The end is pending : an essay in waiting.

Abstract

With reference to Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera and Beckett's Waiting for Godot, this essay aims to pursue the (dis)enchantment of being in waiting. This essay seeks to examine three distinct questions: the nature of waiting, the impetus for their waiting, and finally, what they are awaiting.

Why wait? What provokes the wait? Could it be love, desire, or simply a waiting that is persisted by the wait itself? Unavoidably, many questions arise from a deceptively manageable question of “why wait”. In waiting, one appears to be in submission to the wait, despite the possibility that in the end – if there is an end – there is nothing to reap. Does one wait in the expectation of reaping something?

In the event of all these persistent questions, an exploration of the relationship between why one waits and what one waits for is a necessary step to begin to understand the crucial "why" in "why wait?". With predominant references to critical theorist Maurice Blanchot, this essay eventually narrows in on the need to understand the wait. Such a need is echoed in both works, suggesting the inability to avoid having a rational understanding of waiting. In addition, this need to understand showcases and amplifies the conflicting fluctuations of having a necessary reason for waiting.