Waiting for Godot Character Analysis
Estragon
Also known as ’Gogo’ and on one peculiar moment, ’Adam’’, Estragon is a character with changing personalities. Initially, he is seen as playing second fiddle to Vladimir where he is portrayed as incapacitated in almost all fronts. His memory plays havoc on him and he is virtually unable to initiate any action including falling asleep [or waking up from sleep].
However, behind the veil of this simpleton guy is actually a mean and wicked Estragon. His intellectual ineptitude is made up for by his ingenuity to rise to occasions when he is needed the most. A case in point is the “let’s hang ourselves!” exchange in Act 1 when he instantly realizes the boy may not support Vladimir and kicks in with his ingenuity explain the situation
Vladimir
Vladimir is popularly believed to be more intelligent than Estragon but is he? Vladimir would want us to believe that Estragon depends entirely on him while that’s not the case. In fact, critics may think he is actually enslaved by a siege mentality and wouldn’t want to lose the comradeship between him and Estragon.
His friendship with Estragon appears to be founded on quicksand and the two keep worrying about whether they actually deserve each other as friends. They would spend half of their day pondering over the fact and that’s what makes the tick as each one of them needs the other to figure out anything. The due are two scared to part yet too hesitant to initiate a meaningful relationship. At some point, we see him as a defensive fella who doesn’t wish for others to get too close to him, perhaps this is a result of having watched countless episodes of others suffer.
Pozzo
Pozzo epitomizes tyranny. He is the essence of what is meant by mean and through him, we can quite well define cruelty. He is only concerned about what benefits him as an individual and he appears to have some mystical watch which makes Estragon mistake him for God at some point.
However, does his persona fit that of God? Absolutely not. This is because unlike God who is expected to be perfect, caring and all-present, Pozzo is reckless, detached and full of character flaws. However, he has some supernatural power in him but even this power is limited and does not equate to what God