LUCKY

Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God
quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the
heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for
reasons unknown but time will tell […]. (1.639)

1.Lucky’s speech parodies the absurdity of pedantic jargon. With repeated phrases such as "qua,"
"for reasons unknown," "time will tell," etc., the speech has an academic exterior but no substance.
In the course of his "nonsense" speech, Lucky says "for reasons unknown" ten times. His speech
feigns authority with its academic tone, but the words themselves reveal the same deep uncertainty
that pervades the rest of the play.

4. In Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot, Lucky is a character that generally has little to say, as
compared to most of the other character who make up for Lucky's lack of conversation. At one point,
the tramps ask that Lucky be made to think: he needs his hat to do so.

Lucky's monologue, however, is one very, very long sentence. It doesn't really make any sense, and it
is described logorrhoea:

The spoken form of logorrhoea...is a kind of verbosity which uses superfluous (or fancy) words to
disguise an otherwise useless message as useful or intellectual.

Because it is generally just rambling, it does not have a conclusion or end. When his hat is removed,
he stops "thinking." There are a few items that can be picked out as having some validity, such as the
whimsical nature of God (ruling arbitrarily), without following laws or delivery sound judgment, but
acting in a capricious nature. He also refers to man's inaction—seeming to present him as a victim,
who worries extensively after something and then just "fades away." Lucky refers also to the
"decaying state of the earth." This is, as one might expect from Pozzo, a pessimistic statement that
looks to the end of the world, a hopeless standpoint.

(It is noted that this monlogue might be based on the phiolosophy of Bishop Berkeley.)
These ideas are surrounded by words that support the hopeless mood of the play: apathia (apathy),
aphasia (muteness), suffers, torment, flames, endures, the end, hell, error, elimination, etc.

The purpose of Lucky in the play has been discussed and disputed for some time. However, it seems
to me, in light of the foolishness he utters in his monologue, that he represents someone who need
not make choices: they are made for him. He does not need to think about what he does, as he is
(again) told what to do and not what to think.

Pozzo tells him what to do, he does it, and is therefore lucky because his actions are determined
absolutely.

2. Puncher and Wattmann: Poinçon et Wattman in the French original. Poinçon is French for a ticket
puncher (i.e., conductor) on a tram, and wattmann is French for a tram driver. But what sort of entity
or persons does the name evoke?

Miranda: a charactonym meaning “admirable,” for example Prospero’s daughter Miranda in

Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Anthropometry: the scientific study of the measurements of the human body, such as the “research”
Schoolteacher performed upon Sethe in Morrison’s Beloved. 9 Essy-in-Possy: Esse is Latin for
“being”; posse is Latin for “being able.” But what sort of entity does the name evoke?

10 Testew and Cunard: Têtu et Conard in the French original, meaning “mulish and stupid,” with a
possible sexual pun on testicule et con, meaning testicle and old French slang for vagina. But what
sort of entity or persons does the name evoke?

Fartov and Belcher: Vulgar comic names. But what sort of entity or persons does the name evoke?

Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham: districts in Greater London. Note that the sound of Feckham
approximates the sound of a vulgar expression spoken in Irish dialect.

19 Bishop Berkeley: George Berkeley (1685-1753), Bishop of Cloyne in County Cork, Ireland, Anglo-
Irish neo-platonicphilosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he
called "immaterialism,” a theory that denies the existence of material substance and instead
contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of the perceivers,
ideas that cannot exist without being perceived.

20 Connemara: a very cold region in Ireland known for its stone-strewn wilderness areas along the
sea. The name derives from Conmacne Mara; Conmacne is the name of a large clan in the Connacht
region, and mara means “by the sea,” thus designating the location of this branch of the clan. The
Irish novelist and playwright Oscar Wilde observed, “Connemara is a savage beauty.”
Steinweg and Peterman: stein is German for “stone,” and weg is German for “way,” as in road. Peter
derives from the Greek petros, meaning “stone.” Thus, the title literally means stone way and stone
man. But what sort of entity or persons does the name evoke? 22 the year of their

4. apathia: from Gk. a- (“without”) + pathos (“emotion; feeling;suffering; passion”). Apathy; a lack of
enthusiasm, interest, or concern.

5 athambia: imperturbability; calm and unruffled self-assurance.

6 aphasia: loss of ability to understand or express speech

Lucky's speech sounds like complete nonsense, but it actually contains

elements of satire and a profound philosophical statement. In a parody of
scholarly communication, he begins with a proposition: "Given the existence ...
of a personal God ...." He goes on to describe God with three qualities: "divine
apathia divine athambia divine aphasia."

 Apathia is a synonym of apathy, or lack of caring.

 Athambia is the quality of being imperturbable, or unable to be bothered.
 Aphasia is a language disorder caused by brain damage that can result in problems
of speaking, including using made-up words and stringing them together with real
words without making sense, which impairs communication and understanding.
(Lucky's speech demonstrates aphasic qualities.)
In Christianity, God is associated with threes, and the three qualities above
may parody the three traditional divine qualities of omniscience (knowing all),
omnipotence (being all powerful), and omnipresence (being everywhere).They
also show Lucky's initial proposition to be verbally ironic—he is actually
describing the lack of a caring, personal God.

Lucky quickly goes from describing God to focusing, in the middle of his
speech, on destruction (the blasting of "hell to heaven") and decline (pining,
wasting, and dwindling). In other words, the loss of God is leading to
humanity's decline and death. The final section of Lucky's speech is filled with
bleak imagery of cold water, barren earth littered with stones (the Irish region
of Connemara is notoriously stony), and skulls (the ultimate symbol of death).
The structure of Lucky's speech likewise declines as he goes on, until he is
primarily repeating a collection of words over and over.
The names mentioned in the speech are mostly parodies of scholars and their
ideas. Two names, Fartov and Belcher, call to mind the gaseous outputs from
the two ends of the digestive tract. Some of Lucky's repeated sounds also
resemble slang words for feces. These names, combined with Lucky's
rambling and random speech patterns, form a stinging commentary on the
nature of academic discourse—it consists primarily of nonsensical, even
made-up, ideas couched in incomprehensible language, ultimately amounting
to human excrement. Humanity's search for meaning has produced nothing
but waste and is destined to fail.

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 twotramps or else they would not know to protest. The form of thespeech 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 theabsurd elements are in the foreground
and the meaningful aspectsof it are totally obscured, as is the God whom Lucky discusses.Here, we
have a combination of the use of scholastic, theologicalterminology 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’srepetition of the term as

quaquaquaqua

creates an absurd, derisivesound, as though God is being ridiculed by a quacking or squawking sound.
Furthermore, the speech is filled with variousacademic sounding words, some real words like

aphasia

(a loss of speech; here it refers to the fact that God from his divine heightsnow has divine aphasia or
a divine silence) and some words like

apathia

or

athambia

which do not exist (even though

apathia
isclosely aligned to

apathy

and thus becomes another obliquecomment on the apathy of God in the universe). Other absurd
terms are used throughout the speech, and there is also a frequentuse of words which sound
obscene, interspersed throughout thespeech. 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
thansense—more that is illogical than that which is logical. Lucky’s speech is an attempt, however
futile, to make astatement about man and God. Reduced to its essence, the speechis basically as
follows:acknowledging the existence of a personal God, one whoexists outside of time and who loves
us dearly and whosuffers with those who are plunged into torment, it isestablished beyond all doubt
that man, for reasonsunknown, has left his labors abandoned, unfinished.