New Criticism applied to Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

The term New Criticism which arose from Eliot’s Theory of Impersonality in Art defines the

critical theory that has dominated Anglo-American literary criticism for past fifty years. It is a

‘New’ approach because it completely ignored context and the author’s background. The critic

doesn’t know anything about the writer and studies the work of art solely based on the merit of

language. One is required to look at the text in isolation and reject authorial intent as well as

biographical or sociological interpretations. In order to bring the focus back to analysis of the

texts, New Critics aimed to exclude the reader’s response, the author’s intention, historical and

cultural contexts and moralistic bias from their analysis.

The New Critics called authorial intent as ‘intentional fallacy’ and a reader’s subjective response

as ‘affective fallacy’ and thus were quick to eliminate these aspects while critically analyzing a

text. The school of New Criticism and Russian formalism are both types of Formalism and thus

very similar, in that they aim at deriving meaning not from content but in the structure and form

of literature. Both New Criticism and Russian Formalism sought to make literary criticism more

objective and scientific in this way: to distinguish, formalistically, literary language from

ordinary language. It wasn’t just the content that was important i.e ‘what’ the work attempts to

say but rather ‘how’ it says it.

One main point of difference between Russian formalism and New Criticism lies in the way the

two schools approach literary form. Russian formalism sees form as an opportunity for

innovation. To be innovative, literature must say things about the world in a new and strange

way. However, New Critics saw form as the place for restraint where criticism must become

more scientific and objective. Thus, Russian Formalists tended to be more anti-establishment and

New Critics were reactionary.

While new criticism is usually suitable for poems, it can be applied well on plays like Waiting

for Godot. This is because this play is an absurdist play. The characteristics of an absurdist play

is confusion and uncertainty. Instead of making the analysis of the text of such plays even more

convoluted by studying the background of the author, it is far more convenient to focus on only

the text itself. As a result, applying new criticism on Waiting for Godot is extremely suitable.

In waiting for Godot, where the play is supposed to be taking place and what time period it is

supposed to be taking place hasn’t been mentioned. While we do have critics who say that it took

place somewhere that has been torn by war, the play itself doesn’t mention anything about war.

Those who have tried to analyse the text in a different way by approaching Beckett, he refused to

elaborate on the play background and characters, saying that everything he knew about the play

has been written in the play itself. He even says that he regretted naming ‘Godot’ as Godot,

because of all the theories that popped up saying that Godot stood for God, creating a religious

way to analye the novel. Based on this, it is safe to say new criticism is perfect for this play as

like the writer has said, he wrote everything he knew about the play in the play and new criticism

focuses on solely on text of the play.

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The repetition of dialogues within the play and the circular structure of the two acts emphasize

the theme of existentialism that is recurrent in the play. The language in this play is devoid of

any context, its repetitive, contradictory, and an insight to the meaninglessness of the human life.

Mostly it is serious but has some comic undertone to it which makes it a brilliant tragic comedy

play of all time. The language of the play shows the sound effects, the recurrent vocabulary, the

characters try to find meaning in their lives but are unsuccessful. Still the world is without

purpose because characters fail to provide it with meaning through their actions. The

conversations and characters’ reaction to events reveal the absurdity of the play. As Estragon

mentions “Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it’s awful” the play continues to roll

in the same circular manner even in the second part of the play with repetitive actions. Vladimir

and Estragon move through the motions Sisyphus-like in the day-to- day trenches of adult human

existence. In the beginning of the first act itself, we see the two of them mirroring each other.

The exchange between the two of them about their pain and anguish; “Hurts! He wants to know

if it hurts!” also seems pointless since they don’t even communicate their pain to one another.

Vladimir, when first noticing Estragon, uses virtually the same words, So there you are again,

in Act I and there you are again, in Act II. At the beginning of both acts, the first discussion

concerns a beating that Estragon received just prior to their meeting. At the beginning of both

acts, Vladimir and Estragon emphasize repeatedly that they are there to wait for Godot. In the

endings of both acts, Vladimir and Estragon discuss the possibility of hanging themselves, and in

both endings they decide to bring some good strong rope with them the next day so that they can

indeed hang themselves.

While Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot, they also wait for nightfall. they don’t have to wait

for him once the night has fallen. The classic interpretation is that night = dark = death. The

falling of night is as much a reprieve from daily suffering as death is from the suffering of a

lifetime. Another example of Vladimir and Estragon’s voluntary exile from civilization is

Estragon’s reactions to body odors . Pozzo reeks in Act 2. It seems every time Estragon tries to

get close to a person, he is repelled by their odor. It looks to us like smells represent one of the

barriers to interpersonal relationships. Estragon isn’t just repelled by odors—he’s repelled by the

visceral humanity of those around him. There’s something gritty and base about the odor of a

human body, and for Estragon it’s too much to handle.

This play also brings out the theme language as being ineffective as a means of communication.

The above conversation, in particular, highlights the limitations of language and the sense of the

human situation that both the tramps seek to express in spite of a strong intuition that words are

inadequate to formulate it. Another example is frequent misunderstandings within the play, when

Vladimir is trying to narrate the story about the four thieves. Monologues also hint at inability to

communicate, for example, Lucky’s speech and Vladimir’s monologue towards the end of the

second act.

We also see the breakdown of dialogue where words dilute into sounds or gurgles because no

logical discussion or exchange takes place. The characters talk in broken sentences and

sometimes they are monosyllabic. Vladimir, whose character symbolizes mental decay even

struggles to remember simple words like ‘appalled’ or ‘damned’, he repeats them more than

once almost as if to make sure he doesn’t forget what they mean.

Beckett’s use of language thus, is designed to devalue language as a vehicle of conceptual

thought or as an instrument for the communication of ready-made answers to the problems of the

human condition.

The lifeless tree symbolizes the aftermath of a war, and the characters’ lives which are hollow

and meaningless. There is slavery and poverty, which is portrayed the lack of food and shelter.

The presence of the tree and a rock of some sort is apparently important, at least according to

Beckett —the setting, he says, is complete with animal, vegetable, and mineral.Having all three

elements present—animal, vegetable, and mineral—would seem to suggest that the world of

“Waiting for Godot” is a complete one. Nothing is missing, everything is present, and yet still

the world is barren and empty.