ЕКЗИСТЕНЦІЙНІ ПРОБЛЕМИ ЯК ФІЛОСОФСЬКИЙ КОНФЛІКТ (ПРОЧИТАННЯ П'ЄСИ "ЧЕКАЮЧИ НА ҐОДО")

S. Beckett’s original and extremely capacious play “Waiting for Godot” is minimalistic in form. The secret of the capacity is that, through four characters, Beckett showed the human race in miniature, modeling the main types of human social and private relationships: the type of equality (i.e., self-neighbor relationship) is represented by friends Vladimir and Estragon, and the type of inequality / dependence is represented by Pozzo and Lucky. The type of relationship does not change in the second act either, with a change in circumstances, but the author's allegory is enriched with some new content: not only the immutability of social inequality is shown, but also the interdependence of the subjects of these relations. It can be read as an allegory: power is blind and slavery is dumb, and this is one of many examples of how Beckett makes an episode or dialogue an expressive “stage metaphor”, and builds the whole play as a chain of metaphorical scenes, where each link is in its place. The main conflict lies in how the two pairs of characters behave in the “act of waiting”: the author showed the differences of human nature as the antithesis of passivity – active action, contemplative and active type of life practice. And the extent to which the meaning of the search is achievable for the first or second looks equally doubtful.

Absurd only to a superficial view, Beckett’s form and style are loaded with philosophical meaning. Its simplicity bordering on the primitive exposes the essence of existential tragedy in human existence with unprecedented force.