Waiting for Godot: Tone 1 key example

Several times in the first act, Vladimir and Estragon repeat the refrain "Nothing to be done." In another instance, Estragon says that "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" Vladimir encapsulates their life in a similar way, albeit with more verboseness: "We wait. We are bored. [...] In an instant all will vanish and we'll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness!" Pozzo describes his and Lucky's condition with a similar bleak simplicity: "We wait till we can get up. Then we go on." Lines like this consolidate the play's hopeless tone, as the characters seemingly see no way out of their cyclical, repetitive condition. The act of waiting, and the characters' commentary on this waiting, keeps the tone from ever feeling completely light.

However, the characters' absolute acceptance of their grim situation still makes way for a certain amount of lightness and humor. The audience has no way of knowing how many identical days have preceded the first act—and how many identical days will follow the second—but it could seem as though they've existed in this way for ages. Nevertheless, the characters' boredom of this repetitiveness prompts them to have some fun with their condition, by playing with language or playing pretend. Vladimir and Estragon appear to have realized that if they're doomed to wait and suffer all day until the night falls, they may as well have fun with the nonsense. This approach corresponds with the theater of the absurd, which uses absurdism to grapple with life's meaninglessness.

The play's humorous tone is reinforced by the stage directions, which are often dry to the point of feeling humorous. At times, especially when the stage directions seem to endearingly mock the characters, Beckett's authorial tone seems to shine through the parentheses.