When the curtain opened in Paris in 1953, the audience found itself faced with a minimalist scenography with a tree and nothing else. The first viewing of "En Attendant Godot" suggests that its darker tones are presented by Beckett through the visual sadness and the general metaphysical state in which the characters are placed. Parallels can already be drawn between this setting and the inevitably similar picture of TS Eliot's "The Wasteland". : “A pile of broken images, where the sun shines, and the dead tree gives no shelter” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The only resemblance to the world of the audience is the tree and the road the characters are on. This setting creates a dark desperation; the roads represent journeys and an option to travel away, or to something and yet the characters do not move, in effect stating “We Can't (leave)”(i). The tree, another prop seemingly of monumental importance compared to the rest of the wasteland stage, represents hope and life despite there being no hope and life fading away. Beckett calls for the tree to have leaves during Act 2, which symbolizes spring to the audience as Vladimir and Estragon realize there is no hope. It is no exaggeration to say that Beckett had a deeply depressing taste for irony and that he plays with elements of comedy and tragedy most appropriately through dramatic staging. However, it is my opinion that Beckett creates some of the most comical and dark parts of the performance through his unerring ability to manipulate language. In the first act the words "Nothing to be done" (ii) are uttered by both Estragon and Vladimir and the statement becomes a crucial philosophy throughout the play of the same importance as "We are waiting for Godot" (iii). Initially the audience finds the phrase laugh out loud funny because it is combined with the physical sequence of Estragon, who is "trying to take off his boot" (iv) who after an exhausting battle admits and explains to the audience that "there is nothing to Do". Done'. The subtle brilliance of this phrase lies in its more colloquial sound, which appeals to all audiences as they can identify with the discovery that a menial task has become so extraordinarily difficult that they see no way to solve it. It's ridiculous that a complex human can't actually take off a boot, that somehow the boot beat the human and is now being defeated... by a boot. This struggle is universal and appeals to the audience who asks the underlying question: why does Estragon assume the boot is wrong? Beckett thus highlights the arrogance and pomposity of humanity. Vladimir is the messenger of this question when he tells Estragon: "There is a man everywhere who blames his boots for the guilt of his feet" (v). This phrase is the subject of many debates because the shoemaker made the boot perfect, as in the case of the shoemaker he thought it had no defects otherwise he would not have sold it, in the same way if we are all in the image of God surely Estragon too cannot have defects therefore who is wrong...God or man? After the comical moment, Vladimir introduces tones of suffering when he explains that he too is "coming closer to that opinion". Although the joke seems harmless enough, Vladimir performs it away from Estragon while looking into space, which has the implied meaning that he is unaware of Estragon's physical struggle and that his response is actually more metaphysical. This exchange allows Beckett to introduce the brutal truth of the character's situation: there is literally nothing that can be done. This corresponds to Esslin's theory that'Waiting for Godot' contains “a sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the human condition” (vi). The characters are trapped in this barren, anonymous environment, waiting for someone they cannot define because "they wouldn't know him if I saw him" (vii), unable to have any influence on the proceedings that govern their lives. Through his exploitation of language Beckett also challenges the way humanity operates in the world and, ultimately, how the play's disjointed and confusing plot parallels our place in the universe. In "Waiting for Godot" a conversation that exploits the way humanity operates is: "Estragon: We always find something, eh Didi, that gives us the impression that we exist. Vladimir: Yes, yes, we are magicians." (viii) The audience finds it funny because of Estragon's optimism in their predicament and the sudden change in mood that can be seen on stage is also funny because it is so abstract and unjustified. The added element of Vladimir's rejection of Estragon's comment and rejection of optimism is a beautiful contrast that elicits laughter from the audience, but also supports the hypothesis that they are a double act and completely dependent on each other. other. Another beautiful example of this double act is: "Vladimir: What do they say? Estragon: They talk about their lives. Vladimir: Living is not enough for them. Estragon: They must talk about it." (ix) The double act is vital as a device to exploit language and the statement that “The two most important groups of characters in the play appear in pairs”(x). An audience of 1953 would have recognized Laurel and Hardy's silhouettes in Estragon and Vladimir, making their world closer to that of the audience, but still miles apart. In this passage Beckett's double act technique is updated to underline the existentialist nature of humanity and our need to rationalize individual experience by explaining it to others. The characters complete each other's sentences giving the appearance of thinking so that the audience understands that Beckett wants them to think about the short conversation. The word "magician" has the darkest undertones because it carries ideas of illusion and deception, so Beckett wants to portray to the audience that our attempts to maintain the logic that we exist are actually a form of deception; a skill we have acquired over the years but which is not true. This telling point has a history in the post-World War II movement (which Beckett experienced) in which society believed itself to be in decline. They could no longer rely on the comforts that helped them navigate their lives, such as order. The comedy still remains in a dark vision of society because the characters live in a world that they pretend to understand, but actually don't. There's a style of dramatic irony at work as the audience arrogantly watches the reign of Estragon, Lucky, Pozzo and Vladimir while understanding things the characters don't, like the fact that Godot won't come. Interestingly, the world created by the theater stage would look at the world of the audience with the same arrogance as it knows things that the audience does not know, this is what Beckett is trying to explain to us; the public doesn't understand the nature of the world as well as they think. However, it could be argued that only the dark undertones come from the manipulation of language and the comedy comes from the visual exposure of the character to the audience. One critic claims, "The play's stage directions make up nearly half the text, suggesting that the actors' actions, expressions, and emotions are as important as the dialogue" (xi) This is a strong argument because the audience responds primarily to the presentation of verses, which could be considered performance rather than language".. 12