Quote 85
VLADIMIR
Astride of a grave and a difficult birth. Down in the hole, lingeringly, the grave digger puts on the forceps. We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. (He listens.) But habit is a great deadener. (He looks again at Estragon.) At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on. (Pause.) I can't go on! (Pause.) What have I said? (2.795)
This is Vladimir’s response to Pozzo’s statement that life is fleeting and therefore without any meaning—notice how Beckett ties the two arguments together with a repetition of the oh-so-memorable "astride a grave" image. But while Pozzo focuses on the inevitability of death, Vladimir focuses on the banality of life. Life isn’t meaningless because we die, life is meaningless because we "deaden" it with purposeless habit.
VLADIMIR
(Estragon loosens the cord that holds up his trousers which, much too big for him, fall about his ankles. They look at the cord.) It might do in a pinch. But is it strong enough?
ESTRAGON
We'll soon see. Here.
They each take an end of the cord and pull.
It breaks. They almost fall.
VLADIMIR
Not worth a curse.
Silence. (2.865-72)
Beckett ends Waiting for Godot with the ultimate marriage of tragedy and comedy—Estragon with his pants around his knees trying to commit suicide and failing.