Skip to main content

What is meant by the quote, "There’s man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet" in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot?

As we see in Act 1, Vladimir, or Didi, is commentating on the human condition. When he states, "There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the faults of his feet," what he's saying (between the lines) is that man finds it easy to pass the blame instead of taking responsibility for his actions. Rather than blaming his own ineptitude or inabilities, man is likely to blame his surroundings or particular circumstances. In this case, man is more likely to blame his boots for when he trips or cannot walk straight when the real failure may simply be himself. This line is important to the play in that Didi is providing critical commentary on humanity and the human condition in a way that is both profound and succinct, though he appears to be absurd, especially when in the company of Estragon, or Gogo.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more