Lucky's Speech in Waiting For Godot

Lucky's dance is merely a clumsy shuffling, which is a
complete disappointment to Vladimir and Estragon. Thus

they decide to have Lucky think. They give him his hat, and
after protesting Pozzo's brutality, they arrange themselves for
Lucky's performance of thinking. It takes the form of a
long, seemingly incoherent speech. The speech is delivered as
a set piece, yet it is anything but a set piece. Under different
directors, this scene can be variously played. For example,
Lucky most often speaks directly to the audience with
the other characters at his back, while Vladimir and Estragon
become more and more agitated as the speech progresses.
Often Vladimir and Estragon run forward and try to
stop Lucky from continuing his speech. As they try to stop
Lucky, he delivers his oration in rapid-fire shouts. At times,
Pozzo pulls on Lucky's rope, making it even more difficult for
him to continue with his speech. The frenzied activity on the
stage, the rapid delivery of the speech, and the jerking of the
rope make it virtually impossible to tell anything at all about
the speech and, consequently, emphasize the
metaphysical absurdity of the entire performance. Lucky's
speech is an incoherent jumble of words which seems to upset
Vladimir and Estragon, for sporadically both rise to
protest some element of the speech. Therefore, the speech
does communicate something to the two tramps or else they
would not know to protest. The form of the speech is that of a
scholarly, theological address, beginning "Given
the existence . . . of a personal God," but it is actually a
parody of this kind of address since the nonsensical and the
absurd elements are in the foreground and the meaningful
aspects of it are totally obscured, as is the God whom Lucky
discusses. Here, we have a combination of the use of
scholastic, theological terminology along with the absurd and
the nonsensical. For example, the use of qua (a Latin term
meaning "in the function or capacity of") is common in
such scholarly addresses, but Lucky's repetition of the term
as quaquaquaqua creates an absurd, derisive sound, as though
God is being ridiculed by a quacking or squawking sound.
Furthermore, the speech is filled with various academic
sounding words, some real words like aphasia (a loss of
speech; here it refers to the fact that God from his divine
heights now has divine aphasia or a divine silence) and some
words like apathia or athambia which do not exist
(even though apathia is closely aligned to apathy and thus
becomes another oblique comment on the apathy of God in
the universe). Other absurd terms are used throughout
the speech, and there is also a frequent use of words which
sound obscene, interspersed throughout the speech. As an
example, the names of the scholars Fartov and Belcher
are obviously created for their vulgarity. Therefore, the
speech is filled with more nonsense than sense more that is
illogical than that which is logical. If, however, we remove
the illogical modifiers, irrelevancies, and incomprehensible
statements and place them to the side, the essence of the
speech is as follows: THE ESSENCE OF LUCKY'S
SPEECH "Given [acknowledging] the existence . . . of a
personal God ... [who exists] outside [of] time . . . [and] who
. . . loves us dearly . . . and [who] suffers . . . with those who
. . . are plunged in torment . . . it is established beyond
all doubt . . . that man . . . that man . . . for reasons
unknown . . . for reasons unknown . . . for reasons unknown .
. . [our] labors abandoned left unfinished . . . abandoned
unfinished . . . Lucky's speech is an attempt, however futile,
to make a statement about man and God. Reduced to
its essence, the speech is basically
as follows: acknowledging the existence of a personal God,
one who exists outside of time and who loves us dearly
and who suffers with those who are plunged into torment, it
is established beyond all doubt that man, for reasons
unknown, has left his labors abandoned, unfinished. It is
significant that the speech ends at this point because man
can make certain assumptions about God and create certain
hypotheses about God, but man can never come to a logical
conclusion about God. One must finish a discourse about
God, as Lucky did, by repeating "for reasons unknown . . . for
reasons unknown . . . for reasons unknown . . . ." And
equally important is the fact that any statement made about
God is, by its nature, lost in a maze of irrelevance, absurdity,
and incoherence without an ending. Therefore, man's final
comment about God can amount to nothing more than a bit of
garbled noise which contains no coherent statement and
no conclusion. Furthermore, Lucky's utterances are stopped
only after he is physically overpowered by the others. After
the speech, Pozzo tiles to revive Lucky, who is
emotionally exhausted, completely enervated by his speech.
After great difficulty, Pozzo gets Lucky up, and
amid protracted adieus, he begins to go, albeit he begins to go
the wrong way. Pozzo's inability to leave suggests man's
reliance upon others and his natural instinct to cling
to someone else. But with one final adieu, Pozzo and Lucky
depart.

Lucky's Speech in Waiting For Godot

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What is the essence of Lucky's speech?

How does Lucky deliver his speech?

Lucky's dance is merely a clumsy shuffling, which is a

complete disappointment to Vladimir and Estragon. Thus

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