Criticism Flashcards
What was the primary reason WfG was performed for San Quentin Penitentiary?
#1
No women in it (less distraction).
Why were actors/director
apprehensive?
#2
- Tough audience of 1400 convicts
- “Intellectual, obscure” play that caused near riots among highly sophisticated audiences.
How did Blau prepare
inmates for WfG?
#3
Compared it to a piece of jazz music “to which one must listen for whatever one may find in it.”
What are the two possible reasons Esslin gives to explain plays impact on convicts?
#4
- Play confronted them with a situation analogous to their own
- Convicts had no preconceived ideas of what theatre ‘should be’ and did not condemn it for its lack of conventional devices.
Who is Alan Schneider and what did he ask Beckett?
#6
How did he respond?
Directed first American production of WfG
- Shneider: “Who or what was meant by Godot?”
- Beckett: “If I knew, I would have said so in the play.”
In Beckett’s essay on Joyce’s Work in
Progress, what assertion does the
playwright make?
#7
The form, structure, and mood of an
artistic statement cannot be separated from its meaning.
According to Esslin, how is Beckett’s play like a symphony?
#8
Like a symphony - the play gains
meaning by having its statements and images apprehended in their totality.
In what ways are Gogo and Didi complimentary characters?
#9
What does this mean in terms of their relationship?
- Didi is practical while Gogo is poetic [v.v.]
- Didi gets used to carrot as he eats it while Gogo likes it less as he eats
- Didi has stinking breath while Gogo has stinking feet.
- Didi approached by messenger while Gogo isn’t.
- Didi remembers past while Gogo tends to forget as soon as an event happens.
They are dependent on each other and have to stay together.
How are Pozzo and Lucky complimentary in their relationship?
#10
How do Pozzo and Lucky represent the relationship between body and mind?
Pozzo is the ‘master’ [power is an illusion]
Lucky is the ‘servant’ [carries the whip which oppresses him]
Lucky = mind
Pozzo = body
Superior? Intellect is always subordinate to the appetites of the body.
If the nature of Godot is of secondary importance, what then is the subject of the play?
#11
“Waiting as an essential and characteristic aspect of the human condition.”
According to Becket, what is the basic problem of being?
#12
“We are not merely more weary because of yesterday, we are other, no longer what we were before the calamity of yesterday.”
- We are constantly changed by time…
[Therefore] The nature of ‘self’ is in constant flux and outside of our grasp…
- Personality is retrospective because we are at no single moment in our lives identical with ourselves.
Can we ever be sure that the human beings we meet today are the same as they were yesterday? No.
- Examples: Boy does not recognize pair
- Pozzo does not recognize Gogo and Didi in Act II
How does the story of the two thieves contribute to the theme of the fortuitousness of the bestowal of grace?
#14
Jesus bestowing ‘grace’ on one of the thieves is uncertain at best:
- It seemed unplanned and accidental.
- Jesus was under considerable stress and suffering…he probably wasn’t
thinking clearly.
Pozzo admits the same is true in his relationship with Lucky: “I could have easily been in his shoes and he in mine. If chance had not willed it that way.”
How is Godot unpredictable in his bestowing of kindness and punishment?
#15
How is this treatment mimicked in Cain and Abel?
Godot beats one boy [sheep herder] and shows decency toward the other boy [goat herder]. Unpredictable.
Cain/Abel: God’s grace fell on one rather than the other without rational explanation.
What is the gist of Lucky’s word salad?
#16
“God does not communicate with us, cannot feel for us, and condemns us for reasons unknown.”
Divine apathia, divine athambia, divine aphasia
Why might the play lend itself to a Christian interpretation?
#17
What might these interpretations overlook?
- Didi and Gogo’s waiting [signifies Christian values of steadfast faith and hope]
- Didi’s kindness to Gogo [signifies Christian value of charity]
Overlook?
Godot’s unreliability - irrationality
