Language, action and time in Waiting for Godot Twenty-two hundred years before the emergence of the Theater of the Absurd, the Greek philosopher Artistotle came across by chance one of the themes developed in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot; that is, Thought (Dianoia) is expressed through Diction and Thought (Theoria) is in itself a form of Action (Energeia). Intellectual action is therefore measured in the same way as physical action. Over the centuries, theories regarding thought, action, and language have evolved considerably, but some underlying themes in Beckett's unconventional work can be traced back to Aristotle's original concepts of drama, namely the relationships between language, thought and action involved in contemplation. proposes that thought and diction imitate action. In Beckett's Waiting for Godot it is possible to see a similar model (which, when taken further, is no longer linear but circular), in which language allows the existence of thought which in turn becomes a indirect action. (Ironically, this entire process described by Beckett on stage is equivalent to the art of theater itself which, manifested through language, allows the audience off stage, whose spectacle of a play replaces their imagination, to undergo the same process by acting vicariously through the characters.) The first and most interesting part of the process is best illustrated by the end of the two acts when Vladimir, then Estragon, says "Yes, let's go" and the stage directions. indicate "They are not moving". It is enough just to say and then think about leaving, because there is no more meaning in indirect action than in its actual physical manifestation...... middle of paper ...... Vladimir who comments on the condition of Estragon's feet: "There are men all over you, blaming his boots for the defects of his feet." The boots represent God, because each is an external object that man arranges to protect himself. Beckett says that man should not blame the devices he creates when they fail to protect him from himself, but rather should accept responsibility for their failure because he is the creator of those devices. If God does not fill man's existential void, instead of desperately waiting for this unreliable god to come and rescue him, he should consider turning to himself to solve the problem of the absurdity of his life. BibliographyAristotle. Poetic. Tr. SH Butler. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977 Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press, 1954Durozoi, Gerald. Beckett. Paris: Bordas, 1972