Estragon ( affectionately Gogo ; he tells Pozzo his name is Adam ) is one of the two main characters from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

Estragon dozes off, but, after rousing him, Vladimir is not interested in hearing about his dream.

Pozzo provides a handkerchief, but, when Estragon tries to wipe his tears away, Lucky kicks him.

Estragon tries to ask for some money, but Vladimir cuts him short, explaining that they are not beggars.

With some difficulty he gets Estragon to show him his leg.

Estragon sees an opportunity to extort more food or to exact revenge on Lucky for kicking him.

Beckett originally intended to call Estragon " Lévy " but when Pozzo questions him he gives his name as " Magrégor, André " and also responds to " Catulle " in French or " Catullus " in the first Faber edition.

" He was not forthcoming with anything more than cryptic clues, however: " Peter Woodthrope played Estragon remembered asking him one day in a taxi what the play was really about: ' It's all symbiosis, Peter ; it's symbiosis ,' answered Beckett.

Estragon has a misanthropic view of humanity: he considers people to be " ignorant apes " and seems to want them to leave him alone.

Estragon is often seen as the child to Vladimir's adult, and as such looks for parental security in him.

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 ).

At certain points in the first act ( and for most of the second act ; see below ) he has minor nervous breakdowns when things don't go his way ( e. g. when he misplaces things, when Vladimir and Estragon don't understand him / berate him, etc .).

The idea is that Pozzo and Lucky are simply an extreme form of the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon ( the hapless impulsive, and the intellect who protects him ), and thus extreme forms of those very characters.

Vladimir claims that he and Estragon know him, but this is naturally not corroborated by Estragon, and the nature of their former relationship remains unknown.

Read this way, Pozzo and Lucky are simply an extreme form of the relationship between Estragon and Vladimir ( the hapless impulsive and the intellect who protects him ).

Estragon wants to hear an old joke about a brothel, which Vladimir starts but cannot finish, as he is suddenly compelled to rush off and urinate.

This is perhaps because Estragon has far more to worry about.

Information about his appearance is decidedly scant: he walks in " short stiff strides, legs wide apart ," and is heavier than Estragon ( which gives little information since there is no description of Estragon's weight to use as a reference ).

Estragon: I remember the maps of the Holy Land.

Waiting for Godot ( ) is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot.

Once again Estragon maintains he spent the night in a ditch and was beaten – by " ten of them " this time – though he shows no sign of injury.

His pipe is made by Kapp and Peterson, Dublin's best-known tobacconists ( their slogan was ' The thinking man's pipe ') which he refers to as a " briar " but which Estragon calls a " dudeen " emphasising the differences in their social standing.

Between March and August 2009, he starred as Pozzo in Sean Mathias's production of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett opposite Sir Ian McKellen ( Estragon ), Sir Patrick Stewart ( Vladimir ) and also Ronald Pickup ( Lucky ).

In Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, the character of Estragon tries to guess the names of two other characters.

He then played the President of the United States in the new David Mamet political satire, November, directed by Joe Mantello, followed by the critically acclaimed revival of Waiting for Godot as Estragon ( Outer Critics Circle nomination ) with Bill Irwin as Vladimir.

“ A ( Bertrand ) is more practical, better organised and more knowledgeable ; B is more nervous, hot-tempered and prone to use oaths and four-letter words and, although less sensitive than A, he is capable of graphic turns of phrase … A and B are bound together by mutual needs but … this symbiotic relationship is as subject to irritability and impatience as that of Estragon and Vladimir had been .”

In September 1957, Humphries appeared as Estragon in Waiting for Godot, in Australia's first production of the Samuel Beckett play at the Arrow Theatre in Melbourne directed by Peter O ' Shaughnessy who played Vladamir.

Järegård was since 1962 an actor in Sweden's prominent Royal Dramatic Theatre, where he came to perform a number of much celebrated parts: his eccentric Hitler in Schweik in the Second World War by Bertolt Brecht ( 1963 ), Estragon in the legendary 1966 Dramaten-staging of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Thersites in Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida 1967, Orgon in Molière's Tartuffe 1971, Hjalmar Ekdahl in Ingmar Bergman's 1972 production of Ibsen's The Wild Duck, Nero in Jean Racine's Britannicus ( 1974 ), a spot-on portrayal of August Strindberg in play Tribadernas natt ( The Night of the Tribades ) by Per Olov Enquist, the title role in Richard III by Shakespeare ( 1980 ) and the extremely creepy-and slightly perverted-boss Sven in VD (" CEO ") by Stig Larsson in 1985, among others.

He has been portrayed by many notable actors, including Burgess Meredith ( with Zero Mostel as Estragon ) and-in one rather notorious version of the play-Steve Martin ( with Robin Williams as Estragon ).

Lucky is often compared to Vladimir ( just as Pozzo is compared to Estragon ) as being the intellectual, left-brained part of his character duo ( i. e. he represents one part of a larger, whole character, whose other half is represented by Pozzo ).

The two characters may be roughly equal or have a begrudging interdependence ( like Vladamir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot or the two main characters in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead ); one character may be clearly dominant and may torture the passive character ( like Pozzo and Lucky in Waiting for Godot or Hamm and Clov in Endgame ); the relationship of the characters may shift dramatically throughout the play ( as in Ionesco's The Lesson or in many of Albee's plays, The Zoo Story for example ).

In Tom Stoppard's Godot pastiche, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, the character Rosencrantz closely resembles Estragon.

Estragon " belongs to the stone ", preoccupied with mundane things, what he can get to eat and how to ease his physical aches and pains ; he is direct, intuitive.

But when he learns to use his tools effectively, they are confiscated: the scissors, when he reasons that in addition to cutting his fingernails, he might cut his throat ; the blocks and rope, when he discovers that they might make a gallows .” ( Vladimir and Estragon also contemplate suicide in this way at the end of Waiting for Godot ).

They decide to do nothing: " It's safer ," explains Estragon, before asking what Godot is going to do for them when he arrives.

When Estragon declares that he is hungry, Vladimir provides a carrot, most of which, and without much relish, the former eats.

Finished, he casts the bones aside, and Estragon jumps at the chance to ask for them, much to Vladimir's embarrassment, but is told that they belong to the carrier.

Only then Vladimir notices that Estragon is not wearing any boots.

" Estragon is inert and Vladimir restless.

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.

Lucky speaks only once in the play and it is a result of Pozzo's order to " think " for Estragon and Vladimir.

The script calls for Estragon to sit on a low mound but in practice – as in Beckett's own 1975 German production – this is usually a stone.

This reading is given further weight early in the first act when Estragon asks Vladimir what it is that he has requested from Godot:

For instance, Waiting for Godot, Beckett's most popular and successful play, is highly dependent on the two main characters, Estragon and Vladimir, and their likeability.