Assignment paper no. 106

 Name :- Riddhi H. Rathod 

Roll No.: 17

Enrollment No.: 4069206420220025

Paper number: -106

Paper name:- The Twentieth Century Literature: 1900 to World War II

Sem: 2 (Batch 2022- 2024)

Email i'd:- riddhirathod1213@gmail.com Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department

The Modern Age

                 The modern age is very different from the other ages in English Literature. The modern age is known as “Modernist Movement” in English Literature. The period of modern age is 1915 to 1945 and this age is totally different from the Victorian age.

               The people of modern age reject old forms and trying to do a new technique and new style. Even in literature also many of the poet and writer wants to do different and bring something new in their writing.

                 The term “Modern” is generally known as an adjective expressing the state of being contemporary or possessing the qualities of current style. In art and culture, however, the terms modern and modernism pertain to the beliefs and philosophy of the society during the late 19th to the early 20th century. Because the concept has two different accepted meaning,

The Waste Land as a modernist poem”

“The Modern Age a period of sudden and unexpected breaks with traditional ways of viewing and interacting with the world. Experimentation and individualism became virtue, where in the past they were often heartly discouraged”.

                The waste land considered as a modern epic of the English literature. The best example of modernist literature is T. S. Eliot’s “The waste land”. Throughout this poem Eliot shows us the real image of culture and society after the World War 1 and 2.

                This poem depicts an image of the modern world through the perspective of a man finding himself hopeless and confused about the condition of the society.

“The waste land illustrates the contemporary waste land as a metaphor of modern Europe.”

                Eliot’s the waste land is very hard to describe and analysis because this poem mainly deals with the idea of modern age and its new technique. In this poem the waste land there are so many features and influence of the modern age, and we can apply some of the characteristics of the modern age in this poem the waste land.

Characteristics of the modernist literature:

o  The impact of the two world wars

o  Anxiety and Interrogation

o  Art for life’s sake

o  Using disjoined structure to reflects the disfunction of western society

o  Breakdown the tradition or breakdown of established values

o  Realism

o  Urbanization

o  Psychology and literature

o  Bad treatment of love and sex

o  The influence of Radio and Cinema

            The modern age is the most complex, complicated and revolutionary age in the history of the world. The people of this age challenges everything like,

The Modern Age:-

T. S. Eliot said that modernist literature is….

“…. A way of controlling, of ordering, of giving a shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history….instead of narrative method, we may now use the mythical method. It is, I seriously believe, a step toward making the modern world possible for art”.

Characteristics of the modernist literature in the waste land:

o  The waste land made a tremendous impact on the post war generation, and is considered one of the most important documents of the modern age.

o  The poem is difficult to understand in detail, but its general aim is clear. Based on the legend of the Fisher King in the Arthurian cycle, it presents modern London as an arid, waste land.

o  The poem is built round the symbols of drought and flood, representing death and rebirth, and this fundamental idea is referred to throughout. Other symbol in the poem are, however, not capable of precise explanation.

o  In a series of disconcertingly vivid impression, the poem progress by rather abrupt transition through five movements:

The Burial of the Dead 

     This first section deals mainly with issues of death and introduces the diverse themes of disillusionment and despair. In this section the opening lines begins with the protagonist musing on spring:

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering 5

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.”

      This passage is an indication of the extent of the degradation of man. He sunken son low into depravity that he has prefers to live a life of ignorance and to disregard the fact that he is living a half life. April, the month in which spring begins, is no longer a joyous time in which new life is celebrated, but a cruel time of rebirth that reminds man that his own life is terribly empty.

                The burial of the dead can also possibly refers to the agricultural practice of planting the dried or dead seed just before spring, so that the seed may germinate and sprout in summer. The title also recalls the Christian burial service in the Church of England’s “The Book of Common Prayer and hence suggests death”

             These starting lines of the poem strike an ironic contrast between the modern waste land and that in remote and primitive civilizations. Ancient societies celebrated the return of spring through the practices of their vegetation cults with their fertility rites and sympathetic magic. These rituals demonstrate the unique harmony that then existed between human cultures and the natural environment.

                  In the starting lines of the poem we can define that there is vast difference between ancient societies and modern waste land. And is not kindest but “the cruellest month”. So in these lines of the poem poet has reflects the characteristic of “variety of technical experiment” that Eliot has use differences of ages and time and also use of new technique to describe natural environment and also experiment on nature. This lines often compared to the description of April in the general prologue of Chaucer’s “The Canter bury Tales” which adopts a more “conventional and cheerful treatment of spring”.

         “And drank coffee, and

             talked for an hour.

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt

deutsch.

      And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s”

In these lines speakers seems to have changed and we, apparently, here the narration of Countess Marie Larisch about her childhood memories and present life. This passage of her reminiscences, her wanderings through Europe as a political refugee from her native resulting from her life as an ex-royal exile.

                  This section creates a picture of an emotional waste land in the lives of aristocratic women like Countess Marie who suffered great physical hardships and psychological dislocations as a result of the political turmoil soon after World War 1. In these lines poet reflects the characteristic like “Psychology and literature” that Eliot uses the character Marie and he tells about her state of mind and psychology.

“What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? 

Son of man, 20

You cannot say, or guess, 

for you know only

A heap of broken images,

 where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no Relief,

And the dry stone no sound of

water.”

               In this part of the section we can hear again the voice of Tiresias, who depicts a sort of spiritual waste land. The tone here is Rimini scent of old Biblical littering their somber prophecies. The speaker describes a true waste land of “strong rubbish” in it he says, man can recognize only “A heap of broken image” yet the scene seems to offer salvation shade and a vision of something new and different. The vision consists only of nothingness. In this episode again memory serves to contrast the past with the present. In the episode from the past, the “nothingness” is more clearly a sexual failure, a moment of importance. In these lines of the poem poet has reflects the characteristic like, “Emptiness and Nothingness” and “Anxiety and Interrogation” and also “Pessimism” because he talks more about Spirituality and Religion.

               In this poem poet uses the mythical stories to describe modern society. Eliot picks up on the figure of the Fisher King legend’s waste land as an appropriate description of the state of modern society. The importance difference, of course, is that in Eliot’s world there is no way to heal the Fisher King perhaps there is no Fisher King at all. The legends imperfect integration the lack of a unifying narrative in the modern world.

               In this use of mythical story Eliot present the modern society in which he reflects the characteristic like “using disjointed structure to reflects the disfunction of western society”

“Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.”

In this lines of the poem Eliot describe the London Bridge. The speaker observes the “Unreal city”, London, after the war. It presented the surreal and foggy image of London. The final episode of the first section allows Eliot finally to establish the true wasteland of the poem, the modern city. Eliot’s London references Baudelaire’s Paris, Dickens’s London and Dante’s Hell. Eliot uses the poetic an image of the physical desolation of the war-torn society and also communicates a sense of spiritual, disillusionment and despair.

                 According to Eric Svarny, the dry, barren, lifeless images in the poem and the undeniable sense of futility from an “evocation of post war London”. Svarny notes that the image of London in the poem characterized by 

“guilt, shock, and incomprehension of traumatized society manifested… through historical, cultural, psychic dislocation”.

  

                In these lines of “Unreal city” Eliot shows us the image of London city after world war and how it impacts to the society of the western culture. In these lines poet has reflected the characteristic “The Resurgence of poetry” and “The impact of Two world wars” throughout his poem we can understand the situation after the world wars to the western countries.

A Game of Chess

               This second part of the poem deals mainly with issues of sex and employs vignettes of several characters alternating narration that address those themes experientlly.

               In this part the two women of this section of the poem represents the two sides of modern sexuality while one side of this sexuality is a dry, barren interchange inseparable from neurosis and self destruction, the other side of this sexuality is a rampant fecundity associated with a lack of culture and rapid aging.

               The second scene in this section further diminishes the possibility that sex can bring regeneration either cultural or personal. The comparison between the two is not meant to suggest equality between them or to propose that the first women’s exaggerated sense of high culture is in any women’s form of sexuality is regenerative.

               In this section poet has reflects characteristic like “bad treatment of love and sex”. In this part poet has used one line repeatedly “HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME” it shows one of the characteristic of modern age like “The speed of life” may be poet has uses it to the importance of time throughout this section.

             

The Fire Sermon

              In this third section its deals with sexual issues and offers a philosophical meditation in relation to the imagery of death and views of self-denial in juxtaposition influences by Augustine of Hippo and Eastern religion. In “The Fire Sermon” the depravity of man is further illustrated. A woman is shown in her apartment eating dinner with her lover. Their encounter after dinner is described thusly:

“The time is now propitious, 

as he guesses,

The meal is ended; 

she is bored and tired,

Endeavours to engage her in caresses

Which still are unreproved,

 if undesired.

Flushed and decided,

 he assaults at once;

Exploring hands encounter no defence;

His vanity requires no response,

And makes a welcome of indifference”.

                This attitude of indifference can be seen as even more depraved than lust and expresses the apathetic attitude of many after the war.

Death by Water

                  This section is deals with issues of death and includes a brief lyrical petition. This is one of the shortest sections of the poem. In “Death by Water” the way of escape from the degradation of society is revealed. The protagonists tells us of Phlebas the Phoenician, who experienced death by water, which can be seen as a representation of baptism, the shedding of the sinful nature, and the acceptance of the “living water” of Christ. Phleb as is now dead to the world. He has forgotten,

“The cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell and the profit and the loss”.

     He is no longer affected by the sin of modern society but lives separate from it. The narrator then addresses the reader:

“Gentile or Jew

O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,

Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall

as you.”

       With this address, the narrator reminds us that we are as mortal as Phlebas, and we also require this “living water”. This passage is a direct contrast to “The Fire Sermon” quenching the fires of lust with the “living water” that provides spiritual cleansing.

What the Thunder said

This is the fifth and final part of the poem. It is mainly about resurrection or restoration, which may or may not be attainable. This part concludes with an image of judgment. The protagonist concludes by explaining his own realization that, like “Jerusalem Athens Alexandria” modern society is deteriorating: “London Bridge is falling down”. At this time he has a decision to make: “Shall I at least set my lands in order?” will he avoid the decay of society and abandon his meaningless life for one with significance? His decision is evident in the stanza of the poem. Amid the madness of the ruin of society.

                The protagonist finds, “Shantih  Shantih  Shantih” – peace that passes understanding like Phlebas, he has chosen to bid farewell to his dishonest, worldly self and surrender to the living water that has the power to quench the fire of corruption.

                 It is through this passage that Eliot suggests his own discovery and his decision to experience the peace that passes understanding by surrounding the corrupt part of himself. The poem composed of seemingly fragmented ideas and stream of consciousness thoughts, end on a note of peace, a peace that Eliot has attained and wishes modern man to experience.

                 In this final part of the poem poet again uses the Bridge of London which is falling down which shows that the culture of London is also falling down. Throughout this section poet has uses the Hindu Upanishads which is the voice of God repeats, the thunder, when it rolls “Da Da Da”, that is “Damyata, Datta and Dayadhvem”. Therefore these three must be learned, self-control, giving, compassion.

               In this part there are some reflection of the 20th century’s characteristic they are: “The breakdown of established value”, “The impact of two world wars” and “The resurgence of poetry” in that Eliot has uses new kind of technique and method to give his ideas toward modern age.

                 Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is characterized by fragmentation, discontinuity, and disjunction- quality descriptive of modern society. In this entire poem we can see all the characteristics which are given above and describe as a very difficult and modern epic. 

Conclusion

                 The waste land, because of its complexity and depth, is a difficult poem to understand and analyses. The most notable aspects of the poem that have been discussed in this analysis illumine some, though not all, characteristics of modernity that are depicted in the poem.

                According to Eliot’s image of the modern world in the waste land, the modern society is surrounded by obscurity, chaos, disillusionment, and a desire to return to the ancient times of security and order. The waste land is one of the best examples to the modern age and it also reflects the characteristic in “The Waste Land”.

Assignment on paper no. 110

 

Name :- Riddhi H. Rathod 

Roll No.: 17

Enrollment No.: 4069206420220025

Paper no: 110

Paper name:- History of English Literature – From 1900 to 2000

Sem: 2 (Batch 2022- 2024)

Email i'd:- riddhirathod1213@gmail.com Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department

Introduction:-

                               Here I am going to explain the term “ Comedy of menace ” in another words it calls “Dark comedy” In reference of Harold Pinter’s play. “ Birthday Party ”. Harold Pinter has also used  “Comedy of menace”  in his other plays such as “  The Room ” and “A Slight Ache".

       If we see a word a  ‘menace’ then it means as a ‘A threatening quality’ or ‘a dangerous or troublesome person or thing’ and as a verb it calls ‘threaten’.

      Comedy of menace it suggests that although they are funny, they are also frightening or menacing in a vague and undefined way.

       Even as they taugh, the audience is unsettled, ill at ease and uncomfortable.

      The term comedy of menace founded by Irving Wardle, he is drama critic. Then Comedy of menace is a term used to describethe play of David Compton and Harold Pinter. A term Comedy of menace is borrowed from the subtitle of Compton’s play ‘The Lunatic view: Acomedy of menace, in reviewing their plays in Encore in 1958. “Comedy of Menace”caught on and have been used generally in advertisements and in critical accounts, notices, and reviews to describe Pinter’s early plays and some of his later work as well.

       If we talk about “The Birthday Party” as the comedy of menace, then it is a tragedy with a number of comic eliments – it is a comedy, which also produces an overwhelming tragic effect. Throughout the play we are kept amused and yet throughout the play we foind curselves also on brink of terror. Some indefinable and vague fear keeps our nerves on an edge.

                      

   When we are viewing the play we fell uneasy all the time even when we are laughing or smiling with amusement. This dual quality gives to the play a unique character.

Ø The menace evolves from actual violence in the play or from an underlying sense of violence throughout the play. 

Ø It may develop from a feeling of uncertainity and insecurity. The audience may be made to feel that the security of the principal character, and even the audience’s own security, is threatened by some independing danger or fear. 

Ø This feeling of menace establishes a strong connection between character’s predicament and audience’s personal enxieties.

Pinter’s own comment:

More often than not the speech only seems to be funny - the man in question actually fighting a battle for his life.”

-which situations appear funny to us?

-But in fact for the character concerned is a terrifying experience?

-Illustrations from the text? (blind man’s buff interrogation)

Progression – towards Pinteresque effect: Use of Pause

Pinter Pause:

                        One of “the silences”- when Pinter’s stage directions indicate pause and silence when his characters are not speaking at all – has become a “trademark” of Pinter’s dialogue and known as the “Pinter pause”.

Ther are two silences…

1)   One when no word is spoken.

2)   The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed.

                    This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. That is it is continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we do not hear. It is a necessary avoidence, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its place. When true silence falls we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness. Pinter once said in interview:

                  “We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase: ‘failure of communication’… and this phras has been fixed to my work quite consistently. I believe the contrary. I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter in to some one else’s life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility. I am not suggesting that no character in a play can never say what he in fact means. Not at all I have found that there invariably does come a moment when this happens, when he says something, perhaps, which he has never said before. And where this happens, what he says is irrevocable, and can never be taken back”.

The atmosphere of menace:

                                                   The atmosphere of menace is also created by Pinter’s ability to drop suddenly from a high comic level to one of deep seriousness. Illustrations from the text? Cread news – about child birth, happy to feel nostalgic about piano show – remembrance of present state, interrogation, birthday party’s play – strangle/rape)

                       By this technique the audience is made aware that the comedy is only at surface layer. The sudden outbreaks of violence (verble/physical?) in the play confirm this and leave the audience unsure of what will come next. Illustrations from the text?  

Fear in the play:

                            There is fear in the play. Fear for what? Several things! By whom ? Just as Stanley (or Meg) is the main vehicle for comedy in the play, so is he main vehicle for the presentation of fear. Are other characters frightened? Illustration from the text?

                               (All the characters are suffering from the fear of unknown. Perhaps they laugh to forget their fear, they live in past or avoid to see in mirror-because of fear.

 The room or house

                                  The room or house represents security from the outside world but sadly it is impossible to sustain. The menace in the form of Goldberg and McCann represents a hostile outside world. They are the exeption to the rule where life is normal and pleasant outside.

The general setting

                                

      The general setting of the play is naturalistic and mundane, involving no menace, However one of Pinter’s greatest skills is his ability to make an apparently normal and trival object, like a toy drum, appear strange and threatening. Pinter can summon forth an atmosphere of menace from ordinary everyday objects and events, and one way in which this is done is by combining two apparently opposed moods, such as terror and amusement. Much of Birthday Party is both frightening and funny. Stanley is destroyed by ‘a torrent of words, but mingled in with the serious accusations

E.g. “He’killed his wife”

        Are ones which are trivial and ludicrous.

 Reverse dramatic irony:

                                         In traditional irony, the audience knows what the acters don’t. In Pinter the characters have secrets we never discover.

Comedy Meance in 'The Birthday Party':-

 

The first production in America of anything by Harold Pinter. In London “Comedy of Menace” merely titled with or excoriated like ‘Saint’s Day’ for mystification and sadism, the review so divesting those performances were immediately canceled by the producers. There was a program has a brief not about the author and a brief not on a play by Wickham (Glynne Wickham), which refers to Pinter’s menacing effect and being an artist in a society that “Has little time for art or artist”.

             The above reference refers to the controversy and damage which made to Harold Pinter. Society does not have respect for an artist have to be a personal not personified.

                   A  Blog by an author Inesco, Genet and Pinter

                          (In a form of a book, pg. No. 241)

                 Pinter’s first long play “The Birthday Party” is a comedy of menace which tends to sacrifice credibility to the horrors of the subconscious. At the end of the play Goldberg and McCann reduced the voice of Sacrifice and made him totally dumb. So here we don’t know what happened and it creates menacing effects.

                        Gangster Films- Wardle argues that “The Birthday Party” exemplifies the title of the comic menace which gave rise to this article: In Comedy of Menace as Merritt observes on the basis of his experience of this play and other accounts of the other two plays. Wardle proposes that comedy enables the committed agents and victims of destruction on to come on and off duty; to joke about the situation while oiling a revolver. So how Pinter uses game of ‘Blind man’s Bluff’ and Merritt suggest that ‘Comedy of Menace’ in Pinter’s plays ‘stands for something more substantial: destiny’, and that destiny handled in this way not as an austere exercise in classism but as an incurable disease which one forgets about most of the time behavior in which orthodox man is a willing collaborator in his own destruction. Whose lethal reminders may take the form of a joke is an apt dramatic motif for an age of conditional behavior. Thereby Merritt gives an example of a play “Uncle Vanya”.

 Conclusion:

                   Thus to conclude, we may say that the absurdity of the play which is represented through menacing effect has its own symbolic significance. It tries to explain the human predicament in this indifferent & hostile worled.   

Assignment on Paper no: 107

The Concept of Absurdity in 'Waiting for Godot'

Name :- Riddhi H. Rathod 

Roll No.: 17

Enrollment No.: 4069206420220025

Paper no: 107

Paper name: The Twentieth Century Literature: From World War II to the End of the Century

Sem: 2 (Batch 2022- 2024)

Email i'd:- riddhirathod1213@gmail.com

Submitted to: Smt S.B. Gardi Department

Introduction: -

The term ‘Theatre of Absurd’ was coined by Martin Esslin in his essay ‘The Theatre of Absurd’. The main exponents of this school were – Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, Jean Genet. Although these writers oppose the idea of belonging to a particular school, yet their writings do have certain common characteristics on the basis of which they can be clubbed together in one category.

The term ‘absurd’ has also been linked to the mathematical term ‘surd’, which means a value that cannot be expressed in finite terms. In terms of literature, therefore, we can say that it refers to something that is irrational.

The Concept of Absurdity :-

The concept of ‘absurd’ seems to have begun with Sartre’s philosophy. “The absurd is not a mere idea”, says Sartre, “it is revealed to us in a doleful illumination – getting up, tram, four hours of work, meal, sleep; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.” The idea is similar to what Camus expressed in his essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’. The point stressed here is, beginning all over again as if it were a new life. The actions of the absurd hero are meaningless and illogical. 

          Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot largely deals with the absurd tradition. The play is without any plot, character, dialogue and setting in the traditional sense.

In this play the setting creates the absurdist mood. A desolate country road, a ditch, and a leafless tree make up the barren, otherworldly landscape whose only occupants are two homeless men who bumble and shuffle in a vaudevillian manner. They are in rags, bowler hats, and apparently oversized boots--a very comic introduction to a very bizarre play. There is a surplus of symbolism and thematic suggestion in this setting. The landscape is a symbol of a barren and fruitless civilization or life. There is nothing to be done and there appears to be no place better to depart. The tree, usually a symbol of life with its blossoms and fruit or its suggestion of spring, is apparently dead and lifeless. But it is also the place to which they believe this Godot has asked them to come. This could mean Godot wants the men to feel the infertility of their life. At the same time, it could simply mean they have found the wrong tree.

This setting of the play reminds us the post-war condition of the world which brought about uncertainties, despair, and new challenges to the all of mankind. A pessimistic outlook laced with sadism and tangible violence, as a rich dividend of the aftermath of wars. It is as if the poignancy and calamities of the wars found sharp reflections in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

          Then next comes the plot. In the traditional sense a plot should concentrate on a single motivated action and is also expected to have a beginning, a middle and a neatly tied-up ending. But it’s almost impossible to provide a conventional plot summary of Waiting for Godot, which has often been described as a play in which nothing happens. It is formless and not constructed on on any structural principles. It has no Aristotelian beginning, middle and end. It starts at an arbitrary point and seem to end just as arbitrarily. Beckett, like other dramatists working in this mode, is not trying to "tell a story." He's not offering any easily identifiable solutions to carefully observed problems; there's little by way of moralizing and no obvious "message." The pattern of the play might best be described as circular. The circularity of Waiting for Godot is highly unconventional.

          As per as the portrayal of characters is concerned the play also fits into the absurd tradition. A well-made play is expected to present characters that are well-observed and convincingly motivated. But in the play we five characters who are not very recognizable human beings and don’t engage themselves in a motivated action. Two tramps, Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo), are waiting by a tree on a country road for Godot, whom they have never met and who may not even exist. They argue, make up, contemplate suicide, discuss passages from the Bible, and encounter Pozzo and Lucky, a master and slave. Near the end of the first act, a young boy comes with a message from Mr. Godot that he will not come today but will come tomorrow. In the second act, the action of the first act is essentially repeated, with a few changes: the tree now has leaves; Pozzo is blind and has Lucky on a shorter leash. Once again the boy comes and tells them Mr. Godot will not come today; he insists he has never met them before.

          The speech of the play begins with ESTRAGON’s disgust at his work, though here his work is very absurd, “to take off his boot”:

“Nothing to be done. 

These words symbolically shows the absurdity and meaninglessness of life which the characters will elaborate later.

 In his play, Beckett presents before us a highly absurd situation of two tramps – Vladimir and Estragon – waiting for their appointment with the never defined Godot, who doesn’t come. Both the tramps follow the same routine every day. They cannot but wait: 

Valdimir: Let’s go

Estragon: Let’s go

(They both don’t move.)

Martin Esslin comments,

“The subject of the play is not Godot but waiting, the act of waiting is an essential aspect of human condition.”(p.44)

Therefore, in order to only pass time, they indulge themselves in some senseless activities, talk on and on, argue, joke, imagine themselves in different characters, rebuke, protest and question each other. 

ESTRAGON: That's the idea, let's contradict each another.

…………..

ESTRAGON: That's the idea, let's ask each other questions.

But again they keep on waiting the whole day and find that

“Nothing happens, nobody comes … nobody goes, it’s awful!”

Estragon’s putzing about with his boot is a central iteration of absurdity in the play. Look at their activities(Estragon with a supreme effort succeeds in pulling off his boot. He peers inside it, feels about inside it, turns it upside down, shakes it, looks on the ground to see if anything has fallen out, finds nothing, feels inside it again, staring sightlessly before him.) Well?

ESTRAGON: Nothing.

The unreliability of memory is one of the reasons that Waiting for Godot lacks rationale and establishes a world of absurdity and purposelessness. 

ESTRAGON : What did we do yesterday?

VLADIMIR : What did we do yesterday?

ESTRAGON : Yes.

VLADIMIR : Why . . . (Angrily.) Nothing is certain when you're about.

ESTRAGON : In my opinion we were here.

VLADIMIR : (looking round) You recognize the place?

ESTRAGON : I didn't say that.

Estragon can’t recall his original question: the questions of the past have no meaning in the present.

Vladimir and Estragon switch rapidly from serious subject matter to absurdly inane details. This is part of the play’s attempt at "tragicomedy," but this is also the reason why Vladimir and Estragon can’t take part in anything meaningful: they are too distracted by the petty habits of everyday life.

VLADIMIR : I thought it was he. 

ESTRAGON : Who?

VLADIMIR : Godot.

ESTRAGON : Pah! The wind in the reeds.

VLADIMIR : I could have sworn I heard shouts.

………….

ESTRAGON : (violently) I'm hungry!

VLADIMIR : Do you want a carrot?

Lack of communication:

Vladimir asks his question five times without response

VLADIMIR

You want to get rid of him?

  

The characters of the play recognize like Macbeth, though there is fundamental difference between them in their action, that life “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing”:

VLADIMIR : (sententious). To every man his little cross. (He sighs.) Till he dies. (Afterthought.) And is forgotten.

ESTRAGON : In the meantime let us try and converse calmly, since we are incapable of keeping silent.

            In the play ‘Waiting for Godot’ many times, a possibility is suggested then immediately undercut by its unhappy opposite. This technique is used by Beckett to relay his theme that life is uncertain and unpredictable at its best, unfortunate and unending at its worst. To further state this theme, Estragon asserts that "There's no lack of void" in life. It is actually of little importance where they were the previous day, as everywhere every day the same empty vacuum envelops them. Absence, emptiness, nothingness, and unresolved mysteries are central features in the play.

Conclusion: -

            In this way we can say the play Waiting for Godot contains almost all the elements of a absurd play. The play depicts the irrationalism of life in a grotesquely comic and non-consequential fashion with the element of "metaphysical alienation and tragic anguish." It was first written in French and called En attendant Godot. The author himself translated the play into English in 1954. The uniqueness of the play compelled the audiences to flock to the theaters for a spectacularly continuous four hundred performances. At the time, there were two distinct opinions about the play; some called it a hoax and others called it a masterpiece. Nevertheless, Waiting for Godot has claimed its place in literary history as a masterpiece that changed the face of twentieth century drama.