Laughing with Beckett in Waiting for Godot and Endgame

Abstract

This paper examines the use of laughter as redemption in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Endgame. By acknowledging the somatic life of characters, Beckett’s humour problematises un-embodied philosophies of life. Challenging Hugh Kenner’s claim that Beckett’s humour is not redemptive because of the dryness and repetitions involved, it is argued that the foregrounding of fragility and vulnerability is a way of expressing deeply humane laughter in Waiting for Godot and Endgame. While highlighting that the dialectic of lack and excess is one source of Beckettian laughter, the main thrust of the argument emphasises the possibility of transcendence in a comic situation. The play of lack and excess, rather than suspending transcendental redemption, presents the human condition in its existential mundane realities. Accordingly, visceral and repetitive laughter are discussed in the two plays to bring to the fore the ironic and redemptive aspect of the comic, especially in the scenes where some sort of existential humour is implied.

Keywords

• samuel beckett
• humour
• redemptive laughter
• lack/excess
• waiting for godot
• endgame