House of Notes

Q:      TO WHAT EXTANT VLADIMIR AND ESTRAGON ARE METAPHORS OF HUMANITY IN "WAITING FOR GODOT"? Q:       VLADIMIR     AND      ESTRAGON    ARE REPRESENTATION OF MAN IN GENERAL. ACCEPT OR REJECT THE STATEMENT. Q:      MAJOR CHARACTERS IN "WAITING FOR GODOT" ARE HUMAN BEINGS IN SEARCH FOR MEANINGS IN THE MEANINGLESS, HOSTILE UNIVERSE. Ans: Authors bring into play different modus operandi in their writings. Samuel Beckett makes use of allusions and references to characters to help the reader understand what the characters stand for. In his drama Waiting for Godot, Beckett's two main characters, Estragon and Vladimir, are symbolised as man. Separate they are two different sides of man, but together they represent man as a whole. In Waiting for Godot, Beckett uses Estragon and Vladimir to symbolize man's physical and mental state. Estragon represents the physical side of man, while Vladimir represents the intellectual side of man. In each way

Arms and the Man:   Major Themes The themes of “Arms and the Man” are love and war and these two themes have been welded into a single whole with great skill. Shaw has shown that it is the romance of war that leads to the romance of love. His treatment of these two themes is characterized by realism. The contrast between realism and idealism is constantly stressed, and this results in a number of entertaining situations. As the play opens, we are introduced to Raina, a pretty, young lady with romantic views of love and war, the result of her reading Byron and Pushkin. She stands on the balcony of her bedroom admiring the beauty of the night, and dreaming of her fiancée, Sergius, who is out on the front fighting the Serbs. Soon her mother enters the room to inform her that Sergius has become the hero as a result of his splendid victory in the battle. On his own initiative ignoring the orders of his Russian commander, he made a heroic charge on the artillery of the Serbs

Arms and the Man: Wit and Humour “Arms and the Man” is not merely a farce but a true comedy . The purpose of a comedy is to ridicule and expose human or social folly or weakness and to drive that folly out of courts. Though there is ample of farcical, loud laughter in the play, but the laughter has a serous purpose and this differentiates the play from a mere farce. Shaw laughs, but his laughter has a serious purpose. Besides provoking mirth he also provokes thoughts. Shaw is one of the greatest humorists in English literature the other humourist are Shakespeare and Dickens. However, Shaw’s is different from both Shakespeare and Dickens as his humour arises from the difference between instinctive conduct, or social institutions and social codes of conduct. This is Shaw’s contribution to the art of comedy. “Arms and the Man” is rich in humour. There is enough of humour of character in the play. Major Petkoff, Catherine Petkoff, Sergius and Captain Bluntschli are all h