Chekhov and Beckett

Anton Chekhov's best plays like Ivanov, Three Sisters sometimes resemble the plays of Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter. Chekhov also seems to have influenced the technical aspects in Beckett's plays like gaps in dialogues or dialogues which do not have any relevance and are sometimes illogical. The action in Chekhov's plays is also more internal than external, and in this respect, Chekhov was an innovator and has been a great influence on modern drama.

Godot never appears in Waiting for Godot and the sisters never reach Moscow in Chekhov's Three Sisters. Both Godot and Moscow seem to symbolise, for the characters, the ideal life.

The title of Samuel Beckett's famous play is an interesting study in itself. In the original french the title is En attendant Godot, while in english it has been translated as Waiting for Godot. The french title seems to suggest that the play is about what happens and what the characters do while they are waiting for Godot. But the english title puts the emphasis on Godot himself, who never even appears in the play. Thus the play seems to make some sense if one accepts the french title. The english title, on the other hand, never seemed to be very clear or meaningful to me.