ESTRAGON
(feebly) Help me!
VLADIMIR
It hurts?
ESTRAGON
(angrily) Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts!
VLADIMIR
(angrily) No one ever suffers but you. I don't count. I'd like to hear what you'd say if you had what I have.
ESTRAGON
It hurts?
VLADIMIR
(angrily) Hurts! He wants to know if it hurts! (1.23-28)
One of the barriers preventing an authentic friendship between these two men is that neither can truly understand what it means for the other to suffer. This sounds a lot like the primary thesis of The Plague, the existentialist work of fiction published just one year before Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot.
ESTRAGON
(restored to the horror of his situation) I was asleep! (Despairingly) Why will you never let me sleep?
VLADIMIR
I felt lonely.
ESTRAGON
I had a dream.
VLADIMIR
Don't tell me!
ESTRAGON
I dreamt that—
VLADIMIR
DON'T TELL ME!
ESTRAGON
(gesture toward the universe) This one is enough for you? (Silence.) It's not nice of you, Didi. Who am I to tell my private nightmares to if I can't tell them to you?
VLADIMIR
Let them remain private. You know I can't bear that. (1.146-153)
Here we see the incredibly contradictory nature of Vladimir’s relationship with Estragon. He wakes him up for company, but can’t commit emotionally to listening to the workings of Estragon’s subconscious (i.e., his dreams).
ESTRAGON
(coldly) There are times when I wonder if it wouldn't be better for us to part.
VLADIMIR
You wouldn't go far. (1.154-5)
Vladimir speaks repeatedly of Estragon’s dependence on him. At times this seems warranted, but at other times we wonder whether he isn’t just assigning a physical dependence to Estragon when he himself is emotionally dependent on the presence of another.