Nietzsche’s experiment

How far does the Truth admit of being learned?

   

   In his Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard introduces the question about the possibility of achieving the truth, as shown above. The intellectual conscience of many authors, philosophers and poets seem to share that Kierkegaard's anguish. Samuel Beckett, as well as demonstrate an aesthetic concern with the artistic text, he also tried to understand this mystery about existence.

   Beckett is influenced by the shade nihilistic inherited from authors such as Nietzsche who predicted the nihilism in a century where the divine presence was overshadowed. Returning to the initial question, posed by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche did not believe in the existence of a real or absolute understanding. Nevertheless, Nietzsche's nihilism does not need to be negative.

   We can find many parallels and points of connection between the subjects of the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and the themes explored by Friedrich Nietzsche. However, while these two works share certain Nietzsche's assumptions, the play can also be analyzed as a critique of the same.

The world that Beckett describes functions as a Nietzsche’s experiment. Nietzsche found a change in the historical situation of Western thought, where the Christian notion of God was dead, this could no longer be rationally accepted. In a similar sense, “Waiting for Godot” proposes a world outside the paradigm of Christian customs and thus demonstrates an unknown world where the value system is inherently indeterminate.

   The argument’s play can be easily synthesized, since there is not exactly a plot, but a static action: the wait. In an undefined place, a country road with a tree at night, two friends, Estragon and Vladimir, met. The first phrase spoken in the play by Estragon, already indicates the futility of their presence in that place, "nothing to do" (rien à faire). In addition, they are there to wait for Godot.

   The two start a trivial dialogue. This will only be interrupted by the entrance of Pozzo and Lucky. The appearance of them scares the two friends, especially the way the two arise. The four characters talk a little until Pozzo and Lucky leave. Then comes a boy to announce that Godot will not come today, maybe tomorrow. It is the end of the first act. The second act is a faithful copy of the first with some little changes. The Beckett himself explained the need for two acts, because a single act would leave the viewer with the vague hope of Godot's coming the next day. The second act destroys this hope.

   People always make questions: what am I doing here and why am I in this situation? The action of the play is ironically the wait, just endless waiting for someone or something that never comes. Vladimir and Estragon, the protagonists of the piece of Beckett, are alienated by waiting for Godot, which does not appear. The wait is renewed. Moreover, apparently, always be renewed.

   Absence, or lack, as well as the desire for something to appear which is not currently present, is thus the defining motif of the work. The storyline can be easily summarized, but the readings, interpretations and concerns raised by this work seem inexhaustible. However, what is it that keeps Vladimir and Estragon rooted to the spot, waiting for Godot? The question seems to invite another one, who, or what, is Godot? Maybe, the Nietzsche’s theory may help.

The Death of God, nihilism and the overman

   In “Thus spoke Zarathustra”, the character lives symbolic situations that express the philosophy of Nietzsche. In addition, what he suggests in this book? He announces the death of God. Without a Christian God, the world is released from Christian dogma and all of its influence on social and moral structures. Thus, Beckett represents the world as separate from existing social and moral structures, a world without our traditional moral framework.

   Without a priori truths and moral structure, the existence of Beckett's characters does not progress through time on any familiar teleological path. Instead, if the characters are destined at all, they are destined to repeat the events of the previous day. Beckett continues the Nietzschean experiment by making his characters exist continuously and cyclically.

   After the collapse of metaphysics and reason, man is in a moral crisis. How there are no universal values, life becomes devoid of a feeling predetermined.

Appears to mankind the need to confront nothingness and so Nihilism becomes the object of an increasingly necessary reflection.         

   The Beckett nihilism is revealed in the characters. Estragon and Vladimir wait for the revelation of the meaning of their lives in the coming of Godot. The passive attitude of the characters denies the usefulness of the whole act. The lack of significance in the world can move toward a man condemns to the meaningless.

   The duration of something without a purpose is the most paralyzing thoughts, because the two are still shamelessly tied to morality, they have not yet realized the power of their will. Nietzsche’s project thus became overcome nihilism. He defined nihilism as the state that persists after the highest values have been devalued, and therefore he wanted to create new values.

   Nietzsche feared that humanity would deteriorate until reaches the stage of "the last man", a being without ambition or courage and who only thinks of his own comfort and believes in nothing at all. Although it is not entirely clear whether Vladimir and Estragon are representatives of the "last men", they certainly show some of the features of these supposed "last men". To counteract this trajectory, Nietzsche put forward the idea of the Overman as a new ideal for humanity to aspire to.

   The characters in Waiting for Godot are far from the Overman ideal. They are weak and fragile in many ways. They are uncertain, unsure of themselves and their surroundings, alienated, displaced, and unable to make decisions or take decisive action on anything. They do not have a clear idea of why they are there or why they are waiting.

   Beckett's emphasis on human frailty can be seen as a challenge to Nietzsche's emphasis on strength and dismissal of weakness. It can also be seen as a general critique of the ideal Overman. Beckett's characters can not begin to approach the ideal of Nietzsche, because they are completely unable to take advantage of the will to power.

   The lack of a will to power in the characters indicates the extent to which modern man failed to become Zarathustra. Beckett's play accurately depicts modern man in a Nietzschean setting, complete with an absent God, a non-imperative morality, and eternal recurrence. We can interpret this vision of humanity as a critique of the will to power and the overman. As Nietzsche underlines the potential of superhuman strength, Beckett focuses on human frailty. Despite these differences, the similarities between the two thinkers how it relates to their fundamental attitude to the existence persist at a deeper level.