THE WANDERING JEW IN SAMUEL BECKETT'S WAITING FOR GODOT

Abstract

Very little attention has been focused on tracing evidence of the myth (or legend) of the Wandering Jew in Samuel Beckett's mould-breaking play Waiting for Godot (completed 1949), Rosette C. Lamont (1990) being the exception. This article suggests that Beckett used at least three disparate versions of the legend to derive much of the raw material in Godot. A good deal of the two vagabonds' dialogue may be derived from the generic myth of the Jewish carpenter whom, the day of the Crucifixion, Christ damned to a miserable life wandering the earth until the Second Coming. But the pair's predicament also fits perfectly with a little known version of the myth from Podolia (Ukraine) published as an annotation in English by Avrahm Yarmolinsky in 1929. Furthermore, important elements of Lucky's character may have been derived from Le Juif Errant, trois acts, prologue et intermède (1946), by the relatively unknown Alsatian surrealist Maxime Alexandre (1899–1976). Alexandre portrays Jews as bearing a heavy burden for mankind as guardians of humanity and of higher aesthetics, who will (exactly like Lucky) under no circumstances put down their heavy load. Although the origins of the myth are anti-Semitic, this reading appears to underline Beckett's reputation as a philo-semite.