ESTRAGON
We've no rights any more?
Laugh of Vladimir, stifled as before, less the smile.
VLADIMIR
You'd make me laugh if it wasn't prohibited.
ESTRAGON
We've lost our rights?
VLADIMIR
(distinctly) We got rid of them. (1.236-239)
That Vladimir says this last line "distinctly" is interesting; he at this moment appears to understand what has otherwise been beyond his grasp: that the men cannot leave because they consciously decide not to. If they have no rights, it is because they decided to get rid of them. All compulsory restrictions, then, are at the core a self-inflicted choice.
ESTRAGON
Excuse me, Mister, the bones, you won't be wanting the bones?
Lucky looks long at Estragon.
POZZO
(in raptures) Mister! (Lucky bows his head.) Reply! Do you want them or don't you? (Silence of Lucky. To Estragon.) They're yours. (Estragon makes a dart at the bones, picks them up and begins to gnaw them.) (1.384-5).
Lucky is incapable of making a decision, therefore one is made for him. In a sense, this is what makes Lucky lucky – the burden of responsibility has been taken from his shoulders as a condition of his servitude.
ESTRAGON
Then adieu.
POZZO
Adieu.
VLADIMIR
Adieu.
POZZO
Adieu.
Silence. No one moves.
VLADIMIR
Adieu.
POZZO
Adieu.
ESTRAGON
Adieu.
Silence.
[…]
POZZO
I don't seem to be able . . . (long hesitation) . . . to depart.
ESTRAGON
Such is life. (1.670-684)
It is Estragon, NOT Vladimir, who makes the connection here: there is a barrier between a choice to act and the actual action itself.