The Marlowsphere (Blog 168)

Irish writer Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot”—which recently played at Broadway’s Hudson Theatre in New York City starring Keanu Reeves as Estragon and Alex Winter as Vladimir—raises many existential questions, such as: Is there a God? Why are there masters and slaves? What is the nature of friendship? Why do people need each other? Why do people spend their days asking “Why are we here?” and “What is the meaning of life?” The play also contemplates loneliness and suicide, with occasional references to nature. It asks many questions without any answers.

Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1819), by Caspar David Friedrich

The original French text was composed between October 1948 and January 1949. The premiere was performed at the Théâtre de Babylone Paris, in January 1953. The English-language version of the play premiered in London in 1955. Playwright Beckett later stated that the painting Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1819), by Caspar David Friedrich, was a major inspiration for the play.

Many audiences come away from the play perceiving that “Godot” (originally “Godeau” in French) was a reference to God. Beckett never confirmed this. What is clear from the play, however, is the main characters are waiting for something, waiting for answers, waiting for direction. Estragon frequently demands “Tell me what to do,” as if he has no inner voice or drive directing his life. He often feels tired and sleeps to escape his uncertainty. Vladimir constantly engages Estragon in argument and debate as if without this friction-filled connection he would have no purpose.

These characters spend the play waiting for Mr. Godot, as if his arrival will resolve all issues. At two points in the two-act play a boy (dressed all in white, as if an angel) arrives with a messages from Mr. Godot. In the first act the boy tells Vladimir “Mr. Godot will most definitely come tomorrow.” In the second act Vladimir asks the boy “What does Mr. Godot do?” The boy answers “Nothing.” Again, the response seems to imply “Don’t expect Mr. Godot to give you answers. The answers must come from you.” Godot never arrives.

“Aye, there’s the rub,” to quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet who contemplates suicide as does Estragon in “Waiting for Godot.” This is the conundrum. This is the paradox of Homo sapiens existence on this planet Earth. We know we exist, as in Descartes “I think therefore I am.” Yet, does God have a plan for us? Is it our lot in life to be curious, to explore, to transcend the Earth’s gravity and explore the Solar System, the Milky Way Galaxy, the Universe as our understanding of it evolves? Is this meaning of our lives?

These are lofty aspirations and certainly within our reach enough time. This said, reaching back over billions of years the evolution of all life on this planet—everything in nature, animal, Homo—has had one central drive: not to reach the stars, but to procreate, to create the next generation.

It appears our primary life goal on this planet is to use our sexual organs to produce the next generation and once born to nurture this new generation until maturity, until this new generation itself produces the next generation, and so on. Everything else is a subheading. Everything else—the accumulation of land, money, power, empire—is in the service of supporting the creation of the next generation.

In other words, there is no God out there someplace. As Karen Armstrong, a former nun and recognized religious scholar, points out in her 1993 book A History of God, the concept of a “god” is the creation of man. And when one god outlives its usefulness, another god is Invented in its place. In other words, in the absence of facts, people make things up.

It can also be argued that religious beliefs are a collective delusion. Karl Marx wrote in 1843: “Religion is the opium of the masses.” His context, however, was an economic and political one. He perceived religion as a means of social control, a distraction from economic suffering.

James Web Space Telescope (JWST)

Our perception of the universe and hence our place in it is only as good as the instruments we have to measure it. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), for example, floating in space some million miles from Earth provides further proof that the God so many people are waiting for, pray to Heaven for, and allow themselves to be guided by is unfounded. This space telescope is providing evidence of galaxies that might be older than the Big Bang that is presumed to have occurred some 13.9 billion years ago! It is providing evidence that the universe is so vast no “God” could possibly be in charge of it. The JWST imagery is “reporting” there is the possibility our universe exists in a black hole and that our universe might be one of several universes, the so-called “multiverse.”

All this brings us back to the questions Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” raises. Whether intended or not, this existential play, a classic in the genre of what Albert Camus coined “The Theatre of the Absurd,” certainly prompts a discussion of the meaning of life. But then one must deal with what is known, what we call “facts,” scientific facts. Thomas S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) rightly points out that sooner or later established scientific facts come into scrutiny when new calculations and observations are revealed. In 1929 astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered galaxies were moving away from us in all directions in contradiction to the prevailing view of a static universe, the astrophysics world is currently in some disarray as a result of the James Webb’s observations. What other truths will it reveal and what “established” truths will be revised?

To the list of questions posited in “Waiting for Godot” we can add “Are we alone in the universe?”

Many people hold on to beliefs and concepts even in the face of facts that challenge their beliefs and concepts. Extremists—ultra orthodox Jews, the Taliban, ISIS, Boko Horam, racists, paramilitary groups, the political ultra-conservative, just to name a few—would rather kill or exclude non-believers than explore their deep need for self-esteem and specialness. It’s always easier putting down one group in favor of your own as opposed to taking a good look in the mirror and having the courage to examine one’s self.

Is this the nature of Homo sapiens? Are we a bifurcated creature? Our procreation drive is firmly intact, but our lack of intellectual/emotional facilities to accept the universe as it is without all the ritual trappings people impose on it impedes our willingness to move forward to a higher cultural level.

Are we stuck as a species in an emotional adolescence with a simultaneous need for community and guidance yet a yearning for independence and individuality? Again, questions without immediate answers. Are we individually and collectively ultimately waiting for our own personal Godot?

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D. ©2026