Waiting For Godot

Close Reading 1

Roundelay

The children’s round-song, at the start of Act 2, has a structure as cyclical as the play’s vision:

An 'agitated' Vladimir 'suddenly begins to move feverishly about the stage.'	Vladimir: A dog came in -
He starts singing but discovers the song demands greater self-control.	[Having begun too high he stops, clears his throat, resumes.]
He sings of a dog and a cook, death and the tomb. That gives him pause to reflect.	A dog came in the kitchen And stole a crust of bread. Then cook up with a ladle And beat him till he was dead. Then all the dogs came running And dug the dog a tomb - [He stops, broods, resumes.]
He resumes the song ...	Then all the dogs came running And dug the dog a tomb And wrote upon the tombstone For the eyes of dogs to come:
Then it becomes repetitious ...	A dog came in the kitchen And stole a crust of bread. Then cook up with a ladle And beat him till he was dead.
Again he reaches the tomb and 'broods' contemplatively.	Then all the dogs came running And dug the dog a tomb - [He stops, broods, resumes.]
He tries again but cannot continue. Eventually, More softly, he tries again, but cannot escape the fate that is the tomb and momentarily paralysed and haunted by such thought, once again he 'begins to move feverishly about the stage.'	Then all the dogs came running And dug the dog a tomb - [He stops, broods. Softly.] And dug the dog a tomb ... [He remains a moment silent and motionless, then begins to move feverishly about the stage ...]

In the silences there surfaces a desperate realisation that existence is a ritual without end: the dog’s brief, doomed existence immortalised in the song; the brief, doomed existence of humanity immortalised on the stage.