Estimate Waiting for Godot as a
modern tragi-comedy.
Tragic-comedy is a play which claims a plot apt for
tragedy but which ends happily like a comedy. The action is serious in theme
and subject matter and tone also sometimes but it seems to be a tragic
catastrophe until an unexpected turn in events brings out the happy ending. The
characters of a tragic-comedy are noble but they are involved in
improbabilities. In such a play tragic and comic elements are mixed up
together. Fletcher, in his “Preface to
the Faithful Shepherdess”, defines a tragic-comedy as:
“A
tragic-comedy is not so called in respect to mirth and killing, but in respect
it wants death which is enough to make it no tragedy. Shakespeare’s ‘Cymbeline’
and ‘The Winter’s Tale’ may also be categorized as tragic-comedy.”
The English edition of “Waiting for Godot”, published in 1956 describes the play as a “tragic-comedy” in two acts. There are
many dialogues, gestures, situations and actions that are stuff of pure comedy.
All musical devices are employed to create laughter in such a tragic situation
of waiting. The total atmosphere of the play is very akin to dark-comedy. For
example, Vladimir is determined not to hear Estragon’s nightmare. The latter
pleads with him in vain to hear him, saying that there is nobody else to whom
he may communicate his private nightmares.
