Existentialism is a philosophy that repudiates the idea of religion or any ‘supreme’ being bringing meaning to life, and advocates the idea that individuals are instrumental in finding a purpose to life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility.
Hence in Samuel Becket’s existentialist play Waiting For Godot, he puts forth an idea that all of humanity is wasting their lives in inaction- waiting for the salvation of a deity, when that divine being may or may not even exist. As inferred from the phrase "existence precedes essence", there is no pre-existent spirituality or soul; no god, Christian or otherwise; no cosmic compassion for human life; no salvation in heaven and damnation in hell; neither preset destiny nor inevitable…show more content… They are aware of the different choices they can make but are hesitant, just as they decide to leave at the end of the act but remain motionless. Thus, the end of act 1 firmly asserts the characters’ hopelessness.
Beckett infers that people pass time with habits to cope with the existentialist dilemma of the dread or anxiety of their existence. Estragon and Vladimir idly pass their time to escape the pain of waiting and even thinking. Vladimir expresses this idea at the end of the play: "Habit is a great deadener." All the events narrated through the course of the play – the Crucifixion story, the suicide plan, playing talk – seem nothing more than silly pastimes. Once during the Pozzo-Lucky encounter, the tramps behave as if they are in a theatre; Vladimir even asks Estragon to keep his seat while going off to the urinal at "The end of the corridor, on the left.” Pozzo and Lucky’s coming can also well be interpreted as an act to entertain Vladimir and Estragon; a way in which Becket questions whether life itself is just a mere source of entertainment to pass the time while waiting for salvation. However, the distractions end sometime or the other, leaving them again with their futile inaction: "The essential doesn't change." This once again echoes the existentialist theory that life will end in nothingness as it has begun, reducing all of man’s achievements and accomplishments to nothing.
Time has little
