Pozzo (Waiting for Godot) Pozzo (Waiting for Godot) Pozzo is a character from Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot". His name is Italian for "well" (as in "oil well"). On the surface he is a pompous, sometimes foppish, aristocrat (he claims to live in a manor, own many slaves and a Steinway piano), cruelly using and exploiting those around him (specifically his slave, Lucky and, to a lesser extent, Estragon). He wears similar clothes to Vladimir and Estragon (i.e. a bowler and suit), but they are not in the dire condition theirs are. While by no means a villain in a conventional sense of
Waiting for Godot earned PhDs. 'How do you know they hadn't?' was his reply." They clearly have known better times, a visit to the Eiffel Tower and grape-harvesting by the Rhône; it is about all either has to say about their pasts, save for Estragon's claim to have been a poet, an explanation Estragon provides to Vladimir for his destitution. In the first stage production, which Beckett oversaw, both are "more shabby-genteel than ragged...Vladimir at least is capable of being scandalised...on a matter of etiquette when Estragon begs for chicken bones or money." Although Beckett refused to be drawn on the backgrounds of