Parallels and the Possibility of Influence Between Simone Weil's Waiting for God and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot

PARALLELS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF INFLUENCE BETWEEN SIMONE WElL'S JI7AITING FOR GOD AND SAMUEL BECKETT'S II'AITING FOR GODOT Waiting for Godot IS ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL PLAYS to be widely published and produced in the post-war era, for beyond its extraordinary theatrical values and unique humor lies an apparent pattern of symbolism which has fluttered the imagination of audiences and critics unceasingly. Most often given and debated among the many "interpretations" of the play are those modeled along the lines of Christian theology. In February, 1956, the London Times Literary Supplement published an article interpreting the play "more or less as a Christian parable."l In discussing the results ?f that article the paper said, "The article evoked a long and excited correspondence in which Mr. Beckett's play was claimed in turn by Christians, atheistic existentialists, nihilists, and Nietzscheans."ll Recently one of the nihilists has said of Beckett, "his pessimism is deeper than any ever expressed; there is no evidence whatever of compassioa or of a Christian approach."s This essay postulates a Christian interpretation based specifically on a comparison of Beckett 's play and works with the religious essays of the French theologian, Simone Wei!. Wei! was born in Paris in 1909 making her three years younger than Beckett, an Irishman. They both came to the famed Ecole Normale Superior in' 1928, Beckett as Lecteur d'Anglais and Wei! as a student of philosophy. At that time the school was a burning intellectual center; also studying there was Jean Paul Sartre. In 1930 and 1931 Beckett and Weilleft the Ecole and lived during the most part of the next twelve years in Paris and southern France, and although their acquaintance has never been authenticated, it may be presumed. Simone Weil became quickly recognized by her intellectual confreres; 1 G. S. Fraser, "They Also Serve," TLS, February 10. 1956. p. 84. This article was published anonymously. 2 TLS, April 18. 1956. 8 G. E. Wellwarth. "Life in the Void: Samuel Beckett." UKCR, XXVIIIa (October 1961). ~5-88. 425 426 MODERN DRAMA February Andre Gide called her "the most truly spiritual writer of this century ."4 Beckett spent the thirties in companionship with James Joyce, publishing short stories, poems, and a novel before going into hiding in the Vaucluse country during the war. After the liberation he wrote his best known works including his plays and the trilogy of novels entitled The Namable-Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable . His play in question, Waiting For Godot, was published in 1952, one year after the posthumous publication of Weil's selected essays, entitled Waiting For God. Weil's major concern in this work is with a set of characters she caIls "the afflicted," characters not unlike the strange persons who inhabit the Beckett landscape. In one essay, "The Love of God and Affliction," she states, Affliction is something inseparable with physical suffering and yet quite distinct ... made irresistibly present to the soul by the attack or immediate apprehension of physical pain. . . . The event that has seized and uprooted a life attacks it, directly or indirectly, in all its parts, social, psychological, and physical. As for those who have been struck by one of these blows that leaves a being struggling on the ground like a half-crushed worm, they have no words to express what is happening to them.... Every innocent being in his affliction feels himself accursed. Men struck down by affliction are at the foot of the Cross, almost at the greatest possible distance from God. Affliction is anonymous before all things; it deprives its victims of their personality and makes them into things. Beckett has created in his works of fiction at the level of Weil's world of imagery; his poetic analysis resembles the sketched details of Weil's afflicted and their universe, and his characters seem to personify the worm-like afflicted of her imagination. The most extraordinary example of this character is the multiple hero Moran-MolloyMalone -Macmann-Worm in The Namable who says of himself at the end of a life-long journey towards total deterioration and affliction, "Worm, to say that he does not know who he...