As it can be understood from the title Waiting for Godot, Becketts famous play takes place around waiting

for Godot. In the play, main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, insistently wait for a mysterious Godot who is always expected to show up at some point but who never appears only sending messengers to inform Vladimir and Estragon that he would not come for that particular night but surely the next day. For the main characters, waiting for Godot is almost a religious command. They never sufficiently question why they have to wait for him. They think that Godot would come and save them, but it is very ambiguous what Godot has to offer them and precisely from what Godot would save them, for saving always entails a present threat. They do not know what Godot looks like, they take everyone for him, and they do not know why they are waiting for him. The only thing they know is that they have to wait. This have to functions like a law that governs their entire world, at the centre of which lies the act of waiting for Godot. This law can be compared to a categorical imperative applicable to their world, to which we are introduced in the play. In this Godot-centric universe, this imperative can even be formulated in such a way: Wait for Godot in such a manner that even Godots not coming would not affect your act of waiting. I prefer to use act of waiting rather than mere waiting because Vladimirs and Estragons waiting for Godot cannot be described as complete passivity despite the obvious inertia they display quite frequently. This act of waiting lies somewhere in between activitiy and passivity, as if moving towards both extremes on a scale, arriving at none. Because, as we would see in the detailed account of the play below, Vladimir and Estragon, albeit sometimes ridiculuously, constantly respond to the happenings around them in accordance with their natural capacities. In the opening scene, we see Estragon in a fruitless struggle for taking off his boots. After a short while, Vladimir enters the scene and encourages him for not to give up without having tried hard enough. It can be inferred from their conversation that they were at least in the past fighting for a cause. But this cause is a complete mystery, even more inaccessible than Godot himself. Just like we know nothing about Godot, the play says nothing about the nature of their cause; it is impossible to know whether it is of a political struggle or something that pertains to more private and personal conflicts. But it is presented in such a way that one can understand that they had found each other within this cause and this cause seems to be somehow related to their waiting for Godot and to Estragons being beaten regularly.

The play contains a considerable number of repetitions that should not be overlooked. For instance, once, as Estragon tries to take off his boots, he asks for Vladimirs help. Vladimir asks it hurts? and Estragon replies Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts! (p.12). Upon this, Vladimir gets angry, and in a despising manner tells Estragon that he wondered what he would do if he had what Vladimir has. In that case, Estragon repeats Vladimirs former question, it hurts? and Vladimir, in turn, replies with the same words: It hurts! He wants to know if it hurts! (p. 12). Though the second utterance is composed of the same signifiers with the same order, they signify different signifieds. In Saussurean terms, same signifiers can signify different signifieds on the level of the signified; that is, there are no one-to-one correspondence in language that would fix the connection between the signifier and the signified. This points out to the flexibility of language outside of which there is no separate reality. Such a flexibility allows an economy inside language; the happening of signification and particular connections between signifiers and signifieds are always subject to change. Some connections are abandoned, new connections are established, grammatical rules become modified according to the internal necessities, dynamics, and capacities of a language. Then, in the course of their conversation, at some point, Vladimir asks Estragon what if they repented (p.13) Estragon does not understand what would they repent, and Vladimir gives no explanation regarding what he means. Upon this, the first idea that comes to Estragon is their being born. Being born, natality, the cardinal event in ones life upon which one has no control at all for one can never decide to be born or not is seen as something among those deeds which require repenting, as something that contains the possibility of being not committed by the one who is already born. This very thought, which is closely related with the notion of eternal sin in Christianity and which is not reducible to Estragons navity, regards human existence as bearing the mark of eternal sin. In fact, Estragons nave utterance Our being born? can be seen as an instance of how such a mode of thinking, which imposes a burden of responsibility and regret upon happenings over which human beings can exercise no control, naturalizes itself. We see another instance of such a perspective in Vladimir as well. As he was telling to Estragon the biblical story about two thieves and four Evangelists, he finds himself compelled to search for a contrary for saved and for this, finds damned (p.14). This being saved is supposed to be realized by an agent, which is the Saviour. That is, this is an act coming from the outside, an extraordinary, and arbitrary act. We have no evidence regarding why of the two thieves one is saved, and it does not matter. Though Vladimir questions the reliability

of this biblical story since he finds some gaps in it, he never questions the notion of a Saviour. The fact that the oppositional notion he finds for saved is damned reveals another aspect of the aforementioned Christian notion of eternal sin. In this understanding, the status of human beings, which follows from a sinful nature attributed to them, is damned. Human being, whose natural place is seen within the flames of eternal damnation, has to be saved by a Saviour, who is the only one entitled to carry out this act. Since the act of grace depends on the will of this so-called Saviour, one has to wait for it to happen if it is to happen at all; in the meantime passing the time, not attaching oneself to the mundane affairs, never forgetting his possible but improbable coming. In the context of this story, there is a connection with this notion of Christian Saviour and Godot. Godot, like the Saviour, is being waited for without being questioned as such. Regarding the relationship of Estragon and Vladimir with Godot, it can be said this relationship is one of faith. Like the notion of Second Coming in Christianity, which presents an absolute faith in the second coming of the Christ, the Saviour, Estragon and Vladimir display a strong faith in Godots showing up. That is why they constantly wait for him and organize all their affairs around the possible but improbable moment at which Godot would show up. However, it is not to claim that there is a one-to-one correspondence with the themes of this play and the themes of Christianity. There are also some elements which fall outside the Christian themes. For instance, in Christianity, Gods will does not depend on any other agency than God itself. That is, God does not consult any other being while exercising its will. But in the play, according to Vladimir and Estragon, Godot needs to think over, consult his family, agents, correspondents, books, and bank accounts before taking a decision (p. 20). Though there is still the possibility that Godot might have told this to Vladimir in order to get rid of him, it can be inferred that Godot is not an absolutely autonomous being. Second non-correspondence is the matter of promising. We learn from Vladimir that Godot told him that he could not promise for anything (p.20). But the Saviours coming is something that is promised by himself, to happen on the Day of Judgement. Having discussed what Godot and waiting for Godot means, at this point it would be appropriate to introduce other two characters in the play: Pozzo and Lucky. They enter the scene right after the conversation between Estragon and Vladimir, in which Estragon asks whether they are tied to Godot (p.22). Though Vladimir refuses to think about Estragons question, one can say that they are tied to Godot on a pre-conscious level. The rope that ties them to Godot is a pre-conscious one, because, as I see it, they are both aware of it and at the

same time, though there is no physical attachment, they cannot leave the place at which Godot is supposed to show up. It is as if they are tied to the place. But we see a material rope connecting Lucky and Pozzo. Lucky is Pozzos slave; he carries Pozzos bags, and Pozzo drives Lucky before himself, making him obey by means of a whip. At first sight, Vladimir and Estragon takes Pozzo for Godot, Pozzo introduces himself to them, but they do not recognize him. Then, they try to exert a meaning through a play on the level of signifiers. Vladimir desperately searches for the words that are close to Pozzo and says that he once knew a family called Gozzo, as if the proximity on the level of the signifiers would necessitate a similarity on the level of the signifieds. However, this is not the case, as can be observed from his fruitless efforts to find a signified for the signifier Pozzo. It is due to the differential nature of language. According to Saussure, there are streams of signifiers and signifieds.1 Both streams, or levels, are in themselves continuous. A particular signifier is generated out of the difference with other terms and is connected to a signified which is again what it is only because it is not others. One of the most important points of Sausserean understanding of language is that particular connections between signifiers and signifieds are purely conventional and arbitrary. In addition, the proximity on the level of signifiers and of signifieds does not necessarily mean that this proximity would be observed to the same extent on the level of the signifieds. That is, the proximity of oil and owl as signifiers does not necessitate any semantical proximity. This is why Vladimirs efforts for recognizing Pozzo through a blind search on the level of signifiers remain empty.

Ferdinand de Saussure, selections from Course on General Linguistics, tr. Wade Baskin. London: Fontana, 1981; p.112 (Hereafter CGL)