CORRESPONDENCES IN THE ABSURD:A BAUDELAIREAN READING OF SYMBOLISM IN WAITING FOR GODOT

Abstract

This research shows the symbolic interpretation of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (1953), stands as one of the most influential play of the twentieth century and a defining text of the Theatre of the Absurd, through the Baudelairean lenses. This paper explores the profound symbolic and philosophical complexity through objects, actions, and spatial design to represents themes of waiting, despair, hope, and identity. It also shows that how Waiting for Godot rejects conventional plot, character development, and linear temporality, instead relying on symbolic minimalism and repetitive structures to represent the existential condition of modern humanity. In addition, this study applies a Baudelairean symbolic framework, drawing on Charles Baudelaire’s concepts of correspondence, the flâneur, and the discovery of beauty within suffering, to reinterpret Beckett's symbols of barren tree, Estragon’s boots, interchangeable hat, the burden-filled bag, Pozzo’s rope, the road, and the absent figure of Godot. This analysis arguing that Beckett’s use of ordinary objects and actions functions as the primary vehicle through which themes of waiting, futility, hope, alienation, power, and identity are articulated. Furthermore, the Pozzo–Lucky relationship is analyzed through a Marxist lens as a symbolic representation of power, exploitation, and dehumanization, with material burdens reflecting social and psychological oppression.