Comment on Beckett’s use of dialogue in Waiting for
Godot.
The Breakdown of Language
Beckett’s plays are concerned with
expressing the difficulty of finding meaning in a world subject to change. His
use of language probes the limitations of language both as a means of
communication and as a vehicle for the expression of valid statements, an
instrument of thought.
His use of the dramatic medium shows that he has tried to
find means of expression beyond language. On the stage one can dispense with
words altogether (for instance, in his mime-plays), or at least one can reveal
the reality behind the words, as when the actions of the characters contradict
their verbal expression. “Let’s go”, say the two tramps at the end of each Act
of Waiting for Godot, but the stage directions inform us that “they
don’t move”. On the stage language can be put into such a relationship with
action that facts behind the language can be revealed. Hence the importance of
mine, knockabout comedy, and silence in Beckett’s plays—Krapp’s eating of
bananas, the pratfalls of Vladimir and Estragon, the variety turn with Lucky’s
hat, Clov’s immobility at the close of Endgame, which puts his verbally
expressed desire to leave in question. Beckett’s use of the stage is an attempt
to reduce the gap between the limitations of language and the sense of the
human situation he seeks to express in spite of his strong feeling that words
are inadequate to formulate it. The concreteness and three dimensional nature
of the stage can be used to add new resources to language as an instrument of
thought and exploration of being. Language in Beckett’s plays serves to express
the break-down of language. Where there is no certainty, there can be no
definite meanings—and the impossibility of ever attaining certainty is one of
the main themes of Beckett’s plays. Godot’s promises are vague and uncertain.
In Endgame, Hamm asks, “We’re not beginning to mean something?” Clov
merely laughs and says: “Mean something! You and I mean something!”
Language Ineffective as a Means of
Communication
Ten different modes
of the breakdown (or disintegration) of language have been noted in Waiting
for Godot. They range from simple misunderstandings and double-entendres to
monologues (as signs of inability to communicate), cliches, repetitions of
synonyms, inability to find the right words, and telegraphic style (loss of
grammatical structure, communication by shouted commands) to Lucky’s
farrago of chaotic nonsense and the dropping of punctuation marks, such as
question marks, as an indication that language has lost its function as a means
of communication, that questions have turned into statements not really
requiring an answer. A whole list of passages drawn up by a critic from Waiting
for Godot shows that the assertions made by one of the characters are
gradually qualified, weakened, and hedged in with reservations until they are
completely taken back. In a meaningless universe, it is always foolhardy to
make a positive statement.
