Online Thinking Activity on the Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett

 This blog is my classroom activity. To show the worksheet of given task click here.

                                         

Q – 1: What connection do you see in the setting (“A country road. A tree.  Evening.”) Of the play and these paintings?

                                     

Ans: The setting of the play is “A country road. A tree. Evening”.  This setting of the play is inspired by two painting by Caspar David Friedrich. The titles of this painting are “Longing”. Here longing means craving, deep desire for something. Waiting is connected with longing. In the painting two person see towards sun, it shows bright hope of something. In the entire play we also find this same thing.  

Q - The tree is the only important ‘thing’ in the setting. What is the importance of tree in both acts? Why does Beckett grow a few leaves in Act II on the barren tree - The tree has four or five leaves - ?

                                                   

 

Ans:  Tree is the important symbol in both the act. In first act Tree is barren, it suggests the effect of the Second World War and after the 2^nd world war there is no faith. In this act Vladimir and Estragon waiting for Godot but he will not come.  In the second act tree has four or five leaves. It suggests three things that are (1) the bright hope of Vladimir and Estragon’s that Godot will sorely come. (2) Change in nature and (3) Indifference of nature.  

Q-  In both Acts, evening falls into night and moon rises. How would you like to interpret this ‘coming of night and moon’ when actually they are waiting for Godot?     

                                   

         

Ans: The ‘coming of night and moon’ suggest bright hope for something that the next day shore something good happen. Night signifies for ‘end’ and Moon signifies for ‘bright hop’.  In this play the Boy come as messenger of Godot and says that “Godot is not come today but he will come tomorrow” and day goes out and night come. It also interpret that nature and time never wait for anything, it goes on. 

Q- The director feels the setting with some debris. Can you read any meaning in the contours of debris in the setting of the play?

Ans: In the setting of the play some debris are there. Debris means destroyed or broken in to some pieces. In the play it used as chaos and It shows the effect of the second world war.

Q - How are the props like hat and boots used in the play? What is the symbolical significance of these props?

Ans:  Vladimir is play with the hat and Estragon is play with boot. Hat is suggests that intellectual thinking or practicality. Vladimir has practical sense for doing work. Boot is suggesting that carelessness of thing or thinking without logic. Boot stand for Estragon. He has more carelessness or he also not remembers the thing. 

Q- Do you think that the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating and nauseatic? Even when the master Pozzo is blind, he obediently hands the whip in his hand. Do you think that such a capacity of slavishness is unbelievable?   

                                          

Ans: Yes, I think that the obedience of Lucky is extremely irritating. In the second Act of the play master Pozzo become blind even though he obey his master and give whip in the hand of his master. Now it is not required to behave like this because his master become blind but Lucky is submissive slave that’s way he obey his master. It was suggested that his mindset was not accept that freedom of life because of colonialism and deep impact of master and slave relationship. 

Q - “The subject of the play is not Godot but ‘Waiting’” (Esslin, A Search for the Self). Do you agree? How can you justify your answer?

Ans:  The subject of the play is not Godot but ‘Waiting’. The act of waiting as an essential aspect of the human condition. Throughout our lives we always waiting for someone, and Godot simply represents the objective of our waiting. In the act of waiting we experience the flow of time in its purest. Similarly in the play both the characters are waiting still at the end of the play. If the subject of the play is not waiting but Godot then they might turn up.

     Q -    The more the things change, the more it remains similar. There seems to have no change in Act I and Act II of the play. Even the conversation between Vladimir and the Boy sounds almost similar. But there is one major change. In Act I, in reply to Boy;s question, Vladimir says: 
"BOY: What am I to tell Mr. Godot, Sir?

         VLADIMIR:

        Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw us. (Pause.) You did see us, didn't   you?

     How does this conversation go in Act II? Is there any change in seeming similar situation and conversation? If so, what is it? What does it signify?

Ans:

 Act- 1
BOY: - What am I to tell Mr. Godot, Sir?
VLADIMIR: Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw us. (Pause.) You did see us, didn't you?

Act – 2
BOY: What am I to tell Mr. Godot, Sir?
VLADIMIR: Tell him . . . (he hesitates) . . . tell him you saw me and that . . (he hesitates) . . . that you saw me. (Pause. Vladimir advances, the Boy recoils. Vladimir halts, the Boy halts. With sudden violence.) You're sure you saw me; you won't come and tell me tomorrow that you never saw me!

 The one major which can be highlighted here is, that in the Act 1 Vladimir tells boy “you’re sure you saw US” but in Act 2 it tells him “You’re sure you saw me”.  It suggests two things first is Vladimir has become self-centered and another is being individual.

From the Amoretti sonnet by Edmund Spenser

                                               

                     "From the Amoretti" sonnet is written by Edmund Spenser. Who was an English poet and he was Known for his well written poem 'Faerie Queene". This sonnet was written in 16th century which included 89 sonnets. 

Poem: 

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I write it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eek my name be wiped out likewise.

Not so, (quod I) let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew. 

Analysis: 

              In the first few line of the poem the poet talks about the affects that he took to mortalise name of his beloved. One day he started writing his beloveds name upon the strand but waves became his enemy  and as he write name of his beloved upon the strand, it washed away his beloved name. Still after the first filer he did not give up and again try write her name but once again the tide come and wash did away this pain has very well expressed in the line by the poet which is......

                          But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. 

                           

                     

                            Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay,

                  A mortal thing so to immortalize,

                  For I myself shall like to this decay,

                 And eek my name be wiped out likewise. 

      

         In the next lines the poet talks about effects to mortalise name of his beloved may be his beloved watching him from some were and she expresses her sorrow or her lover's filer. The poet an expresses his feeling because he is scad now as the way nature destroyed out his beloved name. His fear is that her name also can be "wiped out likewise".
               
         In the last few lines of the poem the poet expresses his fear and he still will continue to remembered name of his beloved. he consoled his beloved by saying that she may 'died in dust' but she will live by fame. She would be in the memory by her virtues and she would live in verse even after of the death. When death will sub due entire world there love shall live. This how the poet describers the unstoppable effects a lover to mortalise name of his beloved.     

            

 

La Bella Dame sans Merci : poem by John Keats

       

                                             

 "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a ballad written by the English poet John Keats. It exists in two versions, with minor differences between them. The original was written by Keats in 1819. He used the title of the 15th-century La Belle Dame sans Mercy by Alain Chartier, though the plots of the two poems are different. The poem is considered an English classic, stereotypical of other of Keats' works.  

Poem:

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel’s granary is full,
And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful, a fairy’s child;
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said—
‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her Elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Analysis:

                                                       

       "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is a ballad, a medieval genre revived by the romantic poets. Keats uses the so-called ballad stanza, a quatrain in alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter lines. The shortening of the fourth line in each stanza of Keats' poem makes the stanza seem a self-contained unit, gives the ballad a deliberate and slow movement, and is pleasing to the ear. Keats uses a number of the stylistic characteristics of the ballad, such as simplicity of language, repetition, and absence of details; like some of the old ballads, it deals with the supernatural. Keats' economical manner of telling a story in "La Belle Dame sans Merci" is the direct opposite of his lavish manner in The Eve of St. Agnes. Part of the fascination exerted by the poem comes from Keats' use of understatement.

             Keats sets his simple story of love and death in a bleak wintry landscape that is appropriate to it: "The sedge has wither'd from the lake / And no birds sing!" The repetition of these two lines, with minor variations, as the concluding lines of the poem emphasizes the fate of the unfortunate knight and neatly encloses the poem in a frame by bringing it back to its beginning.

           In keeping with the ballad tradition, Keats does not identify his questioner, or the knight, or the destructively beautiful lady. What Keats does not include in his poem contributes as much to it in arousing the reader's imagination as what he puts into it. La belle dame sans merci, the beautiful lady without pity, is a femme fatale, a Circelike figure who attracts lovers only to destroy them by her supernatural powers. She destroys because it is her nature to destroy. Keats could have found patterns for his "faery's child" in folk mythology, classical literature, Renaissance poetry, or the medieval ballad. With a few skillful touches, he creates a woman who is at once beautiful, erotically attractive, fascinating, and deadly.

           Some readers see the poem as Keats' personal rebellion against the pains of love. In his letters and in some of his poems, he reveals that he did experience the pains, as well as the pleasures, of love and that he resented the pains, particularly the loss of freedom that came with falling in love. However, the ballad is a very objective form, and it may be best to read "La Belle Dame sans Merci" as pure story and no more. How Keats felt about his love for Fanny Brawne we can discover in the several poems he addressed to her, as well as in his letters.

 

Flip learning Existentialism

Hello readers,

This blog is part of my Flip learning activity. To see that context click here. 

 Ans -1

“I like following thoughts from this all video……

                             

Video – 1: The term existentialism is applied by many great thinker and writer like, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, Sartre, Beauvoir, Kafka etc…they all share one basic belief that philosophical thing is existing begin with each thinking subject like individual. Existentialism is triangle of three key word that is, 1) Individuality 2) passion and 3) freedom. In this video one interesting quote by Camus that “believe in God is a philosophical suicide”. Because when you fully devote yourself towards God, you realize that your lives is become absurd and also despair. This idea is break down by existentialism because it is about freedom, individuality and also passion.

                                

Video – 2:  This video talks about Albert Camus view regarding matter of suicide. For Camus suicide is an individual act. For this he gave one interesting quote “An elegant suicide is the ultimate work of art”. He also says that ‘we are consent, here a dark side with the relationship between individual thought and suicide’. “Being too thing is beginning to undermine”. When start to think about absurdity of life, you feel like a stranger. 

                                    

Video – 3: This video is talk about Philosophical suicide. The notion of philosophical suicide was what makes us fall in love. Here also some argument about absurdity of life. It is also says that ‘if it is admitted the absurd is the contrary of hope, it is seen the existential thought process of the absurd but proves that only to dispel it’.

                                   

Video – 4: In this video talk about Dadaism and Nihilism. Dadaism is somehow connecting with the Nihilism. Dadaism is the quest for change. Dadaism means to make yourself free from all values. This movement also becomes visual arts literature and anti art cultural work. In this video one quote is there that is, “Dadaism and Nihilism is nothing to do each other both are fading up everybody life and its ordinary value and that are where the similarity”. We also see that Dadaism and existentialism both are reaction to the war.

                                    

Video – 5: Existentialism was response to emptiness because after Second World War, despair and absurdity lingered to every corner of every individual. Existentialism holds some idea like absurdity, anxiety and despair. Existentialism is a gloomy philosophy because it is become famous after Second World War. At that time people ‘believe in god, finding a truth that is true for you, judge every value and choose your meaning in life. You should take responsibility and except the consequence of it’. 

                                      

Video – 6: Existentialism and Nihilism both are different from each other. Existentialism is not totally negative term, while Nihilism is negative term. Both are see the absurdity of the life but at the end both reach at different conclusion. Existentialism is all about live with facts and Nihilism is about absurdity of life. 

  

                                          

Video – 7: Existentialism movement arose in 19^th century in Europe. Soren Kegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche are called father of existentialism. In 20^th century after world war second we see the root of existentialism. Sartre’s famous statement about existentialism is that “existence precedes essence”.  Robert Solomon in his work “Able to existentialism”  says that “existentialism is an attitude that recognizes the irresolvable confusion of the human world yet resists the all too human temptation to resolve the confusion by grasping toward whatever appears or can be made to appear firm or familiar….. The existential attitude begins with a disoriented individual facing a confused world that he cannot accept”.   

                                      

  

Video – 8: Nietzsche says that making up over own rules that is existentialism. Here in this video give example of superman, normally superman do nice things, but Nietzsche supermen do whatever he wants. Existentialism is stand for own self. One can do whatever he or she wants.  

                             

Video -9: Existentialism is about individuality. It apple with our mind and understand the life more deeply. It also makes apple with our hart and Saul which experience of life more deeply. Existentialism is says about what I am. It recognizes the human strength as well as human fall and weakness. Existentialism affects how we think about things. It also helps us feel like a laughing like child, a serious intellectual, a strom on the horizon, a blossoming like a flower. It also teaches us life is a much broader way. Existentialism teaches us suffering is not our enemy, because sometime we learn from more suffering so we think that suffering is our enemy. 

                                    

 

Video – 10:  In 20^th century Jean Paul Sartre has question for essence and also question that what is exist first. So we can say that “existence precedes essence”. Our essence existence before we born, which gives us purpose to living.   Existentialist says that all thing gives meaning to the life.  

Ans- 2: I like video “Let us introduce Existentialism again” and 8 “Explain like I’m five”   the most. Video 7 gives us whole knowledge about existentialism. When we not get proper meaning of existentialism than that video gives us proper explanation about whole philosophy. Video 8 ‘Explain like I’m five’, it explains very easily this term. It gives simply meaning of existentialism.

Ans – 3: I enjoy flip learning. It is an experimental key to learn. Flip learning is the best specimen to practice to listen carefully. It helps me understand existentialism in a batter way. It also improves my listing and writing skill. Instead of traditional teaching through the board or chock stick this is something new to experiment for the student learning. 

Thank you…

   

Review abot Digdarshak play

                                           
                                     

                 On 8^th August 2017 Film screening committee of Department of English organized the screening of one act Hindi play named “Digdarshak”, which was performed in eNatya Shoth 2017. It was one act play written by Priyam Jani and directed by Rishit Jhaveri. This play portrait main conflict between theater and cinema. 

             We have seen two main characters in this play one was Digdarshak himself and anther was his student (actor). This entire play performed in flashback technique. The main thing of this play was Director tainted his student for his best acting. Director of this play dedicates his entire life to this theater and not gave much time to their family. He also wants his students gave top priority to this theater than their home. 

            We have see many theme in this play like, (1) theater v/s cinema. In this play we have see that director strongly supporter of the theater and actor is supporter of cinema. In this play we see that how actor Use Theater as prop for enters in the cinema so Director was disappointed from the actor. (2) Sacrifice for theater. We have seen in this play Director of this play sacrifice his entire life for theater. (3) Theater v/s Family. In this play we have seen that director’s top priority is the theater rather than their family. In the beginning of this play Myth of Ashwatthama also symbolically represents.