French Imperialism and the Cold War: Forever Waiting for Godot
The phrase “Theatre of the Absurd,” which was first used by Martin Esslin in a paper published in 1960, describes a style of theatre that “shows the world as an incomprehensible place,” where “emotional identification with the characters is replaced by a puzzled, critical attention,” which Esslin notes is similar to Brecht’s usage of his alienation effect. Esslin continues by writing that “instead of being in suspense as to what will happen next, the spectators are, in the Theatre of the Absurd, put into suspense as to what the play may mean.” Esslin’s definition of absurd that he uses for his work comes from Eugene Ionesco, who wrote that “Absurd is that which has no purpose, or goal, or objective” (Esslin, pp.4-15). In other words, although the Theatre of the Absurd is trying to tell a message, that message is inherently philosophical and non-political. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot first premiered at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris on January 5, 1953, and has been seen as a quintessential play in the Theatre of the Absurd since the inception of the phrase. I contend, however, that Beckett’s work on Waiting for Godot, while using absurd elements, is not a play purely focused on the metaphysical, but a play that is rooted firmly in reality.
This idea that Waiting for Godot is a play informed by reality is also found in Branislav Jakovljevic’s essay “The Theatre of the Absurd and the Historization of the Present.” Jakovljevic, in an attempt to contextualize Waiting for Godot’s premiere in Belgrave as a parallel to the political climate of Yugoslavia at the time, argues that “‘The Theatre of the Absurd’ is … a judgment about the conditions in which the audience of these plays live. It asks the audience to step back and observe their own reality as an aesthetic object” (Jakovljevic, pp.68). I will draw on Jakovljevic’s assertion about the Theatre of the Absurd in order to contextualize Beckett’s play in the light of French Imperialism in Vietnam, and the rising threat of the Cold War, focusing specifically on French involvement in Vietnam in the postwar period.
In 1914, the French Colonial Empire was the second largest colonial empire after the British Empire, and included vast swatches of land from Africa and Southeast Asia. In Southeast Asia, French colonization disrupted the local governments and exploited the resources of Indochina (which today includes Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam), which led to local resentment towards French Imperialistic policies. When the Germans invaded France in 1940, French influence in its colonies reduced drastically, which eventually led to the capture of the French Indochina territories by the Empire of Japan in 1945. The Japanese, however, were then defeated by the Allies to end World War II. In Indochina, this left the region without imperialistic governance. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh – who was both a nationalist, and a Communist – filled the void left by France. This series of events is what led up to the First Indochina War, where France tried to regain control of their territorial holdings in Southeast Asia. At first, the United States stayed out of the war, as it was purely a colonial conflict between France and its former colony. However, Vietnam’s government had a strong Communist influence, which brought American support to French efforts in the region, because of American fears of a communist victory, and indirectly, a victory for the USSR. However, American support was not enough, and France lost the First Indochina War in 1954, which led to the split of Vietnam into North and South (Dommen, pp. 21-112, pp.171-254).
Near the end of the First Indochina War, in 1953, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot premiered at the Théâtre de Babylone in Paris. Beckett, apart from being a playwright, was also a member of the French Revolution during World War II, almost from the very beginning of the war. Beckett, who helped transfer information about German troops to the Allied forces, was almost found out, and the group of the resistance he worked with had to flee in 1942. Beckett was lucky escaping from the Germans. By D-Day, at least 60,000 members of the Resistance had already died, half of which were executed (Gordon, pp.141, 166-7). It is at this point, where Beckett, just after helping France fight a war against the Germans, sees his country in the midst of another war to reclaim French Indochina, with the threat of the two Cold War superpowers looming above it all. To Beckett then, the idea of getting involved in another war, after seeing the impact of WWII firsthand, must have had a strong effect on him, and by relation, his writing.
Waiting for Godot is a play about two characters, Estragon and Vladimir, who sit by a tree and spend the whole play waiting for a man named Godot to arrive. They do not know why they are waiting for him, they don’t make any efforts to actively look for him, and in the end, Godot does not show up. In fact, in a review of the play entitled “The Uneventful Event”, published in 1956 in The Irish Times, Vivian Mercier wrote that it was “a play in which nothing happens, twice,” referring to the two acts of the play (Mercier). This “nothing,” however, may have a purpose that at first, may not be apparent to the audience, as Richard Begam writes about in an article entitled How to Do Nothing with Words, or Waiting for Godot as Performativity. To understand Begam’s argument, performative speech must be defined. JL Austin defined performative speech as speech that is not true or false, but instead speech that is used as an action, such as in the phrase “I forgive you.” Austin further went on to say that using performative speech in such a way that it is used on stage would make it lose its power, as although the phrase itself may lead to an action, the audience will not believe that it is real. In this sense, Begam argues that Beckett’s writing in Waiting for Godot dissents from Austin’s second point. In the article, Begam states that Waiting for Godot becomes a “play about its own performance as a play” (Begam, pp.157). He states that although the phrase “Let’s go,” which is uttered multiple times within the play, is performative, it does not have the effect that the audience expects. Vladimir and Estragon do not actually move after saying “Let’s go.” Instead, the phrase is more meta-performative, where the intended action of the phrase is to continue the dialogue in the scene, to push the play towards the end. In the same sense, Begam argues that the title of the play, Waiting for Godot, is performative speech, where “the ‘action’ of the play is guaranteed by the performative that is the script of Waiting for Godot.” The goal, Begam says, is to show how life itself is performative, and as a result, to remove the barrier between life and art (Begam, pp.141-60). In that sense, Beckett’s use of performativity can be seen as a way to show how events on stage could be a mirror to real world events, and at that time in history, there was no greater world event occurring than the start of the Cold War.
Pol Popovic Karic describes several of these stage events from the play in “Irony and Salvation in Waiting for Godot,” one being when the protagonists abuse Lucky in Act 2. Karic discusses the cruelty of the Vladimir and Estragon throughout the play, but he focuses on this act in particular. This cruelty is spurred by the newfound ability “to be active, powerful, and controlling.” Lucky is seen through a “dehumanizing lens,” where Vladimir and Estragon make sure that he is alive before they start kicking him, so that they can be sure that he will suffer. However, as Karic notes, this cruelty is quickly turned on its head, with Estragon getting hurt in the process, creating a new status quo, where the aggressor is harmed, or as Karic puts it, “one reaps what one sows” (Karic, pp.240-1). If we are able to see the take the events of the play as analogies to the world outside of play, lines begin to emerge that create a connection between the play and the topic of French Imperialism. Similarly to how the protagonists had to make sure that Lucky was alive before beating him, the French had to cultivate and manage certain parts of the Indochinese forest before being able to exploit the area for lumber and other forest resources (Cleary). This story element can therefore be interpreted as a cautionary tale from Beckett about the dangers that this type of exploitation can bring to the exploiters. This analogy is strengthened by the situation that instigated Estragon’s actions, where Vladimir and Estragon finally find themselves in a position where they can assert their power. Because the First Indochina War followed the liberation of France, the whole war could be seen as a way to regain the power they lost in Asia, and to show the world that the French were still “active, powerful, and controlling” (Karic, pp.240).
While the cruelty of the protagonists is only prevalent in one part of the play, the underlying repetition that occurs throughout the play can also be seen as an analogy. There are many reoccurring topics that occur throughout the play, most of which are marked with certain minute differences. Some examples are Pozzo and Lucky showing up in both acts, but in the second act, Pozzo is blind, or the arrival of a boy in both acts to tell Estragon and Vladimir that Godot will not be arriving, but not the same boy in both acts. The one reoccurring topic that seems to not change is the ending to the play. Although the two switch lines, one will always ask the other, “Well, shall we go,” and the other will always respond “Yes, let’s go,” followed by the stage direction “They do not move” (Beckett, pp.879, 905). It is important to note that although many things do change between the two acts, this ending is identical. James Calderwood brings up an interesting point in “Ways of Waiting for Godot,” about Vladimir’s round that he recites at the start of Act 2. Calderwood states that the round in the play “is simultaneously recursive… infinitely linear… and self-containedly cyclical,” relating it to the play itself, saying “the play, like the round, has neither beginning nor end; the title merely marks a pause… prior to its resuscitation in tomorrow’s performance” (Calderwood, pp.365). At the time in history when Beckett was writing Waiting for Godot, conflict on a global scale could be seen in the same way, with World War I, World War II, and then the rising tensions of the Cold War all happening in less than half a century. The conflicts may not all have the same cause, but the fact that there is conflict, and the rapid rate at which these conflicts arose, then, is where the parallel could be found between the play and the events of the outside world.
Although these parallels between the play and the world can be made, the question of how these topics are connected is still unanswered. To fully answer this, we must return to the history of French Indochina. The region of French Indochina was considered crucial to both sides of the Cold War, as the region had a history of Communist ideas from revolutionaries such as Ho Chi Minh. The French, however, were clearly placed on one side of the conflict when the American government provided support to the French during the First Indochina War (Lawrence, pp.462). This action made it very clear that the French were going to play a role in the development of further conflicts relating to the Cold War. In fact, it was not until 1960, firmly after the First Indochina War, that the French attempted to achieve détente by distancing themselves from the Americans (Wall, pp.121). These dynamics between the French, the Vietnamese, and the larger frame of global politics provides this link that solidifies the context that is present in the writing of Waiting for Godot.
At first glance, it may be less clear of what Beckett’s reasoning is in creating these analogies to the French Indochina War, or the Cold War in general. However, an important thing to remember about Beckett is his experience as part of the Second World War. Being part of an experience where he saw a majority of the people fighting alongside him die by the end of the war, he witnessed firsthand the atrocities that can be found in wartime. As the cycle of what seems like never ending global conflict churns forward, he is then seeing the imperialistic conflict of the French become part of this larger conflict that will eventually evolve into part of the Cold War. In turn, his writing reflects this fear by demonstrating what will happen to people who are caught in this unending cycle of war.
As Calderwood states, Estragon and Vladimir await “neither damnation nor salvation, but merely an outcome, an ‘endgame.’ Let Godot come in whatever form he likes… as long as he puts an end to waiting. As the play goes on, however, Godot disappears even as a possibility of an indefinable outcome” (Calderwood, pp.369-70). Waiting for Godot is then able to be seen as a warning, from Beckett, to the world. If we continue to perpetuate the cycle, and we continue to be dragged into these global conflicts, then Godot will always be just out of reach, but if we choose to end the cycle, then Godot may finally arrive, and as Vladimir says, “We’ll be saved” (Beckett, pp.905).
