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Just as the names of the two famous plays, Harold Pinter¡¯s the Dumb Waiter and Samuel Beckett¡¯s Waiting for Godot, suggest£¬ waiting becomes the keynote of the plays and a way of life of the main characters, Gus and Ben in the Dumb Waiter, and Estragon and Vladimir in the Waiting for Godot. It is not uncommon that most people spend their lives waiting for something, just as Estragon and Vladimir waiting for the Godot, whose identity still remains a mystery to the audience, and Gus and Ben, the human dumb waiter, passively waiting for the orders sent by their boss, Wilson, who never shows up. ... Apart from the reason of the undeniable influence of Irish writer Samuel Beckett on Harold Pinter¡¯ the Dumb Waiter, both dramatists are fully aware that life is absurd because it is arbitrary, based on illusion and self ¨Cdeception, and that man suffers because he lives in a world which is invested with menace, dread and mystery. ... This attitude of people toward life can be easily found in the life of the four main characters-waiting passively for something uncertain.
With a further textual and comparative study of the two plays, the numerous signs of this waiting life can be easily spotted in different aspects.
Both Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter do not mean to confine this way of life to the mere four characters in the plays. They want to emphasize the universality of this life among the modern men. ... In addition, Estragon is a French name, Vladimir a Russian name, Pozzo Italian name and lucky English name, which is thus designed to show, not only in England, but in Europe, that people live a life of waiting.
Silences, their common feature, are the unavoidable moments during waiting. ... ¡±
That silence interrupts talks or these empty talks interrupt silences represents this way of life, from words to silence, from life to death. As waiting is their way of life, the only things they can do is to wait and pass time with this meaningless and trivial things or empty talks like this till death. ... No matter what causes silences in the two plays, may it be the way to kill time or cover the malicious purpose, both are unavoidable while waiting.
Another distinctive sign in the two plays, which also exposes their waste life of waiting, is no other than repetition in language, action and thinking. Waiting means that man is going to take action and has to be ready all the time. They have to repeat doing or saying the same things during waiting. ... It is a life of repetition. A life of futility.
In Waiting for Godot, there are three characters suffering from amnesia, which is on no account accidental, but a strategy to keep the play on without any development or change in plot. ... This circle of forgetting and remembering happening again and again not only facilitates their waiting, but also keeps the play going on.
Approximate Word count = 2393
Approximate Pages = 9.6
(250 words per page double spaced)
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