The Passage of Time
Unlike all the other characters, Vladimir has a sense of the passage of time (only he says he remembers the events of Act I, although it is possible Lucky might recall them: see Lucky and Vladimir). However, he considers his memory unreliable because it can never be corroborated, due to Estragon's memory issues. At the end of the play, it is he who realizes the futile cycle that all of them have fallen into (see second quote). However, he rejects this realization when he finds that it is almost unbearable to live with ("I can't go on!"), and forces himself to dismiss it ("What have I said?"). He resolves to go on waiting for Godot.
Read more about this topic: Vladimir (Waiting For Godot)
Famous quotes containing the words passage and/or time:
“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
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