p. 29b) This portion of the text points in many directions toward one underlying purpose. Somecreative research seems in order. Tennis was originally named jeu de paume, whichtranslates "a game of the palm." This could allude to Christ's stigmata, which he showedto Thomasas evidence of his identity and resurrection. The flames allude to thePentecostal flames that descended upon the apostles as tongues of fire, filling them withthe Holy Spirit and allowing them to speak in foreign tongues so as to communicate theword of God to foreigners.
Waiting forVladimir and Estragon spend all their time through out the book waiting for "Godot." It is unclear to the audience if either of them have ever seen Godot or even talked to him.
"Pozzo: Who is Godot?
...Vladimir: Oh he's a... he's a kind of acquaintance.
Estragon: Nothing of the kind, we hardly know him.
Vladimir: True...we don't know him very well...but all the same...
Estragon: Personally I wouldn't even know him if I saw him" (Beckett 16).
It is made clear to the audience through conversation like this that neither Vladimir nor Estragon has any evidence that Godot even exists; yet they spend their time waiting for him to come. They simply believe in him without proof. They have faith that he is real and that faith gives them hope. It gives them. (scribd.)
Works Cited
jadeja, poojaba. "Waiting for Godot" with Religious interpretations . 18 oct 2014. <http://poojabajadeja1315.blogspot.com/2014/10/waiting-for-godot-with-religious.html>.
scribd. Waiting for Godot Clear Criticism of Christianity. <https://www.scribd.com/document/22369946/Waiting-for-Godot-Clear-Criticism-of-Christianity>.
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