Language in Waiting For Godot

Language in Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett has chosen to write in a language that always

points out that the world is absurd and chaotic, that man is alone and in
despair. He demonstrates that language is the fundamental means of
deception. But his language is used as a system devoid of content which
moves only with itself.
Becketts language is a mixture of elements rarely found together in the
same narrative. It is murky, baffling, circular,
contradictory, full of offensive details, furious violence and
sardonic, terrifying insights into the meaninglessness of human life.
His language is difficult to interpret for its general verbosity
by the difficulty of the words and phrases. It is serious because it, mainly,
deals with complex and oddly tragic characters who cannot reconcile the
unreality of the seen world with the reality of the unseen.
Language is reduced by Beckett making it nothing more than a
deserted castle whose gaping cracks let in the wind and rain. He, however,
uses it just like the body and the mind of his characters, considers it as a
faulty and inadequate tool. Speech, another mark of mans finitude, breaks
down within the individual. Moreover, it sometimes leads to deterioration
and often to total failure of communication with others
Since Beckett uses language to show the function of language in human
existence, the speech patterns of the characters: recurrent vocabulary,
pronoun shifts, sound effects, etc., re-enforce the major themes and the
mixed tone of the play. In other words, the comic effects of language used by
characters grimly underline the themes of tedium and absurdity that
dominate the plays.
In Waiting for Godot, Vladimir is the character who gropes for meaning,
but the meaning does not appear. His attempts are reduced to incoherence
and, finally, silence by his partner, Estragon.
The dialogue, between the characters, is studded with words that have no
meaning for normal ears. They (words) reconcile
themselves with reason that makes the dialogue often baffling.
Beckett makes it difficult to demonstrate which comes first,
memory deterioration or language disintegration, one clearly
accompanies the other. Thus, in Luckys case a traumatized
memory is combined with partial aphasia and ultimately total
silence.
This situation manifests itself in stuttering (acacacacademie; anthropopom
etric; qua-quaquaqua). In stammering (etabli tabli tabli, ce qui suit qui... etc
In addition to the aphasia and stuttering there is some evidence
of a certain amount of speech disintegration that are ellipsis and stammering
which are observable in Pozzos speech from the stress of Vladimirs
criticism:
I cant bear it...any longer...the way he goes on...youve no
idea...its terrible...he must go...(he waves his arm)...Im going
mad (He collapses his head in
his hands)...I cant bear it...any
longer
Hesitancy in speech is observable in both Estragon and Vladimir in the
former this fumbling for words appears to emanate from embarrassment:
Thats to say...you understand...the dusk...the strain...waiting...I confess...
I imagined...for a second
Language disintegration such as these on the individual level is the sign of
the general inadequacy of speech to cope with a variety of situations and of
the in coordination between speech and memory or thought.
One of the major causes of misunderstanding among the characters proceeds
from faulty communication due to types of imprecision such as ambiguity,
misconstruing a question, confusion of sounds, etc.
Waiting for Godot opens on an ambiguous note, Nothing to be done, that
does not lead into a dialogue but into
Beckett, in his use of language, reveals the fallibility of
language as a medium for the discovery and communication of metaphysical
truth. He ensures that his writing remains a constant struggle, a painful
wrestling with the spirit of language itself. The themes of Waiting for Godot
and other plays persist the difficulty of finding meaning in a world subject to
incessant change, his use of language probes the limitations of language both
as a vehicle for the expression of valid statement- an instrument of thoughts
oder
truths
As a result of lack of communication, each man follows his own thoughts,
while the silence and pauses isolate words and phrases and the repetitions
remind us how monotonous, repetitive and tedious life is. The play is fully
replete with repetition; without variety or novelty, and paradoxes
with no resolution. Moreover, apart from mirroring the repetitious circle of
life, So many repetitions in the play well serve the characters to busy
themselves and pass the painful time less consciously. So Beckett uses
language not as a divine instrument but as mere senseless buzzing.
It is used in a world that has lost its meaning, language also
becomes a meaningless buzzing .
Language is used like difficult music heard for the first time as Niklaus
Gessner in his The Inadequacy of Language, has tabulated ten different
modes of disintegration of language
; they range from simple misunderstanding and double-entende rs to
monologues (as signs of inability to communicate), clichs, repetitions of
synonyms, inability to find the right words, and telegraphic style (loss of
grammatical structure, communication by shouted commands) to the farrago
(medley, hotch-potch, indiscriminate mixture of
Becketts use of language is designed to devalue language as a
vehicle of conceptual thought of ready-made answers to the
problem of the human condition.
The dialogue is studded with words that have no meaning for
normal ears; repeatedly it announces that it has come to a stop, and will have
to start again; never does it reconcile itself with reason.
Speech is the basis of existence. But it, like the body and the
mind, is used as a faulty and inadequate tool. Speech, although it is another
mark of mans finitude, breaks down within the individual moreover, it
sometimes leads to deterioration and often to total failure of communication
with others.
Disintegration of language is achieved through various methods in Absurd

drama: The use of meaningless words uttered mechanically with no logical
links or grammatical structure occurs in absurdists plays. These dramatis
ts make little use of language as a means of influence. Language which
seeks to present a meaning, characterization is hardly achieved.
Furthermore, the absudists usually show their disbelief in language as an
instrument of communication in the employment of purely theatrical effects.
Beckett occupied with the failure of language to communicate
the menaces of life and its meaninglessness. Consequently he uses language
as an atmosphere of entrapment. His endless, futile speech is the history of
the human spirit. He replaces customary plot, structure and language with
fragmentary, contradictory and often nonsensical dialogue in order to
present a world of chaos that mocks established institution and conformity.
Beckett used the language of gesture and movements to make
inanimate things play their action, and to relegate dialogue. He
reduced language to a very subordinate role. His language becomes the
adequate representation of stagnant life and meaninglessness it relates to
life without action, de
scribes man deprived of history.
The circular structure of the play together with the paradoxical
symmetries, which pervade the whole play, clearly prove that all the
characters' yesterdays have been the same as today and that tomorrow will
be no different from that. Therefore, the play in which the true meaning and
the best formal representation of the absurd life of modern men are
masterfully depicted.

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Language in Waiting for Godot

Samuel Beckett has chosen to write in a language that always

Disintegration of language is achieved through various methods in Absurd

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