Reading Journal 7

• Reading Journal
• Waiting for Godot is a depressing comedy. From the start, Vladimir is saying "All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying, Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't tried everything. And I resume the struggle." This is a humble-depression. (Like the opposite of a humble-brag.) Life is terrible, but I struggle on in any case. He continues in this sunk-cost-fallacy way of addressing his depression: "On the other hand what's the good in losing heart now, that's what I say. We should have thought of it a million years ago, in the nineties." I do not know what to make of the action with Pozzo and Lucky, but ultimately we return to Vladimir and Estragon wanting to hang themselves, unfortunately without a rope sturdy enough to do the job.
• They are waiting for someone who is seemingly never going to come, but they also do not even know why they are waiting for this person. I think usually we are trying to say what does the play have to do with the contemporary issues of Ireland, but maybe Waiting for Godot transcends are usual look into these plays. Maybe what we should ask with this play is how does it transcend anything we have looked at in any of the other plays--instead how does it relate to me today? I feel like this play is more ambitious--like what is the meaning of life? Do we just wait around, for no reason, for something that will never come anyways?
• To be clear, I did enjoy all three plays, but I think Krapp's Last Tape might be my favorite. It's depressing, without the comedy. In place of the comedy, we get this clever, non-linear approach to telling this depressing story. I believe it's about this man who spends his life filled with regret for this relationship that came to an end. But we don't get that on the first run through the tape. We only get that full detail on the rewind where we catch more details. When he starts skipping backwards and forwards and giving us excerpts at a time, it reminded me of Memento. We are going to be sharing this week's reading journals with the class, correct? If so, let me drop that recommendation for my younger classmates who might have missed one of Christopher Nolans earliest films.
• And one other thing it reminded me of. It has this very detailed banana scene to open the play. Almost the exact same thing was portrayed in the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream I saw at the Globe Theatre last year. Puck slowly ate multiple bananas without any dialogue. They were probably going for different things, but somehow they both work?
• And Happy Days feels a lot like Waiting for Godot. We have the ever-present revolver, who Winnie shares an aside to it, telling the revolver, "I suppose it's a comfort to know you're there," so another depressing comedy. I guess it gives nursing home vibes. To be completely stuck somewhere, and on the verge of being swallowed up by the earth. And Winnie just doesn't have much to look forward to or to do. And her husband basically won't talk to her. It's all depressing this week, but I think it all works. And like I said, I think it's all more transcendent than the other Irish drama we have encountered so far, aiming no just to speak to an Irish audience or to build a national theater, but to have a much broader appeal.
• Maybe one connection we can make with our plays from last week, is that each of these three plays also seem to look back to a time 50+ years earlier. Should we be doing the math on each of these plays like we did last week? Or should we just note the common theme of looking back 50+ years?
• Discussion QOC
• For my question (QOC), what insights can you provide for one of these characters, Mr. Godot or Willie? We never meet Mr. Godot, if he really exists, or get any sort of answer as to why one would wait for him to arrive. So how should I think about Godot? Or same question, but for Willie? Should I just read him as unresponsive to his wife, because he is a man? Or is there more to this character? I think I lean toward the former, because it seems perfectly believable from my perspective, but maybe I am just putting too much of myself into this character.
• Response to Dr. Peterson
• I did not place the dystopian settings of these plays as the west in Ireland. I did notice Connemara in Lucky's frenzied monologue, but I also noticed Fulham and I presumed other locations I was unfamiliar with, so I did not put too much consideration into it in my first read. Trying to research this idea further, Ireland as the dystopian setting, I find this book The Lost Decade: Ireland in the 1950s, where it argues the 1950s as "a decade characterised by high unemployment, poor economic performance, mass emigration and a flight from countryside to the cities." With that background, we could see Vladimir and Estragon the way we see them in the play--with no hope and completely lost. Perhaps it would fit well for Knapp who has regret about the past, or Winnie who sees no hope in the future.
• I start to ask myself then have we had anything to lead us to this conclusion from our previous plays. Riders to the Sea was awfully bleak as well. Not dystopian--some sort of believable misery. Maybe Purgatory is the play that should lead us to this conclusion the most? Is that maybe a good way to look at Waiting for Godot or Happy Days, and thus, a good way to place these dystopian settings as the west in Ireland?
• Responses to Classmates on Dr. Peterson's post:
• Samantha - Krapp is not the optimist, but he is reflective. I saw in another post that you liked Krapp (like I do). You called him wishy-washy. As my client, I will call him reflective. After listening to himself, he calls himself a stupid bastard. But then as he thinks and broods, and then he concedes, "Maybe he was right"--referring to himself in the third person. He lives in this perpetual cycle of loneliness and depression, but having read all three plays, could we see something optimistic in his behavior, too? Like in the weird way Vladimir describes it: "On the other hand what's the good in losing heart now, that's what I say." He comes back to agree with himself thirty years later, so he still hasn't lost heart?
• Janel - I agree that Beckett rethinks the Irish-based characters. Our two most important archetypes, Cathleen and the Tramp, are not here. Maybe Beckett is going for an ultra-subtle approach. Maybe we should find these characters in relief. By removing these characters, Beckett forces the reader to call out for them. Where is the character in Waiting for Godot to call the characters to action, instead of their constant inaction? Where is the poet to inspire Krapp, stuck in his own regret?
• Replies to Reading Journals
• Janel - Thank you for this reading journal. Dr. Peterson always criticizes us for being godless, and there is no one who deserves the critique more than me. I did not at all catch this allegory between Godot and Jesus. Your explanation allows me to read this play in a whole new light. I can see your argument on making fun of religious people, as Vladimir and Estragon's wait for Godot is unexplainable and therefore comedic. Is there a different possible reading though where Beckett isn't necessarily making of religious people even if Vladimir and Estragon are representing religious people waiting for Jesus? Maybe like, it's a good thing that these guys struggle on, on faith alone, in some sort of triumphant struggle? And, is there something we should make of the differences between Vladimir and Estragon? I am thinking about everything again, now in the frame of this allegory, but Estragon suggests toward the end, "I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have been better off alone, each one for himself." What does this mean in light of our reading of them waiting for Jesus?
  Janel, this reading journal was very helpful.
• Samantha - The way I interpreted Winnie being buried in Happy Days was metaphorically, as in when we die, we will get buried, and she is old and therefore on her way to being buried. So Beckett just displays it in an absurd way as some sort of gradual process that Winnie experiences. It might be a way someone could feel, as they approach the end of their life, that they are, at least metaphorically, being slowly buried. I also interpreted it in the way people might feel trapped when they get older. If they were in a nursing home or just had some mobility issue, I think being stuck in a hole would be a comical way to approach that non-comical situation. As far as the interplay between Winnie and Willie, it also did remind me a little of my late grandparents. Not that my grandmother was that talkative or my grandfather was that non-responsive, but it felt in some way recognizable, for an old married couple.
• Replies to QOC's
• Jack - It's a good question, and it echoes Dr. Peterson point about the post-World War II world. There is definitely a sense of meaninglessness in each play, but there is also some weird optimism, too. Vladimir and Estragon returning every day to wait for Godot, despite all their struggles. Winnie seeing the positive in any small response from Willie. I'd rather argue that the plays suggest everything is not meaningless even though that would be the easiest conclusion any of the characters could make.
• Janel - I think my answer to your question is... Yes. I think we do have this continued movement from the rural west to the urban east. I think that might lend itself to desolate landscapes and isolation as people move away. But at least on my first read, I did feel like Beckett was going for issues beyond nationalist concerns. Issues of belonging and purpose and finding meaning in life: issues that anyone could relate to. And maybe we are still seeing these issues through the eyes of Irish characters. So maybe Beckett is trying to refocus the national movement on these more universal concerns.
• Replies to Replies
• Jack - Your response makes a lot of sense, especially after I read Janel's reading journal. When I read he would be saved, I was not thinking of salvation as some sort of tangible thing, as maybe a religious person might think. I was thinking of salvation like, when I am really hungry, and the waitress at Olive Garden brings the bread sticks and salad. And I say to myself, much like Vladimir I was thinking, "I am saved." 
• Janel - You are right. Riders to the Sea is not a good connection here. It is a far more serious story, and quite different on the bleakness. But there is some sort of weird optimism from Maurya that is maybe relatable to what we see here with Winnie or Vladimir. Maybe a similar sentiment in how the characters deal with that bleakness?
• Samantha - So one way I have thought of Willie, if maybe I think of Winnie as this terminally ill character who needs a lot of assistance, is that Willie is like the care-taker for Winnie. Winnie is in this worst spot than Willie, as she is completely stuck in her hole, so I have been thinking of her as trapped and soon to be dying and being reclaimed by the earth. But Willie is the husband who sticks with her as she is dying. So I can see rude and being annoyed and angry at him. But it might be a challenge for Willie to take care of his dying wife, if you are read the play as I do. Can we afford Willie any grace, if you think about him like that? Being a caretaker for a dying spouse I would imagine might make you more stuck than the dying spouse.
• Jack - I get it. Godot is the female candidate for president, who we all voted for, twice, and yet, we are all as silly as Vladimir and Estragon thinking she is going to save us from the downfall of our republic.
• Janel - I like that explanation, especially if we are going to conclude this play does have nationalist themes. Whether we do or not, I do think we can ascribe more to Willie than I did in my question. I gave what I thought was my strongest defense below to Samantha.