Word the ‘Unword’: Style Markers as Means of Communication in Lucky’s Monologue in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket

Abstract

Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906–1989) is one of the robust writers in what Martin Esslin calls the “Theatre of the Absurd”. He writes in a manner that exhibits the unreliability of language as a means for the origination and dissemination of an impalpable truth. (Esslin, 1968,p. 84). Beckett uses language in fragments to highlight its limitations both as a means of communication and as an instrument of thought in order to foreground the ‘absurdity’ of modern life. He presents language too insufficient a tool to express his thoughts elaborately and to enable us comprehends the mundane world. His Waiting for Godot and other plays demonstrate language as an inadequate means of communication. The language that has been used therein poses the difficulty of finding meaning in a meaningless world. However, a question arises if Beckett’s language really fails him to communicate or it really inhibits communication. Esslin (1968) holds if Beckett uses language to deprecate it as a means of thought or as a tool for communication, his uninterrupted use of it must, paradoxically, be seen as an attempt to disseminate the incommunicable. (p. 86-87). As a corollary of this, a researcher’s inquisitiveness breaks out as to how Beckett communicates his thought to the audience by means of language that fails to serve any purpose. To address the curiosity, this study attempts to appraise the capacity of “absurd” language stylistically as a vehicle of conceptual thought and as an instrument of communication in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.