The Sheep and the Goat: Beckett’s Subversion of Divine Justice in Waiting for Godot

This slide deck explores Samuel Beckett’s inversion of the biblical parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31–46) in Waiting for Godot. Traditionally, sheep symbolize the saved and goats the damned; however, Beckett reverses this moral structure—where the “sheep” are beaten and the “goats” remain safe. Through this subversion, the presentation examines the collapse of divine justice, the arbitrariness of suffering, and the instability of religious and political authority. It further analyzes themes of conformity, fear, blind belief, and the erasure of happiness within the Theatre of the Absurd. Ultimately, the deck argues that Beckett dismantles theological certainty to reveal a universe governed not by moral logic, but by chaos and existential uncertainty.