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Waiting for Godot is not about god. (2 Viewers)

NewiJapper

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Samuel Beckett said it himself. I can see how you can intepret the text to portray this, but the author themselves said that his purpose was specifically NOT this. So many people today at the ext 1 day thought this was true though and I just don't think it's right to go shouting out ideas about the text when the composer never meant it in the first place.
 

joshuarG

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Waiting for Godot is such an absurdest, postmodern play that the character Godot is so ambiguous that it can represent everything, but at the same time, nothing. Becket did say that this play wasn't about religion, but I can understand why individuals can draw that meaning from the text. Although I'm studying C. Writing, i did study this play in drama, and our class had this same argument.
It really depends what you believe in. I mean, how many things do we draw from Shakespeare that he may not have necessarily wanted us as the audience to 'get'?
:)
 

alcalder

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"Waiting for Godot" is coming soon to Sydney! Ian McKeller and Matthew Kelly and one other guy.
 

NewiJapper

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Tickets are $119 but i doubt i will get the chance to see this play as good as it has been raved about. So im getting tickets for it! :)

joshuarG said:
Waiting for Godot is such an absurdest, postmodern play that the character Godot is so ambiguous that it can represent everything, but at the same time, nothing. Becket did say that this play wasn't about religion, but I can understand why individuals can draw that meaning from the text. Although I'm studying C. Writing, i did study this play in drama, and our class had this same argument.
It really depends what you believe in. I mean, how many things do we draw from Shakespeare that he may not have necessarily wanted us as the audience to 'get'?
:)
I completely agree with Godot being ambiguous, but we can't exactly speak to Shakespeare about his plays can we? :p Personally I see Godot more of an existential representation of death :)
 

hvf26

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Waiting for Godot is such an absurdest, postmodern play that the character Godot is so ambiguous that it can represent everything, but at the same time, nothing. Becket did say that this play wasn't about religion, but I can understand why individuals can draw that meaning from the text. Although I'm studying C. Writing, i did study this play in drama, and our class had this same argument.
It really depends what you believe in. I mean, how many things do we draw from Shakespeare that he may not have necessarily wanted us as the audience to 'get'?
:)
+1

Tickets are $119 but i doubt i will get the chance to see this play as good as it has been raved about. So im getting tickets for it! :)



I completely agree with Godot being ambiguous, but we can't exactly speak to Shakespeare about his plays can we? :p Personally I see Godot more of an existential representation of death :)
thats interesting. i saw godot as a form of hope in a stagnating society, or putting their hope in something "greater" than themselves, like the government/ political leaders eg usa/ussr

goes to show how it allows people to bring their own meaning into it :) great play.
 

NewiJapper

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hvf26 said:
thats interesting. i saw godot as a form of hope in a stagnating society, or putting their hope in something "greater" than themselves, like the government/ political leaders eg usa/ussr
Hmm. But what would be the point of putting their hope into something that ultimately lets them down?

In my reading of it and the representation of death. I see it how that as humans, when you strip us back to our base elements, all we are doing with our lives is waiting for death and what we do with the time inbetween birth and death is caused by our choices we make. Coming out of WWII the existential frame of mind was caused by the bloodshed within the war, people were questioning what was the point of living if we are going to die anyway? To achieve something and then to have it ultimately destroy us anyway seems only futile.

This is why i love waiting for godot. It's such a versatile text.
 

Absolutezero

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Essentially what Beckett stated was that "if I had meant God and not Godot, I would have said God". Beckett himself denies a parrallel link between the two. However, that is not to say that religion can not be drawn from the text.

Assuming that the authors word is final when it comes to the text is often a bad idea. The reader can draw any interpretation and semiological understand from the events that are portrayed on the stage. The visual and written text is subjective to each owns understanding.
 

ari89

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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is not about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
 

showy

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Hmm. But what would be the point of putting their hope into something that ultimately lets them down?
Well thats sort of the point, I think. It really pushes the pointlessness of humans waiting for something that's not going to come, yet our essential human nature inhibits us from giving up on it, so we just wait in vain, passing the time.
 

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