what do you think Godot was?

Question:From Samuel Beckett's masterpiece Waiting for Godot, who/what do you think Vladimir and Estragon were waiting for? Personally I believe Godot was merely death, but I also wished it was a person (not sure why). I know Beckett never did reveal what Godot was, he even stated that he himself didn't know, but I'd like to hear some theories.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: From Samuel Beckett's masterpiece Waiting for Godot, who/what do you think Vladimir and Estragon were waiting for? Personally I believe Godot was merely death, but I also wished it was a person (not sure why). I know Beckett never did reveal what Godot was, he even stated that he himself didn't know, but I'd like to hear some theories.

I never thought of it as more than another person. I mean, on a literal level I suppose that's not too outside of expectation but I guess I've never thought was it some specific figurative 'thing' that Beckett was alluding to.

Of course, it didn't really matter - and I think that's why Beckett would also suggest he didn't know. Whether it was death, a real person, or just some later time when something important might happen it was the absurdity of their actions and dialogue represents us all just shuffling around waiting for:

better job
retirement
death
or an understanding of life.

I think if you want it to be a person, then it is.

Beckett examines the phenomenon of waiting, the idea that you cannot move on because you're waiting perpetually for something that you desire, and it never comes, and that this is the key to human existence. Perhaps that's death, perhaps it's life, perhaps Godot was another person, perhaps he meant something different to both Vladimir and Estragon.

I think it's fundamentally important that we don't know - we don't know, really, what we're waiting for. And the flipside of that is that Godot can be WHOMEVER you wish him to be.

(he still doesn't arrive)

Reading this reply - you may be able to discern that I'm agnostic (so I don't believe that one can ever know God, even if S/He exists). I think that maybe if I was (for example) a Christian, I'd believe that Godot = God [but again, he never shows]. If I was an atheist, I might think that there was no Godot - there's never any evidence that he's more than a rumour or a figment.

You see, everyone's theory will (and should be) different, because we, as an audience, are also waiting.

He was a character in a play once. He never shows up in Samuel Backett's play, Waiting For Godot.