From Waiting for Godot

In Act One, two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, wait beside a leafless tree (the stage is otherwise bare) for the arrival of Godot, with whom they believe they have an appointment In order to pass the time, or perhaps simply to accompany the passing of time, they play verbal games reminiscent of the cross-talk of music-hall comedians. When Pozzo arrives, holding his slave Lucky with a rope, the tramps wonder if he is Godot, but Pozzo denies all knowledge of Godot. To the discomfort and confusion of Vladimir, Estragon and the audience, he makes Lucky 'dance’ and then ‘think’, in a long, incoherent tirade. Master and slave depart and a boy arrives to tell the tramps that Godot will not be coming that day, but surely tomorrow’. In Act Two the tree has leaves, but there is little other evidence of change as Vladimir and Estragon continue waiting. Pozzo enters again, but blind and dependent on the guiding rope that binds Lucky to him. Lucky is now dumb, but Pozzo is unaware of any difference. When they have gone, a boy, who may or may not be the same boy but who claims to be his brother, arrives with the same message. Still determining to go, the tramps do not move.

The extract below is taken from Act Two. The clownish-tramplike Vladimir and Estragon are still waiting beside their tree, passing the time in conversational ‘canters’.

[...] ESTRAGON: [...] Let’s go.

VLADIMIR: We can’t.

ESTRAGON: We’re waiting for Godot.

ESTRAGON: Ah! (Pause. Despairing.) What’ll we do, what’ll we do! VLADIMIR: There’s nothing we can do.

ESTRAGON: But I can’t go on like this!

VLADIMIR: Would you like a radish?

 ESTRAGON: Is that all there is?

VLADIMIR: There are radishes and turnips.

ESTRAGON: Are there no carrots?

     VLADIMIR: No. Anyway you overdo it with your carrots.

 

ESTRAGON: Then give me a radish. (Vladimir fumbles in his pockets, finds nothing but turnips, finally brings out a radish and hands it to Estragon, who examines it, sniffs it). It’s black! –

VLADIMIR: It’s a radish.

ESTRAGON: I only like the pink ones you know that!

VLADIMIR: Then you don’t want it?

ESTRAGON: I only like the pink ones!

VLADIMIR: Then give it back to me. Estragon gives it back.

ESTRAGON: I’ll go and get a carrot. He does not move.

VLADIMIR: This is becoming really insignificant.

ESTRAGON: Not enough.

Silence.

VLADIMIR: What about trying them?

ESTRAGON: I’ve tried everything.

VLADIMIR: No, I mean the boots.

ESTRAGON: Would that be a good thing?

VLADIMIR: It’d pass the time. (Estragon hesitates). I assure you, it’d be an occupation.

ESTRAGON: A relaxation.

VLADIMIR: A recreation.

 ESTRAGON: A relaxation.

VLADIMIR: Try.

ESTRAGON: You’ll help me?

VLADIMIR: I will of course.

ESTRAGON: We don’t manage too badly, eh Didi, between the two of us? VLADIMIR: Yes, yes. Come on, we’ll the left first.

ESTRAGON: We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?

VLADIMIR: (impatiently). Yes, yes, we’re magicians. But let us persevere in what we have resolved, before we forget. (He picks up a boot.) Come on, give me your foot. (Estragon raises his foot). The other, hog! (Estragon raises the other foot). Higher! (Wreathed together they stagger about the stage. Vladimir succeeds finally in getting on the boot). Try and walk. (Estragon walks). Well? ESTRAGON: It fits.

VLADIMIR: (taking string from his pocket). We’ll try and lace it. ESTRAGON: (vehemently). No, no, no laces, no laces!

VLADIMIR: You’ll be sorry. Let’s try the other. (As before). Well?    ESTRAGON: (grudgingly). It fits too.

VLADIMIR: They don’t hurt you?

ESTRAGON: Not yet.

 

 

D. H. Lawrence

“Sons and Lovers”

Sons and Lovers, by D. H. ’Lawrence, published 1913, a closely autobiographical novel set in the Nottinghamshire coalmining village of Bestwood.

 Walter Morel has married a sensitive and high-minded woman better educated than himself. She begins to shrink from his lack of fine feeling and drunkenness; embittered, she turns their marriage' into a battle. Morel, baffled and thwarted, is sometimes violent, while Mrs Morel rejects him and turns all her love towards her four children, particularly her two eldest sons, William and Paul. She struggles with the poverty and meanness of her surroundings to keep herself and her family ‘respectable’ and is determined that her boys will" not become miners. William goes to London to work as a clerk, and Paul also gels a job as a clerk with Mr Jordon, manufacturer of surgical appli­ances; William develops pneumonia and dies. Mrs Morel, numbed by despair, is roused only when Paul also falls ill. She nurses him back to heath, and subsequently their attachment deepens. Paul is friendly with the Leivers family of Willey Farm, and a tenderness grows between him and the daughter Miriam, a soulful, shy girl. They read poetry together, and Paul instructs her in French -and even algebra and shows her his sketches. Mrs Morel fears that Miriam will exclude her and tries to break up their relationship, while Paul, himself I sickened at heart by Miriam's romantic love and fear of physical warmth, turns away arid becomes j involved with Clara Dawes, a married woman, separated from her husband Baxter, and a supporter of Women's Rights. Paul is made an overseer at the factory, times are easier, and he now begins to be noticed as a painter and signer. His affair with Clara peters out and she returns to her husband Meanwhile Mrs Morel is ill with cancer and Paul is in misery at the thought of losing her. At last, unable to bear her suffering, he and his sister Annie put an overdose of morphia in her milk. Paul resists the urge to follow her ‘into the darkness' and, with a great effort turns towards life.

 

Joseph Conrad

Heart of Darkness

Characters

Marlow, a sailor

Kurtz, an ivory sailor

The company manager, the man who has overall responsibility for ivory trading in Kurtz’s area

The story

On a boat on the Thames, Marlow, the narrator, tells a group of sailors about an unforgettable voyage he undertook to the heart of the African continent. He went there to take command and of a ship and collect a cargo of ivory from the colonial stations in the interior.

As he travelled deeper and deeper into the jungle, he was increasingly sickened by the corruption of the colonial traders and the ruthless exploitation of the natives. He eventually met Mr Kurtz, the most successful ivory trader, but discovered that his success was built on the creation of his own mini-empire of evil hidden away in the depths of the lawless jungle, where natives were tortured and murdered.

Kurtz dies as Marlow is taking him down the river to the coast and away from his diabolically constructed private kingdom.