ESTRAGON
Well? If we gave thanks for our mercies?
VLADIMIR
What is terrible is to have thought.
ESTRAGON
But did that ever happen to us?
VLADIMIR
Where are all these corpses from?
ESTRAGON
These skeletons.
VLADIMIR
Tell me that.
ESTRAGON
True.
VLADIMIR
We must have thought a little.
ESTRAGON
At the very beginning.
VLADIMIR
A charnel-house! A charnel-house!
ESTRAGON
You don't have to look.
VLADIMIR
You can't help looking.
ESTRAGON
True. (2.154-166)
Images of death and decay are thrown arbitrarily into otherwise unrelated dialogue in Waiting for Godot. This is what makes the discussions (of corpses, in this particular case) so disturbing, but it reiterates a main thematic point of the play: that death in fact is arbitrary and without justification.
Estragon draws Vladimir towards the tree. They stand motionless before it. Silence.
ESTRAGON
Why don't we hang ourselves?
VLADIMIR
With what?
ESTRAGON
You haven't got a bit of rope?
VLADIMIR
No.
ESTRAGON
Then we can't.
Silence. (2.853-8)
In light of Vladimir’s earlier conclusion, whether or not he and Estragon kill themselves here is a moot point. Life is meaningless regardless of death (because it is deadened by habit), so it doesn’t matter if they have a rope or not.
ESTRAGON
What's all this about? Abused who?
VLADIMIR
The Saviour.
ESTRAGON
Why?
VLADIMIR
Because he wouldn't save them.
ESTRAGON
From hell?
VLADIMIR
Imbecile! From death.
ESTRAGON
I thought you said hell.
VLADIMIR
From death, from death. (1.73-80)
For readers of the Bible, there wouldn’t be a difference between saving the thieves from Hell and saving them from death. Vladimir takes a secular approach to universally important matters—in this case, death—and attempts to understand them through religious means.