This page will be of great help to you!!!
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/godot/
To check words use: (also available as mobile app on your smart phone)
http://www.dict.cc/
http://www.linguee.de/
Context:
Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin in 1906. He befriended the famous
Irish novelist James Joyce, and his first published work was an essay on
Joyce. In 1951 and 1953, Beckett wrote his most famous novels, the
trilogy Molloy, Malone Dies,and The Unnameable.
Waiting for Godot, Beckett's first play, was written originally
in French in 1948 (Beckett subsequently translated the play into English
himself). It premiered at a tiny theater in Paris in 1953. This play
began Beckett's association with theTheatre of the Absurd, which influenced later playwrights like Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard.
The most famous of Beckett's subsequent plays include Endgame (1958) andKrapp's Last Tape (1959). He also wrote several even more experimental plays, like Breath (1969), a thirty-second play. Beckett was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1969 and died in 1989 in Paris.
Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, meet near a tree. They converse on
various topics and reveal that they are waiting there for a man named
Godot. While they wait, two other men enter. Pozzo is on his way to the
market to sell his slave, Lucky. He pauses for a while to converse with
Vladimir and Estragon. Lucky entertains them by dancing and thinking,
and Pozzo and Lucky leave.
After Pozzo and Lucky
leave, a boy enters and tells Vladimir that he is a messenger from
Godot. He tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming tonight, but that
he will surely come tomorrow. Vladimir asks him some questions about
Godot and the boy departs. After his departure, Vladimir and Estragon
decide to leave, but they do not move as the curtain falls.
The next night, Vladimir and Estragon again meet near the tree to wait
for Godot. Lucky and Pozzo enter again, but this time Pozzo is blind and
Lucky is dumb. Pozzo does not remember meeting the two men the night
before. They leave and Vladimir and Estragon continue to wait.
Shortly after, the boy enters and once again tells Vladimir that Godot
will not be coming. He insists that he did not speak to Vladimir
yesterday. After he leaves, Estragon and Vladimir decide to leave, but
again they do not move as the curtain falls, ending the play.
etc.
ORAL TASK:
Imagine the following situation: Movie Night at University
Monologue 4-5 min
You
study at the University of Natural
Resources and Life Science, Vienna (BOKU)
and you organise a movie night because you want to get to know other students.
For your international colleagues you introduce the play (film) before you show
it. (Due to the fact, the play is so deadly boring you just show some important
scenes.)
- Make a short introduction to lead in the play
- Give reasons why it is worth watching/ discussing it
- Try to give a short interpretation of this famous play
Dialogue 8-10 min.
After
the film you take some drinks with your colleagues. There you converse about:
- several aspects of the movie, like conformism vs. individualism; etc.
- analysing the time, the play was written, why is there no happy ending
- the concept of Carpe Diem/ to seize the day
- stress and pressure for young people nowadays
- stress management strategies and concepts of happiness
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