Editing Waiting for Godot (section)

===Vladimir and Estragon===
{{Main|Vladimir (Waiting for Godot)|l1=Vladimir|Estragon}}
[[File:Waiting for Godot in Doon School.jpg|thumb|Vladimir and Estragon ([[The Doon School]], India, 2010)|222x222px]]
When Beckett started writing he did not have a visual image of Vladimir and Estragon. They are never referred to as [[Vagrancy|tramps]] in the text, though they are often performed in tramps' costumes on stage. [[Roger Blin]] advises: "Beckett heard their voices, but he couldn't describe his characters to me. [He said]: 'The only thing I'm sure of is that they're wearing [[Bowler hat|bowlers]].{{'"}}<ref>Quoted in ''[[Le Nouvel Observateur]]'' (26 September 1981) and referenced in Cohn, R., ''From Desire to Godot'' (London: Calder Publications; New York: Riverrun Press), 1998, p. 150</ref> "The bowler hat was of course ''de rigueur'' for men in many social contexts when Beckett was growing up in [[Foxrock]], and [his father] commonly wore one."{{sfn|Cronin|1997|p=382}} The play does indicate that the clothes worn at least by Estragon are shabby. When told by Vladimir that he should have been a poet, Estragon says he was, gestures to his rags, and asks if it were not obvious.

There are no physical descriptions of either of the two characters; however, the text indicates that Vladimir is the heavier of the pair: the contemplation-of-suicide scene tells us exactly that. The bowlers and other broadly comic aspects of their personae have reminded modern audiences of [[Laurel and Hardy]], who occasionally played tramps in their films. "The hat-passing game in ''Waiting for Godot'' and Lucky's inability to think without his hat on are two obvious Beckett derivations from Laurel and Hardy – a substitution of form for essence, covering for reality", wrote [[Gerald Mast]] in ''The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies''.<ref>Mast, Gerald, ''The Comic Mind: Comedy and the Movies''. University Of Chicago Press; Second Edition (15 September 1979). {{ISBN|978-0226509785}}</ref> Their "blather", which includes [[Hiberno-English]] idioms, indicated that they are both [[Irish people|Irish]].{{sfn|Gontarski|2014|p=203}}

Vladimir stands through most of the play whereas Estragon sits down numerous times and even dozes off. "Estragon is inert and Vladimir restless."<ref name="Alan Schneider 1998 p. 6">Letter to Alan Schneider, 27 December 1955 in Harmon, M., (Ed.) ''No Author Better Served: The Correspondence of Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 6</ref> Vladimir looks at the sky and muses on religious or philosophical matters. Estragon "belongs to the stone",<ref>Kalb, J., ''[http://samuel-beckett.net/Penelope/staging.html Beckett in Performance] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110608131244/http://samuel-beckett.net/Penelope/staging.html |date=8 June 2011 }}'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 43</ref> preoccupied with mundane things such as what he can get to eat and how to ease his physical aches and pains; he is direct, intuitive. The monotonous, ritualistic means by which Estragon continuously sits upon the stone may be likened to the constant nail filing carried out by [[Happy Days (play)#Winnie|Winnie]] in ''[[Happy Days (play)|Happy Days]]'', another of Beckett's plays, both actions representing the slow, deliberate erosion of the characters' lives.{{Original research inline|date=February 2021}} He finds it hard to remember but can recall certain things when prompted, ''e.g.'', when Vladimir asks: "Do you remember the [[Gospel#Canonical gospels|Gospels]]?"{{sfn|Beckett|1988|page=12}} Estragon tells Vladimir about the coloured maps of the [[Holy Land]] and that he planned to honeymoon by the [[Dead Sea]]; it is his [[short-term memory]] that is poorest and suggests that he may, in fact, be suffering from [[Alzheimer disease|Alzheimer's disease]].<ref>See Brown, V., ''[http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/888/thesis.pdf Yesterday's Deformities: A Discussion of the Role of Memory and Discourse in the Plays of Samuel Beckett] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141012033313/http://uir.unisa.ac.za/bitstream/handle/10500/888/thesis.pdf |date=12 October 2014 }}'', pp. 35–75 for a detailed discussion of this.</ref> [[Al Alvarez]] writes: "But perhaps Estragon's forgetfulness is the cement binding their relationship together. He continually forgets, Vladimir continually reminds him; between them they pass the time."<ref>Alvarez, A. ''Beckett'' 2nd Edition (London: Fontana Press, 1992)</ref> Estragon's forgetfulness affords the author a certain narrative utility also, allowing for the mundane, empty conversations held between him and Vladimir to continue seamlessly.{{Original research inline|date=February 2021}} They have been together for fifty years but when asked by Pozzo they do not reveal their actual ages. Vladimir's life is not without its discomforts too but he is the more resilient of the pair. "Vladimir's pain is primarily mental anguish, which would thus account for his voluntary exchange of his hat for Lucky's, thus signifying Vladimir's symbolic desire for another person's thoughts."<ref name="themodernword.com">Gurnow, M., ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20141007231614/http://themodernword.com/beckett/paper_gurnow.html No Symbol Where None Intended: A Study of Symbolism and Allusion in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot]''</ref> These characterizations, for some, represented the act of thinking or mental state (Vladimir) and physical things or the body (Estragon).<ref>{{Cite book|title=Beckett and Joyce: Friendship and Fiction|last=Gluck|first=Barbara|publisher=Bucknell University Press|year=1979|isbn=9780838720608|location=London|pages=152}}</ref> This is visually depicted by Vladimir's continuous attention to his hat and Estragon to his boots. While the two characters are temperamentally opposite, with their differing responses to a situation, they are both essential as demonstrated in the way Vladimir's metaphysical musings were balanced by Estragon's physical demands.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Samuel Beckett's Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett's American Director|last=Bianchini|first=Natka|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2015|isbn=9781349683956|location=New York|pages=29}}</ref>

The above characterizations, particularly that which concerns their existential situation, are also demonstrated in one of the play's recurring themes, which is sleep.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=The Visible and the Invisible in the Interplay between Philosophy, Literature and Reality|last=Tymieniecka|first=Anna-Teresa|author-link=Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|year=2012|isbn=9789401038812|location=Dordrecht|pages=89}}</ref> There are two instances when Estragon falls asleep in the play and has nightmares, about which he wanted to tell Vladimir when he woke. The latter refuses to hear it since he could not tolerate the sense of entrapment experienced by the dreamer during each episode. This idea of entrapment supports the view that the setting of the play may be understood more clearly as a dream-like landscape, or, a form of [[Purgatory]], from which neither man can escape.{{Original research inline|date=February 2021}} One interpretation noted the link between the two characters' experiences and the way they represent them: the impotence in Estragon's nightmare and Vladimir's predicament of waiting as his companion sleeps.<ref name=":1" /> It is also said that sleep and impatience allow the spectators to distinguish between the two main characters, that sleep expresses Estragon's focus on his sensations while Vladimir's restlessness shows his focus on his thoughts.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre and Literature of the Absurd|last=Bennett|first=Michael Y.|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2015|isbn=9781107053922|location=Cambridge, UK|pages=51}}</ref> This particular aspect involving sleep is indicative of what some called a pattern of duality in the play.<ref>{{Cite book|title=University of Basrah Studies in English|last1=Al-Hajaj|first1=Jinan Fedhil|last2=Davis|first2=Graeme|publisher=Peter Lang|year=2008|isbn=9783039113255|location=Oxford|pages=141}}</ref> In the case of the protagonists, the duality involves the body and the mind, making the characters complementary.<ref name=":2" />

Throughout the play the couple refer to each other by the pet names "Didi" and "Gogo", although the boy addresses Vladimir as "Mister Albert". Beckett originally intended to call Estragon "Lévy" but when Pozzo questions him he gives his name as "Magrégor, André"<ref>Fletcher, J., "The Arrival of Godot" in ''The Modern Language Review'', Vol. 64, No. 1 (Jan. 1969), pp. 34–38</ref> and also responds to "''Catulle''" in French or "[[Catullus]]" in the first Faber edition. This became "Adam" in the American edition. Beckett's only explanation was that he was "fed up with Catullus".<ref>Duckworth, C., (Ed.) "Introduction" to ''En attendant Godot'' (London: George Harrap, 1966), pp. lxiii, lxiv. Quoted in {{harvnb|Ackerley|Gontarski|2006|p=183}}</ref>

[[Vivian Mercier]] described ''Waiting for Godot'' as a play which "has achieved a theoretical impossibility – a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice."<ref>[[Vivian Mercier|Mercier, V.]], "The Uneventful Event" in ''[[The Irish Times]]'', 18 February 1956</ref> Mercier once questioned Beckett on the language used by the pair: "It seemed to me...he made Didi and Gogo sound as if they had earned PhDs. 'How do you know they hadn't?' was his reply."<ref>[[Vivian Mercier|Mercier, V.]], ''Beckett/Beckett'' (London: Souvenir Press, 1990), p. 46</ref> They clearly have known better times, such as a visit to the [[Eiffel Tower]] and grape-harvesting by the [[Rhône]]; this is about all either has to say about their pasts, save for Estragon's claim to have been a poet, an explanation Estragon provides to Vladimir for his destitution. In the first stage production, which Beckett oversaw, both are "more shabby-genteel than ragged...Vladimir at least is capable of being scandalised...on a matter of [[etiquette]] when Estragon [[begging|begs]] for chicken bones or money."<ref>[[Vivian Mercier|Mercier, V.]], ''Beckett/Beckett'' (London: Souvenir Press, 1990), pp. 47, 49</ref>