Deconstructing Consciousness: The Search for Meaning in Waiting for Godot

Abstract

Samuel Beckett has long been recognized as a great playwright of the Theater of the Absurd, a theatrical genre identified by dramatic critic Martin Esslin. Early Absurdist playwrights were categorized by Esslin because of their use of narrative and character in order to expose the meaninglessness of a post-Nietzschean world. In his book the Theatre of the Absurd, Esslin states:

“'Absurd' orginally means 'out of harmony', in a musical context. Hence its dictionary

definition: 'out of harmony with reason or propriety; incongruous, unreasonable, illogical'[...] In an essay on Kafka, Ionesco defined his understanding of the term as follows: 'Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.”

(Esslin 1973, p.5)

Because Esslin used Beckett as his first example, an Absurdist reading of Waiting for Godot has already been well explored by scholars and practitioners. In contrast, another popular reading is deeply rooted in the existential struggle of humanity after World War II. A deconstruction of this play offers the potential to explore Beckett outside of the existential and Absurdist box that critics and audiences typically use to understand Beckettian plays.

This paper examines Godot through a poststructuralist lens. By integrating the methodologies of deconstruction suggested by Jacques Derrida with the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan's symbolic language, I seek to identify and interpret the symbols in this play as signifiers. The abundance and specificity of Beckett's symbols and their corresponding meanings can be appreciated by a complete and thorough deconstruction of the text. This deconstruction opens up the potential to uncover a deeper understanding, illuminating the symbiosis which Beckett described when asked about the play's meaning.