Who is Godot ?

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Who is Godot?
Waiting for Godot is a tragicomedy play authored by Samuel Beckett circa 1949. Its characters are to wit; Estragon, Vladimir, Lucky, Pozzo and a boy. The play is a compilation of conversations between the characters above as they await the titular character who never arrives (Grogan). Arguments suggest that the mystery which ever so efficiently shrouds the titular character is a successful attempt at suspense by the author, Beckett. The uncertainty might have done more harm than good to the reader’s curiosity as a myriad of theories has been brought forth by various scholars and commentators on the subject; all who aim at demystifying the person or object that is Godot. This essay will proceed to take a look at some notable examples of the said theories.
Some scholars suggest that indeed, Godot may have merely fallen short of the embodiment of God. They argue that the character Pozzo, whose arrival is akin to that of Jesus Christ in the Bible, may have been the Godot that Vladimir and Estragon have been waiting since the first scene of the play and this has its rationale in comparison to the surreal happenings as narrated in the Bible (Islam). For instance, arguments suggest that Pozzo may not have been expressly identified as Godot by the two main protagonists owing to the expectations which they had of the impending visitor; much like the Jews misjudged Jesus Christ on arrival.
Other theories are to the effect that Godot in itself is no human being but is indeed a concept.

The concept of freedom from evil and suffrage as inflicted by the Victorian empire on Europe may have been christened Godot by the author; this was a hallmark of the play as a literary piece inspired by the then-recent concept of modernism (Hühn 327). An ideology brought forth by contemporary thinkers seeking freedom from the bounds of the Victorian era.
Much has been said about the person that Godot could be but the accurate inference remains anyone’s guess. However, it is noteworthy that from a literary perception, the theories mentioned above seem to hold the most water.

Works Cited
Grogan, Joshua. Samuel Beckett and the theatrical expression of the human psyche: five major post-war plays: from Waiting for Godot to Not I (1953-73). BS thesis. University of Malta, 2016.
Islam, Md. Waiting for Nothing: Examining Existential Crisis in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Diss. East-West University, 2017.
Hühn, Peter. “The Eventfulness of Non-Events in Modernist Poetry: TS Eliot’s The Waste Land and Bertolt Brecht’s “Vom armen BB.” Frontiers of Narrative Studies 3.2 (2017): 319-335.