Topic > Lack of Closure in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot

Closure is a very important aspect of a narrative. Closure or lack thereof achieves the goal of creating a text that readers would want to continue reading to discover the ending, it helps guide the reader. The term “closure” according to Abbott is “best understood as something we seek in fiction, as a desire for authors to understand and often spend art to satisfy or frustrate” (Abbott, 57). In the play Waiting for Godot, the lack of closure is very evident throughout. This play significantly follows the hermeneutic code, the level of questions or answers. This code allowed the author to capture readers' attention, because people like to find and understand closures, but it also allowed the author to not give closure. Additionally, the type of comedy, which is absurd, is a big part of why this comedy lacks a conclusion. The definition of absurdist is: “A writer, artist, etc., whose work presents audiences or readers with absurdities, typically in portraying the futility of human struggle in a senseless and inexplicable world; especially a writer or advocate of the drama of the absurd” (OED). The absurdist genre allows the work not to directly answer questions, but to leave it open-ended so that the reader can interpret the actions as they wish, just as they would interpret real-life situations, where no event is set in stone. The dialogues and the overall framework of the play allow for an easy examination of how the above statements work. Using the hermeneutic code and absurd genre, along with the lack of conclusion, the author wrote Waiting For Godot, a play written to make the audience think. In the book The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative, H...... middle of paper ...with the lack of a conclusion the author has opened many paths, making it unable to give an adequate review of the work due to the various interpretations . The show has also cleverly inserted a philosophy about human life, uncertainty and how it is an important part of human life is portrayed through this show. All these features together make this play a very beautiful work, it makes you want to live forever to see how future generations would interpret the play. In conclusion, this text is written to make readers reflect and make them participate as active members in reading the work. Works Cited Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Fiction, "Waiting for Godot" Cambridge University Press; 2nd edition, 7 April 2008Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. 3rd ed. Np: CPI Group, 2006. Print. vol. 1 by Samuel Beckett: the complete dramatic works. 4 vols