In the 'Odyssey', Odysseus recounts the myth of Tantalus, son of Zeus and one time favourite of the gods. Tantalus so offended the gods he was condemned to an eternal punishment of standing neck deep in water with luscious fruit cascading from branches above his head. However, the water would vanish or the wind toss the fruit beyond his reach every time he thirsted or hungered.

'We are rather in the position of Tantalus,' Beckett wrote in his essay on Proust, 'with this difference, that we allow ourselves to be tantalised.'

Winnie tantalises herself that there might come an end to her suffering; perhaps 'the happy day to come when flesh melts at so many degrees'. However, being consumed by flames does not spell any end to her parasol. The medicine bottle that smashes when she tosses it away reappears intact. Even if the sun does blaze 'so much fiercer down, and hourly fiercer,' Winnie concedes that 'It is no hotter today than yesterday, it will be no hotter tomorrow than today'. If nothing ever changes - 'no better, no worse, no change' - there can be no hope for her day ever ending.

But does not her fundamental predicament change - from being waist deep in the mound in the first act to being buried neck deep in the second? Won't she be wholly drawn down into the earth one of these days?

Winnie is rather in the position propounded by Zeno, a fifth-century Greek philosopher. Zeno reasoned that it is impossible, in a finite world, to pour half of any quantity of millet seed into a heap and then keep adding half of the remaining seed to the heap (for this will continue ad infinitum). The nearer to completing the task the slower the heap will grow so that, in fact, the heap can never be completed, in any finite time scale.

In Act 1 Winnie's days have so heaped up that she is already embedded in the earth to above her waist. Half of what remained visible of her upper body is embedded by the second act, so only her head remains above ground. Winnie's fundamental predicament of being trapped in the mound will ever endure. Her representation is of the universal condition of human existence. Superficial change may characterise human life but the basic experience for every generation is 'no better, no worse, no change'.