The use of language in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is essential to understanding the play’s relation to Late Modernism. Attridge’s lecture considered how High Modernists recognised that language had ‘worn thin’ (Conrad) and thus endeavoured to reinvigorate literature by ‘dislocating language into its meaning’ (Elliot). Attridge proposed that Late Modernist Beckett however, having emerged after the literary movement’s peak, was afforded the retrospect to distinguish that such High Modernist innovation was obsolete. Attridge illustrated how Beckett exposed the limitations of language yet also represented language as offering consolation.
I would like to propose an alternative approach, drawn from Richard Begam’s article “How to Do Nothing with Words, or Waiting for Godot as Performativity” (Modern Drama v.50, no. 2, Summer (2007)). Begam’s analysis fostered my understanding of Beckett’s play as a testimony to language’s power, starkly contrasting Attridge. However, like Attridge, Begam’s article supports Beckett as a ‘Late’ artist who no longer sought to ‘save’ traditional forms of literature. Rather, he refreshed language through theatre, which allowed Beckett to portray language as essentially performative.
In celebrating language’s powerfulness through performativity, Beckett responds to JL Austin’s language philosophy. Austin distinguishes between constatives, descriptive statements that are either true or false and performatives, where the uttering of the sentence is the doing of the action (Begam). Beckett asserts the power of language by portraying how constatives ultimately support performatives. This is illustrated by the staging of Estragon removing his boot and the accompanying dialogue “nothing to be done”. Estragon’s statement could be considered as a constative expressing his frustration at being unable to remove his boot. However, the play’s broader context of existential angst encourages us to interpret this statement as a metaphor for the plight of the human condition. Thus it no longer functions descriptively, but rather represents an assertion about humanity, the force of which makes it a performative.
Beckett reinforces the power of language by disputing an element of Austin theory. Austin believed that performatives in plays lost their force due to the artificiality of actors merely following stage directions rather than orders (Begam). Beckett subverts this notion, showing that performative language surpasses this boundary, conveyed through alternative interpretations of the scene discussed above. “Nothing to be done” can be understood as reflecting Austin’s theory that performatives are redundant on stage. Estragon is an actor who recognises that whilst he can speak, his words do not make anything happen due to their contrived origins. However, by acting self-consciously, Estragon is distanced from his character and stage presence, thus paradoxically re-empowering the words. The statement is a constative describing his linguistic shortcomings as an actor on stage, however through its utterance, he represents an offstage actor or critic evaluating theatre. Thus his words actually do do something: they effect his temporary release from being an actor and are therefore performative.
Furthermore, “nothing to be done” functions as a self-reflexive performative. Rather than reflecting an inability to enact action, Estragon recognises his duty to enact inaction (Begam). Nothingness becomes something tangible, something to be performed. Thus through considering language as innately performative, Beckett shows language’s power in that utterances are always doing something with words, even if that something is nothing.
Beckett makes us aware that we are watching a series of performatives. Begam relates this to Late Modernism by exploring Beckett’s approach to the separation between art and life and measuring this against the High Modernists. However, I want to explore how language as performative relates to the post-war context of Late Modernism.
Whilst it is difficult to define Late Modernism within a specific period, Michael Whitworth (chapter 8 “Late Modernism”, ed., Modernism (2007)) notes WW2 and its aftermath as significant influences. Having been first performed in English in 1955, Waiting for Godot fits within this period. Post-war culture in Europe was pervaded by loss socially, culturally and materially. Beckett’s performative language evokes the alienation, disillusionment and sense of the discontinuity of human experience that resulted. By highlighting the fact that we are watching a performance, we are conscious that the protagonists are merely characters providing entertainment. We therefore feel cheated of the real thing, whereby performing seems a poor substitute of being alive in a more thorough way. Furthermore, Beckett reflects post-war obsession with the search for meaning, as the conspicuous performativity of his play paradoxically suggests that there may be a real kind of living somewhere just beyond our reach. As Estragon and Vladimir wait for Godot who never turns up, we wait and endure a rehearsal for something greater that never eventuates.
Finally, I would like to consider this Late Modernist text’s impact in contemporary society. Attridge examined Beckett as exposing language’s limits whilst Begam allowed me to appreciate Beckett as celebrating language’s power through performativity. However, these contrasting responses ultimately produce the same effect for today’s audience, in that they make us hyperaware of language and communication. Thus perhaps the real purpose of the Late Modernists - who sat on the cusp of modernism’s dedication to saving language and postmodernism’s ambiguity – was to encourage us to be vigilant in making language useful, a caution which seems highly appropriate in today’s culture of ‘meaningless noise’ (Baudrillard).
Rosie Meyerowitz
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