As I have already said, literature is almost always a reflection of the vibrations and ideas of the time in which it was written. Isn't it interesting then that during the 20th century, a time of such cultural and social vitality, one of the most famous and influential plays of the period is commonly regarded as a 'play about nothing'? I'm obviously talking about Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. The stage is set on a desolate, unfamiliar and strangely empty scene, where the audience awaits with the play's main characters Vladimir and Estragon (nicknames Didi and Gogo respectively) for the arrival of a mysterious figure called "Godot". The entire lack of plot is driven only through funny, nonsensical dialogue and hope. In the play, the concept of past and future seems illusory. Although the play appears to be set in the present, the audience/reader is struck with the impression that the present has no fixed beginning or end. Waiting for Godot could also be, like Women in Love, a response to an increasingly secularized society in which the purpose and meaning of life became increasingly vague. This concept was particularly important in the existential philosophy of the time and probably influenced Beckett. Albert Camus, for example, once said: "The absurd arises from this comparison between human needs and the unreasonable silence of the world." The absurd is, in many ways, the play's main character, providing the infinite uncertainty that makes Waiting for Godot so confusing and controversial. Humor may be the only way to deal with the emotional tension of a meaningless and uncertain existence, and it is in theatrical humor that the most interesting literary techniques of Waiting for Godot can be observed. Samuel Beckett in particular makes use of dark humor, playing down situations that are essentially too sad to be funny, for example Didi and Gogo's youthful and carefree attitude towards the possibility of their life.