Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Can you help me analyse a quote from Waiting For Godot??

Estragon: They all change. Only we can't.
What does this mean in relation to time? What message about time is Samuel Becket trying to suggest?
Thanks so SO much for any help!!

Reply 1

pimplemousse

If you give a bit of the context that would help to explain it - what is the conversation about? Maybe post the whole conversation topic and it'll become clearer.

Reply 2

ALCP

I am not familiar with this book so I don't know the context, but perhaps... It could mean that we all want to change, but we stay as we as humans maybe secretly like who we are, or we are not powerful enough to make that change. Maybe it could link to fate that we are meant to be how God made us and we have no control to change ourselves. I hope this helped and gave you a few ideas :smile:

Reply 3

pimplemousse

Original post by ALCP

Sorry by context I meant the context for the quote, as in the beginning and end of this conversation so we can understand what it references. Beckett was interested in existentialism and Waiting for Godot is definitely a play that's about questioning our own existence and trying to work out our purpose in life, but he was also interested in absurdism which is more to do with the idea that the whole world is chaotic and it's pointless worrying about our own purpose because life has no meaning. Waiting for Godot is a kind of middle ground between these two philosophies. The quote itself though might reference time, existence, or both but it's impossible to tell without reading the whole conversation (as in the whole topic that they're talking about)