Waiting for Godot

SOCIAL, CULTURE AND HISTORICAL CONDITIONS OF THE WRITING

Samuel Beckett's waiting for Godot was first performed in 1953

Historical

• Hiroshima Nagasaki 1945 - whole community, shocks wold of the power


• WW1 - Hitler - Jews - holocaust [1939 - 1945]

Continuous stand of between

capitalism vs Communist

USA, Britain, NATO USSR, China

Berlin wall "Iron curtain" Arms race, race to space

Depression 1929 - started after Wall street Crash

IRISH BRITAIN

1992 WW1

blacks and tans - Ireland

1916 Easter uprising

19th Century potato famines due to poor British rule

Absurdism:

1. A philosophy often translate into art forms holding that humans exist in a meaningless irrational universe
2. An act or instance of the ridiculous.

Nihilism

questions posed:

• is there a god?
• is life worth living?
• why is this happening?

time:

• rasises questions about is value, meaning, function
• Vivan Merciere - "Nothing happens, twice"

Boots:

• poverty
• Not being in possension for awhile could have greater value now

Dreams:

• is life too bad already?
• is it not worth a distraction?

Tree:

• burning bush in the bible? lack of a god?
• Hope, life?
• Death?