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“Waiting for Godot” Explained with Philosophy | Philosophy Tube

Philosophy Tube | August 5, 2025



Samuel Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece “Waiting for Godot” is one of the most famous pieces of 20th Century Theatre – but what are the philosophical questions it raises? How does the story of its creation tie in with Albert Camus, and the Nazi invasion of France?

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Transcript of this Episode: http://tinyurl.com/gq7sy94
Samuel Beckett, “Waiting for Godot” http://tinyurl.com/gnrjv6y
Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus” http://tinyurl.com/zvtrbpe

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Comments

This post currently has 28 comments.

  6. @68blues

    August 5, 2025 at 2:34 pm

    I really think this play is exceptional! Simply because of the amount of tripe it has brought out from the arseholes of the clowns who try to explain it. I tip my hat to the people who have sat through it then muttered the words, “What a pile of absolute tosh!” at the end!

  7. @wandering_heart

    August 5, 2025 at 2:34 pm

    so hard to drop the stage enunciation when you are sitting in such an informal setting… but if you want to draw people in and to connect, you must. the hard T's and full stops are necessary on stage because too much is lost in closeness of words (both in proximity and in diction) but, when you are sitting in front of the camera…next to an offset bookshelf…in a shallow V… your point of connection is no longer in presentation and in making things stand out… but in relaxation and making your audience fit in. comfort, in this setting, is what you want to evoke. 🙂

  13. @silviaetna9874

    August 5, 2025 at 2:34 pm

    Great video. So nice to create something that many years later people can still find helpful, so I don’t know at what time of your artistic adventure you are but I hope you are proud of the fact that people can still find interesting after many years from the creation of the video!

  19. @willieluncheonette5843

    August 5, 2025 at 2:34 pm

    "A rationalist will be more like Samuel Beckett — absurd. Samuel Beckett’s plays go on, move in absurdity, because the whole of life is absurd. There is no possibility of any coherence, meaning. All is mad. So somebody asks you about A and you talk about B; that too is okay because there is no way to know what is okay. There is no way to judge what is what. It is a chaos.

    WAITING FOR GODOT can be a good beginning for Hassidism, Zen, or Sufism — a very indirect indication. Because to say something direct about such intimate, deep phenomena is to violate them. So be cautious, move slowly. It is holy ground. The curtain rises: two vagabonds are sitting and waiting for Godot. Who is this Godot? They don’t know; nobody knows. Even Samuel Beckett, when once asked: ‘Who is this Godot?’ said: ‘If I had known, I would have said so in the play itself.’ Nobody knows. This is a Zen gesture.

    The word Godot sounds like God. That is significant. Who knows God? Who has ever known? Who can say? Who can claim that he knows? All knowledge is foolish and one who claims that he knows God is simply stupid. Godot sounds like God, the unknown. It may be all, it may be nothing. They are waiting for Godot. When they don’t know who this God is, then why are they waiting? Because if you don’t wait for something you fall into the inner emptiness. If you are not waiting for something to happen, you have to face your inner vacuum, the inner nothingness. And it’s scary, it is death-like. To avoid it, to escape from it, one projects a dream in the future; that’s how future time is created.

    Future is not part of time, it is part of mind. Time is always present. It is never past, never future. It is always now. Mind creates future because then one can avoid the ‘now’. One can look ahead into the clouds, wait for something and pretend that something is going to happen — and nothing happens. One of the most basic truths about human life is that nothing ever happens. Millions of things seem to happen but nothing ever happens.

    One goes on waiting and waiting and waiting: waiting for Godot. Who is this Godot? Nobody knows. But still one has to project to avoid one’s inner emptiness.

    There is a Hassidic saying that man is made of dust and returns to dust. Dust unto dust. Between and betwixt, a drink comes handy. It’s really beautiful: made of dust, falls one day back unto dust. Between and betwixt, a drink comes handy. That drink is the desire, the projection, the ambition, the future, the imagination. Otherwise, suddenly you will become aware that you are just dust and nothing else. Hoping for the future, waiting for the future, the dust has a dream around it. It partakes of the glory of the dream; it illuminates. Through the dream you feel you are somebody. And dreaming costs nothing, so you can dream. Beggars can dream to be emperors; there is no law against it. To avoid being, a dream of becoming is projected.

    Those two vagabonds are the whole humanity personified. Man is a vagabond. From where do you come? — you can’t say. Where are you going? — you can’t answer. Where are you right now, this moment? — at the most you can shrug your shoulders. Man is a vagabond, a wanderer, with no home in the past, with no home in the future — a wanderer on a continuous wandering, endless. Beckett is right: those two vagabonds are the whole humanity. But to create a dream, one is not enough; two are needed. Because one will be less than enough. The other’s help is needed.

    That’s why those who want to get out of dreams try to remain alone, start becoming silent. They meditate, move to the Himalayas. They try to be alone. Because when you are alone it is difficult. By and by, again and again, you are thrown back to your reality. The prop is not there, the excuse is not there; the other is needed. That’s why whenever somebody falls in love, suddenly, dreams explode in the being. The other is there; now you can dream together and you can help each other to avoid oneself. That’s why there is so much need for love: it is a dream need. Alone, it is very difficult to dream. Again and again the dream is broken and you are thrown to the bare naked reality, the emptiness. A lover is needed: somebody to cling to, somebody to look to, somebody to share with, somebody who will patch the gaps, who will bring you out of yourself so that you don’t come face to face with your naked reality.

    Two vagabonds are sitting. The curtain rises. They are waiting for Godot. They don’t ask each other: ‘Who is this Godot anyhow, anyway?’ Because to ask will be dangerous. They both know deep down that they are waiting for nobody. It is dangerous, risky, to ask who Godot is. To raise the very question will be dangerous, the dream will be shattered. They are afraid so they don’t ask. One question they avoid continuously: ‘Who is this Godot?’ That is the basic question which should be asked the very first moment one becomes aware. You are waiting for Godot: ask who this Godot is! But they are touchy about it, they talk about many other things. They say: ‘When is he coming? Are you certain he will keep his promise this time? Yesterday he deceived. The day before yesterday he never came. And today also, the promised time is passing by and he seems not to be coming.’ They look again and again at the road; the road is empty. But they never ask the basic question. They never ask: ‘Who is this Godot?’ They never ask: ‘When did he promise you to come? Where did you meet him? How do you know he exists?’ No, they never touch that."

  24. @shelleywinters6763

    August 5, 2025 at 2:34 pm

    when you were speaking in French I was reading the french text and translating it in my head into english LOL.
    I did a paper on this play, because I read it, then I started studying philosophy, came back to the play to do the paper and realised there were all these philosophy jokes in it and there are also religious jokes too. I didn't get introduced to philosophy of the absurd sadly, so I didn't see the connection. Camus is definately someone I should read up on.
    Really clear summing up of the play. Thanks

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