Resembelance between the waiting of S.Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" and M. Arnold's "The Scholar Gipsy"

       The purpose of human life is an unanswerable question. It seems impossible to find an answer because we don't know where to begin looking or whom to ask. Existence, to us, seems to be something imposed upon us by an unknown force. There is no apparrent meaning to it, and yet we suffer as a result of it. Theworld seems utterly chaotic. We, therefore, try to impose meaning on it through pattern and fabricated purposes to distract ourselves from the fact that our situation is hopelessly unfathomable. The Scholar Gipsy and Waiting  for Godot  capture this feeling and view of the world, and characterizes it with archetypes that symbolize humanity and its behaviour when faced with this knowledge. My  whole endeavour,through this article, is to travel through the hundred year old bridge of Waiting between The Scholar Gipsy and Waiting for Godot and find out the resemblence or contrasts between the notion of Waiting dealt in these two masterpieces of their respective age.
                                      The world of Waiting for Godot is one without any meaningful pattern, which symbolizes chaos as the dominating force in the world. There is no orderly sequence of events. A tree which was barren one day is covered with leaves the next. The two tramps (Estrogen and Vladimir) return to the same place everyday to wait for Godot. No one can remember exactly what happened the day before. Night fall instantly,and Godot never comes. The entire setting of the play is meant to demonstrate that time is based on chance and, therefore, human life is based on chance. Time is meaningless as a direct result of chance being the underlying factor of existence. Hence, there is a cyclic, albeit indefinite  pattern to the events in Waiting for Godot. Past, Present, and Future mean nothing and  time, essentially is a mess. The ramifications of this on human existence are symbolised by the difference between Pozzo and Lucky. When asked by Vladimir when he became blind, Pozzo responds " I woke up one fine day as blind as Fortune." Vladimir, incredulous, continues asking him for details. Pozzo responds to this (violently), " Don't question me! The blind have no notion of time. The things of time are hidden from them too." Beckett uses this change in the situation of Pozzo and Lucky to show that human life is meaningless because time is meaningless. Throughout the play, Vladimir and Estrogen remain stupidly cheerful and seek distraction in pointless activities. " The positive attitude of the two tramps thus amounts to a double negation: their inability to recognize the senselessness of their position." Vladimir and Estrogen try to distract themselves from the endless wait by arguing over mundane topic, sleeping, chatting with Pozzo and Lucky, and even contemplating suicide. This behaviour symbolizes humanity's petty distractions. Godot is symbolic of such and outside force, which seems to be silent and uncaring. Even so, he is still a pattern, and he infuses the two desperate tramps with a purpose to their abused lives. Vladimir, in his philosophical soliloquy while contemplating whether or not to help Pozzo in Act II declares, " What are we doing here, that is the question, and we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer, Yes, in his immense confusing, one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come". Though it is never clear whether Godot is real or not, that is why he is referred to as an example of a "rebulous force". Thus, the Waiting of Vladimir and Estrogen in Wating for Godot is aimless, an outburst of frustation, without any order or pattern, meaningless, uncertain and they have no escape from it but to wait till they are damned.
                                       On the contrary, The Scholar Gypsy is about a certain spiritual crisis, a crisis of faith, experienced by Matthew Arnold and many other sensitive minds of the Victorian period. One of the major causes for the crisis was the retreat of the traditional religious faith and belief, resulting in a  dizzy feeling of uncertainty and fluctuation regarding the meaning and significance of life, a stifling sense of living in a spiritual vacuum, of loneliness and nostalgia. The Scholar Gipsy which seems an amalgam of different poetic modes, develops along a sort of dialectical pattern. Broadly speaking, it juxtaposes two diametrically opposed worlds, the idyllic world of the Scholar Gypsy and the sick and inert world of Poet-Speaker. The second (the Poet-Seeker) have a great resemblence with Vladimir and Estrogen of Waiting for Godot. The quest and waiting of Scholar Gypsy is for a spiritual order and pattern, for an integrated ideal, for something that would make life meaningful and puposeful, unlike the waiting of Vladimir and Estrogen which is sick, aimless and fallen in the abysmal of ignorance.
                                           Arnold makes his Scholar a person " of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain", unlike Beckett's ruffian, loathsome, pig-slot duo. While he ( the Scholar) is allowed to retain his interest in magical power, he has to wait for " heaven-sent moments" to acquire the gipsy art. Arnold's Scholar is very much a solitary, isolated from his fellow human beings including the gipsies even from the start, and he is seen only " by rare glimpses pensive and tongue-tied", his gipsy dress only emphasising his isolation, whereas the dress of Vladimir and Estrogen give the impression of their being slum-dog and mad roaming without any venue and speaking meaningless and absurd dialogues.
                                             Taking a very slender hint from Glanvil's story, Arnold makes his Scholar wander in the neighbourhood of Oxford, meditate in the lap of Nature, and follows him in a dream vision through all the seasons of the year. Whereas Vladimir and Estrogen are, far from such beauty, waiting in the fretful life of city. They have no sense of time and their waiting has taken the form of boredom. They are mortal man about whom Arnold has given a hint in the poem The Scholar Gipsy :
                      " For what wears out the life of mortal men?
                      'Tis that from change to change their being rolls:
                      'Tis that repeated shocks, again and again,
                      Exhaust the energy of strongest souls,
                      And numb the elastic powers."

Whereas the Scholar Gypsy is free from all these--

                        "No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours"

The Scholar Gypsy is universal and is not caught in the fatal net of time. He has all "What we, all, have not!" He is a man who has " One aim, one business, one desire" and " Possessest an immortal lot." He is not like Vladimir or Estrogen or others--

                          " Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives
                           And each half lives a hundred different lives;
                           Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope."

The Schoar Gipsy has a great hope for " the divine spark", " But none has hope like thine"; his is free from " Strange diseases of modern life", whereas Estrogen and Vladimir,
                      
                             " But fly our Paths, our feverish contact fly!
                             For strong the infection of our mental strife,
                             Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest"

                                                  Disappointment, divided aim, fluctuations had outlived Victorian peoples and taken solace in the hearts of the Modern people. But waiting still continues in loath age though the manner of waiting seems different. We admire the Scholar awaiting as his lonely penance will ultimately lead to social well being as he promises " he will to the world impart", " when fully learned", the " secret of their art". His waiting is not far any vain glory or materialistic pleasure but a " heaven-sent moment" or " divine spark". His hope is unparalleled as he has " one aim, one business, one desire." On the other hand, Vladimir and Estrogen have no social commitment; their awaited object, whether divine or non-divine is not clear. Even we don't know who or what they are waiting for. Their waiting is an event not constant; they are confused, doubtful, fallen in the abysmal of conundrums, miserable creatures more identical with the modern people condemned by Arnold not with the Scholar of The Scholar Gipsy. But we can not dissociate from them as in our age--
                                " Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold;
                                   Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."
                                                                        ( W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming)

Their Hellish determination to wait, notwithstandig all sorts of doubts, pangs of hunger, unbearable soul resembles the fret and chaos of our time, and present a true picture painted with the colours fo reality; whereas the "The Schoar Gyspy" presents somewhat an idealised and utopian view and it seems that the poet, being fed up and shocked with the chaos and boredome of his age, climbed on the very ivory-tower of poetic imagination. But, to conclude, the waiting and hope of the "The Schoar Gypsy" gives us solace and us optimistic whereas the waiting of "Waiting for Godot" problematizes the very question of existence and is the little hope of Godot's arrival ( about whom there is no information and Beckett is also not sure) gives " Pessimistic Optimism" as its flavour and taunt and tries to retrive our inner conscious from the oblivion of ignorance, making us aware of the naked fact of life.