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September 5, 2025Open Access

‘Waiting for Godot’: A Modernist Inquiry into the Absurdist Postmodern

Key Points

This analysis reveals that Waiting for Godot embodies both modernist and postmodernist elements, illustrating the complexity of the Theatre of Absurd.
The discussion highlights key themes of existentialism and post-war alienation associated with Beckett's work, emphasizing its relevance to modernist angst.
Using a literary analysis methodology, the research correlates modernism with absurdist literature to explore deeper interpretations of instability and unpredictability.
The findings suggest that understanding Waiting for Godot requires grappling with its dual narrative of modernist nostalgia and postmodern uncertainty.

Abstract

There has always been a wide scope for debate about whether the ‘Theatre of Absurd’ is a genre that leans more towards postmodernism or modernism, owing to ample examples from such Absurdist plays which equally portray both. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is a critically acclaimed work of Absurdist Literature, and although it was written in the Postmodernist era, it reflects ideas and elements that are at the cusp of modernism and postmodernism. Modernist writing shows a nostalgia for the past, laments the loss of a centre and is in a constant state of Modernist angst- ideas which this research paper aims to join and correlate with the incidents related to the Theatre of Absurd and Existentialism in Waiting for Godot. This in turn, facilitates arrival at an analytically fleshed out interpretation about post-war alienation, instability, and unpredictability that writers of such plays aimed to bring out through their literary works.

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