Vladmir and Estragon are Jewish!
By Tom Teicholz at 23 June, 2008, 1:08 pm
My friend Steven Roth drew my attention to an item that he saw in ArtsJournal, that they in turn picked from Sign and Sight (I get sight and sound and missed it), that they in turn picked up from Die Welt that drew up a conversation printed in French — between Valentin Temkine and Pierre Temkine that “decodes” “Waiting For Godot” and situates it in 1943 in the Free Zone of France.
As Temkin posits it, Vladmir and Estragon are French Jews who lived through the anti-Semitic Times surrounding the Dreyfus trial and onc the Nazis invaded France and curtailed liberties for Jews in Paris they fled to the Free Zone. But time is running out there. They have been part of or made contact with the resistance and they are waiting for Godot, who is to lead them across the border to Spain. Pozzo is a Petainist collaborator and Lucky represents the silence of the intellectuials in France who were at the service of the goverment.
The key that unlocks this interpretation of Godot for Temkin is a phrase where Vladmir and Estragon say that if they could go to the top of the Eiffel Tower they would throw themselves off. But, as they explain, they are no longer are allowed to go up the Eiffel Tower. Temkin explains that between 1940 and 1945 only Jews were no longer allowed access to the top of Eiffel Tower.
THe article interpolates other llines, and facts from beckett’s bio, is in French and is worth reading. Click here for the article in French.
I look foward to seeing GODOT staged with this new interpretation.
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