Characterization in The Swamp Dwellers and Waiting for Godot
1. Characterization
in The Swamp
Dwellers and
Waiting for
Godot
Paper: 14
The African Literature
Prepared by: Jinal Parmar
Drashti Mehta
Goswami Gayatri
Hitesh Parmar
Jayshree Kunchala
Kaushalkumar Desai
Roll No:7 to 12
Sem:4
Submitted to: Smt. S.B.
Gardi, Department of
English, Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinghji
Bhavnagar University
Bhavnagar University
Bhavnagar(Gujarat-India)
Guided By: Heenaba Zala
4. Art of Characterization
Waiting for Godot
Estragon
Vladimir
Lucky
Pozzo
Godot
Messenger Boy
The Swamp Dwellers
Igwezu
Awuchick
Kadiye
Blind beggar
Makuri
Alu
5. Definition: Characterization
To describe the character of… or be a characteristics
of…(Oxford Dictionary)
Establishing the distinctive characters of the persons in a
narrative by Showing and Telling.
In Showing, the author simply presents the characters
talking and acting, and leaves it entirely up to the reader to
infer the motives and disposition that lie behind what they
say and do. The author may show not only external speech
and actions, but also character’s inner thoughts, feelings
and responsiveness to events; for highly developed mode
of such inner showing.
In Telling, the author intervenes authoritatively in order to
describe, an d often to evaluate, the motives and
dispositional qualities of the character.(M. H. Abrams- A
Glossary of Literary Terms)
7. Waiting For Godot
There are six characters
Estragon an d Vladimir
Pozzo and Lucky- Master slave relationship
Godot- Messenger boy
8. First
• The parents Makuri and Alu conservative
second
• The corrupt priest Kadiye, who beguils his
superstitious followers
Third
• the two positive individuals Igwezu and the
Begger moving, wondering, seeking and then
uncertain what they have found
In The Swamp Dwellers Characters fell into to
three groups
9. Swamp Dwellers
There are only two important characters in
the play, which need illustration. All the other
characters play but a minor role. Therefore
the researcher is going to analyze only two
characters
Igwezu and the Blind Beggar.
Existentialism
Absurdity
Decolonization
Ideology
10. Igwezu:
He is the protagonist of the play and the real son of the
land. He has great reverence for
the tradition of the swamps. Moreover, he is kind and
loving man
He has performed all religious rites that were required by
the deity, in order to save his farm and family from the
divinely calamities.
But to his utter
disappointment he could neither save his farm nor his
family from the destruction. Flood runs
down his crop and his own brother Awuchike seduces
his wife.
But being a modern tragedy wherein good scarcely
wins,
Igwezu loses all the time. Through his character the
playwright certainly not shaking the belief in
God, but raising a question about efficaciousness of
religious practices.
11. The Blind Begger:
“Angel from the God,’ would probably correct words for this
character. For he comes in as a saviour in the inescapable
condition of Igwezu.
A man having EYES, having Vision, but actually blind
His is a character that eclipses the importance of the protagonist
Igwezu.
For his suffering is much more than Igwezu.
Not just that his positive stance and self belief in the adverse
conditions make him altogether a different character.
He belongs to the dry north part of Nigeria.
And has undergone long periods of draught and later on the crop-
flourish has been divested by the locusts.
Fly – sickness in the
early childhood renders him blind.
His character is strongly contrasted with the character of the Kadiye
the village priest.
The beggar gives himself selflessly and unasked for the good of
others.
Thus the character of the beggar re-establishesfaith among the
people and not destroys it.
12. •Soyinka's themes are echoes of those of Samuel Beckett. His
characters are gripped by the same hopelessness in which Beckett's
characters find themselves.
• A close reading of Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Soyinka's The
Swamp Dwellers from the perspective of myth critics like Jung, Frye and
Kluckhohn shows a striking similarity in the playwrights' delineation of
the human condition of desolate reality and the quest for salvation, yet
remarkable contrasts in cultural and spiritual concepts and worldviews.
•Soyinka uses in his play through the incorporation of the African
idiom, myth and ritual from which he explores the absurdity of the
human condition against the background of African belief systems.
•Whereas Beckett employs the modernist avant-garde theatrical
techniques and Christian concepts to present the absurdity of human
existence.
• The wealthy Pozzo parallels the capitalist Awuchike who takes
advantage of man's wretchedness to exploit others.
13. •The characters in both plays, therefore, live a tragic and meaningless
existence in which human experience is futile.
•The characters in The Swamp Dwellers are confronted with similar
ordeals as those in Waiting for Godot
The prime victim is Igwezu, an ideal son of the Swamps whose
dependence on supernal assistance for a meaningful existence leads
him to frustration.
•The central issue in both plays is on the question of salvation
• The characters in both plays find themselves in the face of misery, an
uncompromising situation without any defined pattern, highlighting
chaos as the dominating force in the world with no question to be
asked and no where to go.From an understanding of the gruesome
realities of human existence, Samuel Beckett and Wole Soyinka see
humanity in continual need for salvation.
•Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Soyinka's The Swamp Dwellers that
while in existence which origin is obscure, essence can be determined
by individual choice and freewill, hence individual salvation
14. •Lucky in Godot and the blind Beggar in Swamp Dwellers stand out
distinctly as representations of individual salvation.
•In both the plays the main difference, putting aside other factors, is in
the psychological presentation of characters.
• Soyinka's hero makes considerable personal efforts to survive and all
he seeks is the protection of the heavens over his achievements.
• On the contrary, Becketts's tramps are unable to do anything for
themselves but wait for an illusory Godot to deliver salvation to them.
15. Setting
Urban and Rural life in the Swamp Dwellers
Unity of Time, Place and Action is followed
Waiting For Godot Country road side
Unity of Time, place and Action is not
followed
In both plays some characters are waiting
Alu- Makuri
17. Women Characters
Waiting for Godot- no women characters
are presented
Swamp Dwellers- Characters of Alu and
Desala - passive characters
Feminist Perspective
18. Religion- Faith
Character of Serpent- divine- Kadiye-
offers animals for sacrifice to the divine
Serpant
Gods- myth
Ogun- Iron
Sango- lightning
Obatala- human forms
21. Setting
Swamp Dwellers : The play is set in the hut of Makuri and Alu in a
village of the Delta region of south –
east Nigeria. This region is periodically flooded with waters of river
Niger. The description of
the hut with its minute peculiarities adds greater dramatic effect. The
inside detailing of the hut –
rush – baskets, ‘a dire cloths and barber’s equipments, reminds one of
the ideal pictures of huts
in India. The play opens and ends in this hut.
The swamp Dwellers is a realistic tragedy of the people living in Delta
region. Therefore
it is shadowed with grave atmosphere.
Waiting For Godot: Two tramps are waiting by a sickly looking tree for
the arrival of Mr. Godot. The setting of the play evening time,
country road, a tree . Characters changing their Hat , Shoes. Pozzo
and Lucky’s arrival. Messenger boy gives message about Mr.
Godot. Estragon an d Vladimir decides to do suicide but never
does so and they wants to leave first but till the end they wait
23. Dialect
Swamp Dwellers Nigerian dialect
Waiting for Godot Irish written in French and
translated by Beckett in English
24. Compare and contrast in both
the Plays:
In the Swamp Dwellers there are women characters present
In Waiting for Godot there are no women characters
In the Swamp Dwellers there is nothing about Master Slave
relationship
In the Waiting for Godot there is Master slave relationship between
Pozzo and Lucky
In both plays characters are waiting
The Swamp Dwellers have a good beginning a middle and an
end.
There’s no identifiable beginning, middle, and end in Waiting For
Godot
In Waiting for Godot Pozzo gets blind and Lucky Dumb where as in
Swamp Dwellers the beggar’s character is portrayed as a blind
