G3 Level
Supervisor: Per Sivefors 2EN20E
Examiner: Johan Höglund 15 ECTS points
January 2014
““Well? Shall we go?” “Yes, let’s go.” [They do not move.]”
- Vernacular Comedy and Waiting for Godot.
Nanna Flensborg Rønne
Table of Contents:
Abstract
Introduction 1
From the Marketplace to the Silver Screen: The Vernacular Clown 3
Waiting for Godot and Clowning 7
Waiting for Godot and Bakhtinian Grotesque Realism 10
Waiting for Godot, Commedia dell’Arte and Silent Movie 13
Waiting for Godot as Critique of the Modernist Approach to Art 15
Conclusion 16
Works Cited and Consulted 18
Appendix 20
Abstract
This essay discusses the relationship between the characters Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot and the vernacular clowning tradition. The discussion is
supported by analyzing similarities between Waiting for Godot and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of grotesque realism as it is presented in his work Rabelais and His World, as well as elements of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte and 20th century silent movie comedy. The essay concludes that Beckett was considerably influenced by vernacular comic elements and utilised these influences in his play Waiting for Godot in order to question the high level of artificiality in Modernist literature.
1 Introduction
Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot is a strange creation. A synopsis of the text would simply state that two men are waiting for a third, who never shows up; nothing happens, twice. Never the less it has been called the most comical of Beckett’s plays, and is often staged with the principal characters Vladimir and Estragon as clowns or at least clown-like in appearance1. Since the play was first published, the approach of scholarly readings of Waiting for Godot has changed
considerably. Far into the 1960’s, and even after Beckett had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, these were particularly gloomy readings, and critics saw the play as “a negative vision of life” (Gontarski 32). More contemporary readings tend to view the play if not directly light-
heartedly, at least with a much more pronounced appreciation of the comical aspects. A good example of this is Laura Salisbury’s book Samuel Beckett – Laughing Matters. As the title suggests, the book deals specifically with the comic aspects of Beckett’s writing, even up to a point where Salisbury argues that the comedy is not a by-product of Beckett’s authorship, but in many ways it can be seen as the underlying reason for his works altogether. This essay will examine this connection with the comic and clowns, drawing on the historical background of the clown.
Even if Salisbury with her intense focus on the comical aspects of Beckett’s oeuvre is breaking new ground, scholarly approaches to laughter and the comic as such are far from new, and most modern day discussions of the subject of laughter start with Mikhail Bakhtin and his work Rabelais and His World. Central to Bakhtin is the thesis of the Grotesque, the Carnival and the
World turned upside down for a time, in order to give space for a liberating and rejuvenating laughter. One central aspect of his discussion is the concept of grotesque realism, which is “that peculiar type of imagery and more broadly speaking . . . that peculiar aesthetic concept which is characteristic of this folk culture” (Bakhtin 18). It is the breaking down of the established, static
1 See for instance Salisbury and Bryden (in Gontaski).
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world through the use of humour, satire and essentially laughter. Bakhtin also discusses the
tradition of carnival and the Feast of Fools in detail and a central figure in this aesthetics of carnival and the world upside down is exactly the Fool, and later incarnations of the Fool such as the Jester and the Clown. Vladimir and Estragon share many traits with the clown, primarily that of being on the outside of society, in an almost parallel existence.
Another popular, iconic figure which exists on the outside of society is the Tramp, and one very famous incarnation of the tramp-clown is Charles Chaplin, whom Beckett incidentally wished to play the main character in his film Film (Gontarski 358). Beckett was fascinated by actors of the silent movies, and when it was not possible to have Chaplin, Beckett decided to use Buster Keaton instead. Both Chaplin and Keaton use a very physical slapstick comedy to great effect, and as mentioned above, Chaplin’s beloved character the Tramp shares many traits with the archetypical clown. Just like clowns do, Chaplin’s Tramp often balances a thin line between the tragic and the comic, and this is repeated in Beckett’s characters Estragon and Vladimir. They make us laugh, but often this laughter is just as much a reaction to an uncomfortable truth, which they, like the clown, expose and exaggerate through showing the world upside-down or inside out.
One can definitely argue that there is a historical connection, beginning with the clowns and jugglers in the Medieval marketplaces, with their vernacular, folkloristic performances, through the later performances of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte in the sixteenth century, to the performances of Keaton, Chaplin and other stars of the silent movies. The loose scenarios and stock characters of the Commedia dell’Arte are echoed in the slapstick and pie-throwing gags of the silent comedies (Madden). Beckett was very fascinated with these same silent movie actors, and it is an interesting thought that Beckett might have introduced Vladimir and Estragon as these modernist clowns in order to use the clown’s ability to turn the world upside down and inside out, and thus to highlight the bewilderment of the Late Modernism.
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This essay will investigate the complex relation between Waiting for Godot and the clown tradition, examining how Beckett uses a range of elements from popular comic tradition such as clowning, Commedia dell’Arte and the silent movie stars Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin as a means of questioning the high level of artificiality in Modernism2. This will be done in the form of a close reading of the play, first relating the play to the vernacular clown tradition, the Commedia dell’Arte and then to Bakhtin’s notions of grotesque realism and the lower bodily element, and finally the silent movie comedy. Following this the essay will discuss how the play can be read as a critique of the Modernist approach to art.
From the Marketplace to the Silver Screen: The Vernacular Clown
Michael Bala in his article “The Clown: An Archetypal Self-Journey” gives an account of the cultural importance of the clown. Among other themes he points out that the figure of the Clown has roots back to the mimes of early Greece, and that all cultures have their own incarnations of this archetype, namely the disruptor of the old order, one who brings new life through breaking down the world as we see it. Similarly, most cultures have, or have had, some form of festival like the Feast of Fools or Carnival, and one can argue that clowns in their many shapes are descendants of the court jester and the archetypical figure of the Fool, seen for instance on decks of tarot cards.3 Furthermore, Joshua Delpech-Ramey in his article “Sublime Comedy: On the Inhuman Rights of Clowns” describes clowns as being structurally immortal, referring to the French mime actor Jaques LeCoq who explains the tradition “according to which the clown cannot be killed” (132). Clowns can and must survive any gag they are subjected to, even up to having a house fall over them, as happens to Buster Keaton in the famous film Steamboat Bill Jr.4 Similarly, this structural
2 This essay will not, however, delve into a discussion of whether or not Beckett’s play is high, late, post- or neo- modernist, since this particular question has been exhausted, and lies well outside the focus of this essay.
3 See illustration in appendix 1.
4 The gag referred to happen approximately 56 minutes into the movie.
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immortality is what enables court jesters to speak openly and frankly to their rulers, as happens in Shakespeare’s plays Hamlet and King Lear (Bala 56). It is exactly their ability, even obligation, to
“ridicule the king, and to indulge in behaviour that would otherwise get [them] killed” (Delpech- Ramey 132) which sets clowns apart from the world, and it is among other things this separateness which is echoed in Beckett’s characters.
A recurrent motif for clowns is a repetitive pattern of tension and release, as illustrated in an example with Grock, described by Bryden (in Gontarski), the famous Swiss clown of the first half of the 20th century. In the sketch Grock is to play a simple melody on the piano, but he is constantly interrupted, either by a malfunctioning piano or his own misadventures. The dynamics of the sketch is to build up a certain tension in the audience while it is listening to the melody; at the same time the audience is waiting for the next notes, but also waiting for the next instance where Grock is interrupted. Laughter erupts where this tension is released, but in Beckett’s play there is a marked lack of release, at least on the grander scheme, something which will be discussed below.
As introduced previously, Mikhail Bakhtin in his work Rabelais and His World discusses the vernacular aspect of humour, the folk humour which existed and thrived outside and parallel to the official sphere of high literature and which found its natural habitat in the
marketplaces. Bakhtin does not locate this marketplace specifically, but uses the term marketplace as a concept, covering “all that is directly linked with the life of the people, bearing its mark of nonofficial freedom” (153). Bakhtin is equally expansive and non-committing in situating the marketplace in time, but for the purpose of this essay I will situate this marketplace historically in the Medieval and Renaissance period. The performers, jugglers and clowns of this marketplace were predecessors of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte, which will be described below.
The humour of the marketplace is a humour of exaggeration and with a focus on what Bakhtin calls the material bodily element, the primal functions of the body; eating, sleeping,
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defecating, and procreating. Another central notion in Rabelais and His World is the principle of grotesque realism and the role of laughter, specifically in relation to the Carnival, with the world turned upside down in a cycle of death and rebirth of the order of society.
It might be puzzling to see the term realism in connection with the grotesque and particularly with a highly minimalist play such as Waiting for Godot. Bakhtin does not use the term realism as another word for naturalistic, but uses the term as a description of “[the] materialistic concept of being, most adequately defined as realistic” (52). In other words, Bakhtin makes a distinction between the being of things, a continued existence, and the more contemporary approach to the term realism, which focuses on the naturalistic representation of things. To Bakhtin,
something is realistic when it is allied to “[the grotesque] act of becoming and growth, the eternal incomplete unfinished nature of being. Its images present simultaneously the two poles of
becoming: that which is receding and dying, and that which is being born” (Bakhtin 52). So realism to Bakhtin means to acknowledge and incorporate into art the cyclic nature of life, the realisation that birth and death are just opposite faces of the same coin. Consequently Bakhtin concludes that to split the world up into manageable bits, pieces and sizes is in reality to have missed the point
entirely. The Romantic ideal of the sublime – something which is magnificent and awe-inspiring – is not realistic, on the contrary, the human situation, the human body, in all its grotesque glory is realistic.
During the 16th century, a new form of clowning began developing in the
marketplaces of Italy, namely that of the Commedia dell’Arte. The name refers not so much to the present day understanding of art, but rather that it was performed by artisans, meaning professional actors. This name was also applied in order to distinguish the Commedia dell’Arte from the
Commedia Erudita, the learned comedy of the academics, who were gentlemen amateurs. The core principles of Commedia dell’Arte are firstly the set characters, of which many, like Harlequin,
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Columbine and Pierrot, have survived to this day, albeit in a much altered form, and secondly a stock of sketchy scenarios which were used as a basis for improvisations. Further crucial elements were the so-called lazzi5, structured gags which were significant for each character and often for each actor as well. The lazzi were used whenever the action came to a halt, or to create immediate laughter among the audience. Most lazzi were very physical, focused on the body, with a peculiar fondness for the posterior. This strongly resembles Bakhtin’s notions of the lower bodily principle, again an affirmation of Commedia dell’Arte’s vernacular roots (Birch). The Commedia dell’Arte was a descendant of the jugglers and clowns of the Medieval and Renaissance marketplaces, closely connected with the vernacular. The silent slapstick of Chaplin, Keaton et al, being modern
descendants of the Commedia dell’Arte, is vernacular too. They were not performed in marketplaces, but in movie theatres, but their vernacular appeal is just as strong.
In a discussion of laughter in the modern world, Tyrus Miller in his book Late Modernism. Politics, Fiction, and the Arts Between the World Wars focuses on the period in the
1920’s and 1930’s which saw the gradual dispersion and evolution of the blast of creativity that was the Modernist movement. One of the points he foregrounds is that the period between the two world wars led to ”[a] loss of a stable, authentic, social ground” (43), and that the Modernist art saw a strong emphasis on the formal aspects of art. The Modernist movement also regarded itself as a revolt against a tradition which was anchored in a more naturalistic approach to art (Miller 4).
Beckett was, according to Miller, very concerned with “the contemporary ‘derealization’[sic!] of reality” (Miller 44), something which echoes Bakhtin’s dismissal of the sublime as outlined above.
Bakhtin stresses the importance of keeping the focus on the vernacular aspects of the Carnival, the robust, physical aspects and the material bodily lower stratum. This was something which was glossed over when the Romantics rediscovered the grotesque, and it was not brought into focus
5 Throughout this essay I will apply the Italian spelling of lazzi; lazzo in the singular and lazzi in the plural.
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when the Modernists strove to refine and redefine art as a bastion against the world. There is little room for the material bodily lower stratum in the avantgardistic, high-brow art of the modernist writers. True, there are examples of quite explicit descriptions of the bodily functions, such as Molly Bloom’s monologue in Joyce’s Ulysses, for instance when she thinks about sex: “simply ruination for any woman and no satisfaction in it pretending to like it till he comes and then finish it off myself anyway” (Joyce 643). T. S. Eliot is using a similarly explicit language when referring to dead bodies in The Waste Land: ”White bodies naked on the low damp ground / And bones cast in a little low dry garret, / rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year” (Greenblatt 2620). In contrast to the aesthetics Bakhtin is describing, the Modernist descriptions quoted above are created to stress the negative side of the grotesque, the decay, both physically and mentally. The missing connection with the revitalising aspect of the bodily functions is very clear. There is only death and decay, even sex is without pleasure, instead the grotesque is used as a means of shocking and creating disgust.
Waiting for Godot and Clowning
As mentioned above, the dynamics of a clown performance is much about tension and release, but on the surface, there is a marked lack of release in Waiting for Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait, and keep waiting, but Godot never arrives to release them from their vigil. The little amusements and the visits by Pozzo and Lucky are just intermezzi, something to pass time. But at the same time all these interludes are perfect models of tension and release. The tension is built up, often through the famous [Silence] stage directions, and then released through an unexpected remark. This is a good example relating to a point made by Michael Bala, that clowns are at the same time crossing and maintaining borders (Bala 50), something which is reflected in the world of Beckett’s tramps.
Vladimir and Estragon constantly discuss a wish to cross their boundaries, to leave their allotted place, forever waiting for Godot who does not come. They are continuously saying: “Let’s go”, but
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still they maintain the selfsame boundaries, either simply not moving, or starting yet another quarrel about if, how and when they should wait for Godot.
A further aspect which stresses the link Vladimir and Estragon share with the clown is their names. The given names are peculiar in themselves, somehow at odds with their shabby appearance and desolate surroundings in the play, but the nicknames they use for each other are even more peculiar; Vladimir is called Didi, and Estragon is called Gogo. This seems like a reversal to very childish names, something akin to what children who are learning to speak would make of their names, a sort of proto-name. The nicknames have strong clownish overtones as well, they are simplistic and yet alliterative. Tyrus Miller supports this theory about names by relating that Beckett considered using the names Bim and Bom for the two characters, inspired by a pair of Russian clowns with exactly these names (Miller 192).
The structural clownish method mentioned above, of building up tension and then releasing it, can be seen on several occasions in Waiting for Godot. Early on in the play, Estragon tries to coerce Vladimir into telling a funny story, but the story as such never materializes:
ESTRAGON: [Voluptuously.] Calm . . . calm . . . The English say cawm [sic!].
[Pause.] You know the story of the Englishman in the brothel?
VLADIMIR: Yes
ESTRAGON: Tell it to me.
VLADIMIR: Ah stop it!
ESTRAGON: An Englishman having drunk a little more than usual goes into a brothel. The bawd asks him if he wants a fair one, a dark one, or a red-haired one. Go on.
VLADIMIR: STOP IT! [Exit VLADIMIR hurriedly] (Beckett 17).
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The tension in the audience has been built up, expecting to hear the pun of the funny story. At first, this tension is not released, since Vladimir refuses to tell the story, and actually exits the stage. But once Vladimir re-enters the stage, there is a touching scene of reconciliation; Estragon approaches Vladimir, trying to mollify him, and in the end they embrace. The funny story is forgotten and will never materialise. The true moment of release of the tension comes a few lines later:
ESTRAGON: . . . Don’t be stubborn! [VLADIMIR softens. They embrace.
ESTRAGON recoils.] You stink of garlic!” (Beckett 18).
The moment is broken with this unexpected outburst, shattering the tenderness. Furthermore, this is a good example of the Bakhtinian concept of the bodily lower stratum, the degradation of an
otherwise intimate moment through highlighting a bodily function, namely the stench of garlic.
Clowns are not individual in the sense that once they are in their masks they are the Clown, not their ordinary self. They are ‘in character’, acting through the persona of the role of Clown (Bala). It is perhaps also this non-individuality which has given court jesters the space to be as frank as they are, to say that which no one else dare say, as Delpech-Ramey suggests in the quote above. An interesting aspect of this lack of individuality of the clown which was reflected in
Waiting for Godot was that Beckett removed the word “Wir” (we) from the German translation of
the title of the play6. This was done in order to keep the audience from focusing too much on the individuality of Vladimir and Estragon (Pilling 71). It is a prominent trait in much Modernist literature to focus on the lost importance of the individual, usually seeing this developement as a negative. On the other hand, one might see Beckett’s insistence on a lack of individuality as a positive thing. Since they are not individual, or not particular, they can be everyone. To further underline their lack of individuality, the stage setup is similarly bare and anonymous. It is simply:
“A country road. A tree. Evening. . . ESTRAGON sitting on a low mound” (Beckett 11). The place
6 “(Wir) Warten auf Godot”.
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could be anywhere, and is in effect anywhere, since neither Vladimir nor Estragon have a clear idea of where they are, or indeed what time it is:
VLADIMIR: [Looking round.] You recognize the place?
ESTRAGON: I didn’t say that.
VLADIMIR: Well?
ESTRAGON: That makes no difference.
VLADIMIR: All the same . . . that tree . . . [Turns towards the auditorium.] . . . that bog.
ESTRAGON: You’re sure it was this evening?
VLADIMIR: What?
ESTRAGON: That we were to wait.
VLADIMIR: He said Saturday. [Pause.] I think. (Beckett 16).
They are suspended in limbo, thus their physical situation echoes their mental situation, being in limbo, waiting for Godot and simply passing time. Furthermore, the stark simplicity of the stage and the props force the audience to acknowledge both the artificiality of the situation, but also the universal quality of Vladimir and Estragon’s plights. They, like clowns, are no-one and everyone.
Waiting for Godot and Bakhtinian Grotesque Realism
Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of exaggeration was mentioned above, and he further substantiates that hyperbole and excessiveness are some of the principal characteristics of the grotesque (303).
Further, Bakhtin elaborates on the grotesque style as being about “exaggeration, hyperbolism, excessiveness” (303). Essentially, grotesque realism is based in the vernacular culture; it is vital and reviving, transformative and never static, but regenerative.
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A prominent example of this in Waiting for Godot is the scene where Pozzo orders Lucky to think. It exemplifies the exaggeration, excessiveness and mockery which are essential to the grotesque realism. Lucky’s act of thinking is just that, an act, something performed for the amusement of his audience, and it has little to do with applied intelligence. The monologue is a
“tirade”, to use Beckett’s own word (Beckett 41), a rambling of words and sentences with little meaning, and it can thus be viewed as a way of mocking or degrading the high and noble act of thinking. The tirade is also interspersed with words that are reminiscent of the lower bodily element, such as the mentioning of “Fartov and Belcher” and “Acacacacademy of
Antropopopometry” (Beckett 42). The play was originally written in French, and ”caca” and
”popo” are childish French expressions for feces. (Wiktionary.org) The tirade is excessive by virtue of its sheer volume, two full pages, something which must be related to the fact that the lines of both Vladimir and Estragon seldom are more than a few sentences, and often most just one.
Bakhtin sums up the concept of grotesque realism by stating that “the essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, that is the lowering of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract; it is a transfer to the material level” (19). The crucial point of this statement is that
degradation in grotesque realism is about regeneration, and not destruction (21). Bakhtin’s thesis that grotesque is a certain form of aesthetic, highlighting the circle of life and death, is explicated in Waiting for Godot. Near the end of act two, Vladimir says:
Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the gravedigger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. [He listens.]
But habit is a great deadener. [He looks again at ESTRAGON.] At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, he is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on (Beckett 84).
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The sombre mood is broken immediately after, when the boy enters. When the boy addresses Vladimir, he replies: “Off we go again.” (Beckett 84). On the surface level, the final remark is an acknowledgement of the inevitability of the boy emerging, heralding the postponing of the arrival of Godot, just like it has been done in act one. But it is also an acknowledgement of the inevitability of life, that we may be born only to die, our lives being only a brief glimmer. Bakhtin has
accentuated that the grotesque is not about being sublime or refined, but is very much about being human. It is in this reneging of the sublime that one finds Beckett’s tramps, in their essentially human existence of patiently, albeit grumpily, waiting for someone or something which never materializes. Vladimir and Estragon reflect on the subject as well:
ESTRAGON: What do we do now?
VLADIMIR: Wait for Godot.
ESTRAGON: Ah!
[Silence]
VLADIMIR: This is awful!
ESTRAGON: Sing something.
VLADIMIR: No, no. [He reflects.] We could start all over again perhaps.
ESTRAGON: That should be easy.
VLADIMIR: It’s the start that’s difficult.
ESTRAGON: You can start from anything.
VLADIMIR: Yes, but you have to decide. (Beckett 59).
The quote deals with waiting only on the surface level, on a deeper level it can be read as a metaphor for the condition of life, starting all over again, even if the start is difficult.
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Waiting for Godot, Commedia dell’Arte and Silent Movie
David Madden, in his article “Harlequin’s stick, Charlie’s Cane” hints at a connection between the Commedia dell’Arte, via the slapstick comedy of Chaplin, to Beckett’s tramps. Madden states that:
“The characteristic we experience most intensely about [Commedia dell’Arte and silent movie slapstick] is their youthfulness, and it is in their early phases that they are most interesting and compatible to each other” (Madden 23). As mentioned, Madden compares the Commedia dell’Arte to silent slapstick comedy, particularly the actions of Chaplin and Keaton. Both media were very physical acts, with scripts or scenarios which were very rudimentary, and with a stock of set gags to induce laughter in the audience. Madden even quotes Pierre Louis Ducharte, author of The Italian Comedy, for stating that “Chaplin is undoubtedly one of the rare inheritors of the Commedia
dell’Arte” (Madden 13).
Some episodes in Waiting for Godot seem to lend themselves particularly well to a comparison to the Commedia dell’Arte, such as the scene in act two where Estragon and Vladimir swap hats. The whole scene is described in great detail in the stage directions, how each character puts on a new hat, takes off the old one and passes it to the other person. A total of 8 or 9 such replacements of hats occur, until finally Vladimir’s hat is passed back and forth between them, only to be flung to the ground. The execution of the scene lends itself very well to comedy; there will inevitably be a certain build up of tension in the audience as the hats are passed back and forth continuously, the absurdity increasing with every new transfer, until it dissolves into almost childlike back-and-forth handing of Vladimir’s hat. As a whole, then, it is a perfect lazzo, a comic interlude, visual in character, since no words are spoken during the many exchanges, and the scene is not tightly connected to the plot. On the other hand it differs from a lazzo since it is so
meticulously described by Beckett. A traditional lazzo would just be described as “passing hats back and forth”, and allows the actors to play it by ear, sensitive to their audience they would know
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when the crescendo had reached its peak, and then tension should be released through the throwing down of Vladimir’s hat. This very specific stage direction might be an echo of Beckett’s fascination with film, a parallel to writing scripts for the screen, where the actor has no audience to give
response, and thus no audience to help them in choosing the right moment to release the tension.
On the other hand, a lot of the stage directions in Waiting for Godot lend themselves exceptionally well to a comic execution, precisely because they are so physical, and as such they are further prime examples of lazzi incorporated into Beckett’s play. If one looks at the opening of the play, where Estragon is struggling to take his boot off, the stage direction is quite simple, stating only that:
“[ESTRAGON, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands, panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before.]” (Beckett 11). It doesn’t take much
imagination to see a comically skilled actor turning this into a very funny situation, clowning about with the boot, making faces as he struggles to remove it from his foot. It is a purely physical gag, and as such echoes the gags of the silent movies. This echo lends itself well to a reprise on the stage, using the same exaggerated physicality of the silent movies. The comical tone is further strengthened when Vladimir, once the boot has finally come off, sniffs it briefly and drops it hastily with a “Pah!”(Beckett 15). It is an intriguing thought that Estragon and Vladimir might just
represent these media, the Commedia dell’Arte and the silent movies, in their old age. Vladimir and Estragon are tired, grumpy, have seen it all, and all that remains for them is to keep performing their daily repertoire of bickering, discussing and moving about the stage, actions which can be seen as a form of lazzi themselves. The big difference is that outside the stage, in their modern world, the scenarios, the guiding narratives, are gone, and the lazzi are all that remains.
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Waiting for Godot as Critique of the Modernist Approach to Art
In the discussion of Tyrus Miller’s book as outlined above it was mentioned that Vladimir and Estragon are straddling the divide between outside and inside. Because they are tramps, or clowns, they are outside of society, but perhaps they are actually inside, they are inside the play, inside the text, and are trapped in Limbo. Neither are they able to get back outside/inside, but doggedly remain on the spot where they are supposed to wait, nor are they released from their waiting through the arrival of Godot, a situation which echoes “the [Modernist] loss of a stable, authentic social ground” (Miller 43). The world of Vladimir and Estragon is out of focus, literally speaking, the focus of their waiting, Godot, is never on stage with them, and as a consequence of their desolation they revert to their lazzi, their little skirmishes and quarrels. In doing this, they may make the audience laugh, but it is often a bittersweet laughter, induced both by the immediate comedy of the lazzi, but also a sense of pity. This pity is induced by the uncomfortable truth
Vladimir and Estragon force the audience to confront, that maybe life as such is an endless waiting, and all we can do is pass the time as best we can, again echoing Miller’s statement that laughter
“fulfils a defensive function” (Miller 51).
Several scenes in Waiting for Godot act as subtle critique of the Modernist approach to art as an expression of absolute truth, such as Joseph Conrad describes it in the preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus, “bringing to light the truth” (Conrad 1). If one returns to Lucky’s
monologue in act one, where Pozzo instructs him to think, the whole tirade reminisces of the much used Modernist method of stream of consciousness. The method is used to represent the continued stream of impressions and thoughts in the human mind, often in the form of a fragmented interior monologue (Birch). Lucky’s speech is just that, a stream of fragmented words and phrases, only they are not internalized as they would be in the works of Modernist fiction, but spoken out loud.
One can argue that it is necessary for Lucky to vocalize it, since Waiting for Godot is written for the
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stage, but hearing this stream of words must only underline the artificiality of the situation.
Similarly, Pozzo’s insistence on letting Lucky perform his thinking becomes absurd, both since it becomes a play within the play, a further level of artificiality, but also since it highlights the
performativity of thinking, which is often stressed by Modernist writers. This can be interpreted as a way of mocking or at least questioning the strong artificiality of Modernist literature, what Miller calls “the radical subjectivization of art” (Miller 5). Where, according to Bakhtin, Rabelais and the Medieval and Renaissance writers honoured the cycle of degradation and rebirth, the Modernists seem to have taken only the first part, the revolt against society, and struggle to find something to replace it, and in the comedy of Waiting for Godot, Beckett suggests an answer to this vacuum.
One might take a tacit lead from a radio speech Beckett wrote after having served as a volunteer for the Irish and French Red Cross in the rebuilding of Saint-Lô. This speech is uncharacteristically personal, and reflects on Beckett’s experiences during this phase of rebuilding. “What was
important was . . . the occasional glimpse obtained, by us in them and, who knows, by them in us ...
of that smile at the human condition [that cannot] be extinguished by bombs . . . the smile deriding [or surmounting the state] of having and not having.” (qtd. in Gontarski 46). It would seem that Beckett stores some faith in the power of smile and of humour, in smile as a catalyst of the power to get back on your feet, to go on living despite the disillusionment and absence of clear values and ideals in the post-war world, and this may be one reason for the tramps and clowns in his plays.
Conclusion
In this essay it has been argued that the characters Vladimir and Estragon share several traits with the vernacular clown tradition, and that it is reasonable to conclude that Beckett was using these similarities both as a cultural backdrop for Waiting for Godot, but also as elements of the play in their own right. The laughter which erupts when Didi and Gogo perform their gags still works as a
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way of conveying a criticism of the Modernist aesthetics. The clownish tradition as well as the elements of Commedia dell’Arte, help Beckett to degrade and break down the Modernist high-brow approach to art, reflecting a Bakhtinian reverence for the grotesque. In the spirit of Bakhtin, Beckett uses the degradation, not to destroy, but to revive and transform, using the power of laughter.
“To degrade is to bury, to sow, and to kill simultaneously, in order to bring forth something more and better” (Bakhtin 21). Seen in this light, Beckett’s project in degrading or mocking the modern world with the seemingly nonsensical text of Godot is a stark contrast to those earlier readings of the play, which saw it as “a negation of life” (Gontarski 32). It is far from it, it is a way of giving rebirth, through the power of laughter, to the struggling world after the chaos of the two world wars. In this respect Beckett’s project reflects his observation from the Saint Lô speech, that the human capability to smile at his own condition, has enormous power, and is what will make us go forward, or - in the case of Vladimir and Estragon - not go forward, but keep waiting for Godot, despite the disappointments.
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Works cited and consulted:
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984. Print.
Bala, Michael. “The Clown” Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche 4.1 (2010): 50-71. Print.
Beckett, Samuel. The Complete Dramatic Works. 1986. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. Print.
Birch, Dinah. Ed. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Seventh ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
Conrad, Joseph. “Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus.” Handout compiled by Niklas Salmose, Linnaeus University, 2013. Web.
Delpech-Ramey, Joshua. “Sublime Comedy: on the Inhuman Rights of Clowns” SubStance 39.2 (2010): 131-141. Print.
Freidman, Alan W. “Samuel Beckett Meets Buster Keaton: Godeau, Film, and New York” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 51.1 (2009): 41-46. Print.
Gontarski, S. E. ed. A Companion to Samuel Beckett. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print.
Greenblatt, Stephen. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Eighth ed. New York: W. W.
Norton & Co, 2006
Joyce, James. Ulysses. Ware: Wordsworth Editions, 2010. Print.
Kenner, Hugh. Flaubert, Joyce and Beckett. The Stoic Comedians. Boston: Beacon P, 1962. Print.
Kenner, Hugh. Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study. Berkeley: U of California P, 1961. Print.
Madden, David. “Harlequin’s Stick, Charlie’s Cane” Film Quarterly 22.1 (1968): 10-26. Print.
Miller, Tyrus. Late Modernism: Politics, Fiction, and the Arts Between the World Wars. Berkeley:
U of California P, 1999. Print.
Pearce, Richard. Stages of the Clown: Perspectives on Modern Fiction From Dostoyevsky to Beckett. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1970.Print. Crosscurrents / Modern Critiques.
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Pilling, John, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. Print.
Salisbury, Laura. Samuel Beckett: Laughing Matters, Comic Timing. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2012. Print.
Steamboat Bill Jr. Dir. Chas F. Reisner. United Artists. 1928. Youtube. Web. January 24th 2014.
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjl2Fj-_Hg0 //
www.wiktionary.org/en Web. January 3rd 2014.
20 Appendix:
Tarot card showing the figure The Fool:
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RWS_Tarot_00_Fool.jpg No longer subject to copyright restrictions.
