Agency in Frankenstein and Waiting for Godot
In both Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Waiting For Godot by Samuel Becket, the protagonists seem to be stuck in their respective situations. In Frankenstein, Victor makes a mistake of trying to bend the laws of nature and create an undead monster; his mistake comes back to haunt him when he is then hopelessly terrorized by his own creation. In Waiting for Godot, Didi and Gogo aimlessly wait for someone who may not ever come. Initially, Victor appears to have more power to produce a certain effect to escape his situation than Didi and Gogo. Even though the texts seem unrelated, and their qualities of being stuck contrast, when examining Waiting for Godot through the lens of Frankenstein, we can better understand the extent to which Didi and Gogo actually possess agency in their lives.
The idea of agency- the ability to produce a certain effect- means different things to the protagonists. This is because their respective stuck situations present different objectives to escape those situations. In Frankenstein, Victor’s monster wishes to hold him accountable for abandoning him; in order to best make it up…show more content… Victor’s ability to be able to act to procure consequences comes with a sense of guilt and accountability when those consequences do not turn out how he planned. To make Victor accountable for his actions, the monster states that making it a bride is something “[Victor] alone can do; and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to concede”(Shelley 104). With their lack of agency, Didi and Gogo do not have these same emotional consequences as Victor. The two men, even though they have very little and do nothing to escape their situation, decide that “[they] are happy”(Beckett Act 2). Perhaps because they do not intentionally practice agency, Didi and Gogo do not feel the same emotional
