Aristotle And Godot

Aristotle and Godot

Aristotle has sets of rules to judge whether a certain piece of work should be called a drama or not. Some of those rules are Unity of Action, Unity of Place, Unity of Time, and Unity of Plot, and Universality of Plot. For Aristotle, these sets of rules should be obeyed by a writer for his/her work to be called a drama. He considers a drama an imitation of action, in which characters must be aimed at their goodness, propriety, veracity to life and consistency; imitations should be men in action, and these men must be class different; these characters must answer to these divisions [class division]: both the goodness and the badness. Also, comedy should be an imitation of characters of a lower type. Waiting for Godot agrees to Aristotle’s Unity ofвЂ" Place, Action, Time, Plot, and, Universality of Plot. As a whole, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot does coincide with Aristotelian drama.

Unity of Place states that action should take place only in one place. Waiting for Godot takes place in one setting with no excess details. Act II takes place in the same setting as Act I, which is supported by Lucky’s hat that was left on the floor the day before. If action happens to be off-stage, it should not be viewed but only told. This is also supported by this book when Pozzo and Lucky fall offstage; the incident is only reported through gesturesвЂ"“The noise of falling, reinforced by mimic of Vladimir, announces that they [Pozzo and Lucky] are down again (Beckett 60)”вЂ" It is not viewed. There is no action performed off-stage in this book. Therefore, Unity of Place is supported by Waiting for Godot.

Unity of Plot states that there should be no additional detail, and the plot should lead to a conclusion in a drama. Waiting for Godot does not lead to any conclusion: at the end of the Act II, they were still waiting for Godot, and Vladimir says they have to wait the next day also, as they did at the beginning. However, the plot does not have any necessary plots or details. In the setting, there is only one tree and a mound. As for the characters, there are only five characters of which two have major roles, and all others have minor, but important roles. Major characters are Vladimir and Estragon, and minor characters are Pozzo, Lucky, and a boy. Thus, there is no additional detail in setting or characterвЂ" supporting Unity of Plot.

Unity of Action is supported by Waiting for Godot because every scene and actions contribute to the play: no pointless actions. All the repartees and insults are humorous on the skin only, but they do contribute to the plot. For e.g., when Vladimir says, “Let’s do the breathing”, Estragon replies, “I am tired of breathing”. Beckett is not implying literal breathing but life. Breathing is life, and Estragon is tired of life. Another conversation where it is not just humor is in p.69B. When Estragon and Vladimir insults each other, Estragon calls Vladimir “Critic”, which defeats Vladimir. This implies that critic is the worst of what one could be; not doing it, but finding faults in others works.

For Aristotelian drama, there needs to be class difference between characters. Vladimir, Estragon and Lucky are of lower class, while Pozzo is of higher class. Lucky is the slave of Pozzo. Throughout the scenes with Lucky and Pozzo, slavery and class-difference is thoroughly projected. Pozzo is always commanding to Lucky who always obeys Pozzo’s every word. Vladimir and Estragon are lower class than Pozzo which is shown when Pozzo does not mind what they ask while he is speaking. Lucky is always given a bag, filled with sand, and a basket just for carrying.

This drama’s plot has universality. The whole book focuses on life вЂ"