Before introducing this book in detail, samuel beckett must be introduced in detail.
Samuel beckett was born in an ordinary Spanish family on 1906. He himself has a very high foundation in drama performance, and even won the Nobel Prize of 1969. Although the Nobel Prize-winning ceremony said that "contemporary people were uplifted from poverty because of his unique collection of novels and dramatic features", he did not attend the prize-winning ceremony, but said "come out and die", mainly to show that he didn't care about all this.
Absurd plays usually set off the unfortunate and realistic life track with funny stories and immoral stories.
The key narrative of Waiting for Godot is that beggars Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for a man named Godot under an old tree. As well as simple scene layout and very simple characters and dialogues, they show everyone the strangeness and desolation of the human world in boredom, which makes people deeply moved.
1. The eliminated character features and scene layout highlight the essence of the world. Waiting for Godot is a dramatic performance with two acts. Let's look at the first act:
There is a path and a tree in a small village.
Dusk.
Estrogen sat on a stone and tried to take off his shoes. It pulled hard with both hands, panting with fatigue. He slowed down exhausted, panting and cautious. Then gradually take off your shoes. Same posture.
Vladimir came out.
The scene and time of this drama performance are under a tree at night. However, it is particularly important to note that "evening" has a unique meaning here.
"Evening" can not only represent the transition from broad daylight to night, but also be a metaphor for everyone changing from a busy day to a time for rest. Night is usually a time of sin, just like Shakespeare's play Macbeth killed the king and seized the throne at night; It can also be that every tired person gradually enjoys a short happy time of his own, drinking and singing, and looking for physical and mental pleasure in a thick world. Therefore, the setting of the "evening" scene is not only a time, but also means that everyone is diverse and has the possibility of survival.
Everyone plays a different role in this world, and behind each role is a life experience that he must feel. Just like beggars, they live a life of running around and eating nothing; The extravagant and wasteful rich live a luxurious and wasteful life. The life path and way you have always chosen in this world determines the life you will feel matched with.
The play tells a lot about Estrogen's shoes. Always liked Stragon constantly combing his shoes. Why on earth do books always mention shoes? This is actually a metaphor.
Tagore once said, "It is not the distant mountain that is tired, but a grain of sand in the shoe." Many times, everyone will always delay the overall goal in the distance because of the trivial things in front of them. Everyone has been shaping the overall goal of the future as promised, but everyone is blatantly consuming their time and vitality.
In the process of waiting for Godot, beggars Estragon and Vladimir have been talking without saying a word. They seem to have been talking and encouraging each other, waiting for Godot to come together. However, if you carefully analyze their conversation, you will find that many times, they are talking alone, without logic and the key to dialogue. Even when waiting for Godot, they don't know why they are waiting for Godot, and they don't know what they need after Godot comes. There is another passage in the original novel:
Vladimir: So what?
It's nothing. That would be more appropriate.
Vladimir: Let's wait and see what he will say to us.
Who?
Godot
,,,,,,,
What do we want from him?
Vladimir: Well, nothing is too sure.
Some kind of prayer.
Vladimir: That's right.
From here we can know that "Godot" stands for "expectation". In addition, this is also a metaphor, and most people all over the world have been expecting their wishes according to the method of prayer. However, everyone only understands the current prayers, but they don't understand what they really think.
For example, a person who expects to have a lot of money to make a fortune every day thinks that he will be happy as long as he thinks about money. But he was unhappy when he had a lot of money, so he went to see a doctor and asked him why he was so rich.
The doctor asked, why do you feel rich?
He said that having money will make others envy their lives, which is good.
The doctor asked why you think you are rich and happy to be envied by others.
He said that my parents had been arguing about money because our family was too poor when we were young. My teacher has been scolding my dad for making money, saying that the next-door neighbor's life is happy because they have money.
At the moment, the doctor said, what you need is not a lot of money, nor is it enviable, but harmony at home.
Many times, people always think that they must have a lot of things to be happy. Everyone has been focusing on the "Godot" that produces expectations, but they still complain that the shoes don't fit, they can't stand up to enjoy life, and they can't stand up to see the beautiful scenery in the distance.
2. The vague concept of time implies that the essence of the world is a mess. In Waiting for Godot, the actual date has not been determined, except that the time is in the evening. They don't know what day it is or when Godot will come.
But which one is Saturday? Is it Saturday today? Is it unlikely that today will be Monday or Friday?
Vladimir: That's unlikely.
Or Thursday.
In Waiting for Godot, there is no time, which is precisely the absurd feature. No one knows what day it is today, and no one knows what everyone is waiting for and when it will come. All the storylines are closely related to "waiting".
I think the word "waiting" is neutral. It can mean that everything is expected, or it can mean that everything is just standing still. But I think, if you are a practical activist, you should wait for the completion of the overall goal before going forward, and keep confidence in achieving the overall goal in the process.
Xue Zhaofeng, an expert and scholar in Peking University, once said, "People usually underestimate what they can do in one year and what they can do in ten years. I only saw others fishing, but I didn't see others weaving nets. If you need to catch big fish, you need to come back and build a boat. "
Life is not always moving forward, nor is it static. No one will tell you how far you have to go to get to the terminal. No one tells you what you can get through such efforts. However, what you need to do is be careful and see what is waiting for you at the terminal.
What are beggars Estrogen and Vladimir waiting for? To understand this answer, we have to combine the social background at that time.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for hegemony seriously in the world, and all countries were thriving. At that time, there was a big gap between the rich and the poor, and the life of the poor was extremely difficult. Only by "waiting" can we believe that reciting will be better in the future. The creator also used Waiting for Godot to reveal to everyone that when people's living conditions are extremely bad, the absurdity of life path will be revealed.
Hesse wrote in the poem Ode to Books: "All the books in the world are not easy to make you happy. But the book will quietly educate you and make you yourself. " The significance and general goal of Waiting for Godot is not to criticize and make fun of nihilism, but to let people have a high-altitude view of the emptiness of life by samuel beckett, and then find the right life path through emptiness.