Shreya Rawat
#2020/1546
The role of the boy messenger in Waiting for
Godot
Waiting for Godot (1952) posits two disreputable tramps, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon
(Gogo), on a bare stage (spare a dead-looking tree) as they wait for a nebulous figure,
Godot, who never comes. What is essential to the tramps is the possibility of meeting Godot
since he is apparently versed in the meaning of their existence1. Vladimir and Estragon have
no goal, purpose, or home, but they have a place to wait. What thus ensues is the need to
occupy their meantime, say by absurd conversations with an enslaver (Pozzo) and his slave
(Lucky) or by overall inactivity. The tragicomedy is divided into two acts that cyclically repeat
themselves but still present no final story2: the situation remains static. The repetition
upholds Beckett’s quest to depict the human condition, and the boy messenger is often
viewed as a tool to accomplish this. This essay will specifically focus on the role of the boy
messenger(s) who help(s) continue the dramatic cycle of wait and nothingness by eliciting
hope among the tramps.
At the end of each act, the play witnesses an almost dues ex machina entry of the unnamed
boy messenger(s). Essentially, both the entries/interruptions serve the singular function of
relaying the following message to the tramps:
“Mr. Godot told me to tell you he won't come this evening but surely tomorrow” (Act I)
As a result, Vladmir and Estragon will “have to come back tomorrow” and “wait for Godot”
again. The play’s “repetitive rhythm” is hence consolidated since:
“Act Two is a repetition of Act One. In each act we are offered basically the same
sequence: the tramps, reunite, wait, contrive ways of passing time, encounter Pozzo
and Lucky, receive Godot’s disappointing message, contemplate suicide, decide to
leave and do not move” (Malik)
What is important to note is that the boy messenger then, is central to the play’s depiction of
repetition ad infinitum (repetition implying an endless and unchanging process) and
repetition ad absurdum (closed circularity implying mechanicality and meaninglessness). If
the play is saved for another instalment, it is Act I messenger’s courage and patience3 that
helps achieve so. If the play wishes to relay the eternal condemnation of the tramps (with an
“(Godot) is essential for them, as they apparently expect him to tell them the meaning of their
existence on earth, and thus justify it” (G.C. Bernard)
“The characters are looking for an end, aclosure represented by Godot's anticipated coming but the
play emphasizes a process--of producing truths, establishing realities, and of sustaining friendship.
Beckett's use of repetition is at once a propellent of this process and a figuration of the frustrating
effect on participants who do not understand the rules of the game" (Andrea Yeats)
2
This is what Pascale Casanova notes as a modernist feature of Beckett’s oeuvre. Beckett
dismantles the conventional condition of the possibility of literature by dismissing ‘the subject,
memory, imagination, narration, character, psychology, space and time which were else essential for
the setting of any literary work.
3
ESTRAGON: What kept you so late?
BOY: (recoiling). It's not my fault, Sir. (...)
ESTRAGON: And whose is it? Mine?
BOY: I was afraid, Sir. (...)
ESTRAGON: How long have you been here?
BOY: A good while, Sir.
1
Shreya Rawat
#2020/1546
appetite for ‘self-mocking’ hope), it is possible because of Act II boy’s delivery of Godot’s
message4. According to classic Calvinism, a man is free to choose to fall. The boy
messenger then provides the choice of fall to the tramps. It is because of the messenger that
the play is thus able to rehearse the illusion of hope.
Moreover, the boy also builds on the existentialist analysis of the play. This can be
acknowledged through the evaluation of the boy as a corroborator of identity or as a minor
absurd hero. In lieu of the former evaluation, one can find the boy as a means to establish
the identity of Godot (Act II) explicitly. Where the tramps know very little about Godot, it is
the boy who reveals Godot’s character: he is a white-bearded man who beats the Act II
messenger’s brother and else “does nothing”. In the appointment of the boy messenger
twice, Godot also emerges as a ‘considerate enough’ figure. While there is no promise of the
individual identity of the boy messengers, they nevertheless do ironically shed light on the
need for identity on the part of other characters (like Pozzo) in the play. Vladmir repeatedly
asks the boy personal questions and later returns to the validation of his “own reality and
significance”:
“Vladmir: You did see us, didn't you? (Act I) (....)
(Act II) Vladmir: Did you meet anyone?
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: Two other . . . (he hesitates) . . . men?
BOY: I didn't see anyone, Sir.”
Vladmir’s interrogation of the boy reveals of this need to to know a self that “must exist
outside time” and thus separate “their personal infinity from that of the timeless void”
(Robinson). The pseudocouple, Vladmir and Estragon, desperately hold on to one another
since “without each other they would be looking at a mirror without reflections--and
reflections verify existence” (Yates). The loss of the tramp’s self (not recognized by others:
boy messenger, Pozzo or Lucky) serves to dramatise the pathos of being and thus questions
human existence.
The latter evaluation follows a similar suit. It emerges out of Act I Vladmir’s declaration that
the boy is “as bad as myself”. The reason behind this judgement is the boy’s inability to
contend whether he is unhappy or not. Even the audience/reader sees the boy embrace his
perpetual struggles (sleeps in a hay loft, labours) and return to Godot without any inhibition.
He thus perhaps accepts the unavoidable absurd condition (of why Godot is fond of him or
not) and thus emerges as Camus’ absurd hero in the making.
Lastly, the boy as a character may also be viewed as a critique of religious salvation in the
play. In Godot, one may find a dramatized Old Testament God who accepts the offering from
4
VLADIMIR: You have a message from Mr. Godot.
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: He won't come this evening.
BOY: No Sir.
VLADIMIR: But he'll come tomorrow.
BOY: Yes Sir.
VLADIMIR: Without fail.
BOY: Yes Sir.
Shreya Rawat
#2020/1546
one brother (Abel) and rejects the other brother (Cain5)6. As a supreme entity, the God of the
play offers little-to-no/questionable hope in the affairs of the characters. The believers like
Vladmir finds themselves in a world of uncertain salvation (in fear of punishment), and the
non-believers like Estragon have to confront the agony of human life without any spiritual
support. Any religious salvation seems thus unfounded since, in the end, “nothing is quite as
real as nothing” (Eagleton)7. Lucky’s Speech in Act I summarizes the critique: despite the
existence of a ‘personal God with a white beard, ’ humanity will nevertheless suffer for
reasons unknown. Indeed, “Nothing (is) to be done” (opening lines of the play; by Estragon).
As a maquisard8, Beckett first-hand experienced unreliable agents in his reporting of Nazi
troop movements (Eagleton). The boy messenger’s trope perhaps embodies Beckett’s
disposition then and confronts the banality and mundanity of human life. Altogether, we find
Beckett’s messenger boy(s) as a plot device that helps approach the existentialist inquiry of
the play.
Bibliography
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8.
5
Michael Robinson, The Long Sonata of the Dead: A Study of Samuel Beckett
Malick, Javed. Diverse Pursuits: Essays on Drama and Theatre. Routledge, 2021.
Eagleton, Terry. "Political Beckett?." New Left Review 40 (2006): 67.
Barnard, G. C., and Samuel Beckett. "A New Approach." New York: Dodd, Mead&
Company (1970).
Jacobsen, Josephine and Mueller, William R.“THE TESTAMENT OF SAMUEL
BECKETT” (1964)
Casanova, Pascale. Samuel Beckett: anatomy of a literary revolution. Verso Books,
2020.
Bloom, Harold, ed. Waiting for Godot-Samuel Beckett. Infobase Publishing, 2009.
Yates, Andrea L. "ABANDONING THE EMPIRICAL: Repetition and Homosociality in"
Waiting for Godot"." Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd'hui (2004): 437-449.
In the biblical Book of Genesis, Cain[a] and Abel[b] are the first two sons of Adam and Eve.[1] Cain,
the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to
God, but God favored Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon God
punished Cain by condemning him to a life of wandering. (wikipedia)
6
VLADIMIR: He doesn't beat you? BOY: No Sir, not me. VLADIMIR: Whom does he beat? BOY: He
beats my brother, Sir. VLADIMIR: Ah, you have a brother? BOY: Yes Sir. VLADIMIR: What does he
do? BOY: He minds the sheep, Sir. VLADIMIR: And why doesn't he beat you? BOY: I don't know, Sir.
VLADIMIR: He must be fond of you. BOY: I don't know, Sir. (Act I)
7
Quote from Terry Eagleton’s Introduction to Pascale Casanova’s Samuel Beckett.
Locating Beckett’s context with respect to his Irish heritage, Eagleton discusses the Irish medieval
theology, modern philosophers and political resonance. It can be summarized with the quote
forementioned.
8
The Maquis were rural guerrilla bands of French and Belgian Resistance fighters, called
maquisards, during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II.