FORMS AND FICTIONS OF WAITING: TOWARD A POETICS OF EXPECTATION
FORMS AND FICTIONS OF WAITING: TOWARD A POETICS OF EXPECTATION

Summary/Abstract: Exploring the theme of a poetics of waiting allows us to understand waiting as a fundamental mechanism through which characters construct meaning, shape desire, and negotiate the passage of time. Emma Bovary illustrates a form of waiting nourished by romantic imagination: she projects herself toward an idealized future of passion that reality consistently refuses to deliver, revealing the destructive power of unfulfilled expectation. Madama Butterfly embodies a more sacrificial and faithful mode of waiting, anchored in unwavering trust and emotional devotion; her hope, sustained over years, collapses brutally when confronted with the truth, turning waiting itself into a tragic force. Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, however, redefines waiting by stripping it of purpose or resolution. Vladimir and Estragon exist in a suspended temporality where anticipation becomes an absurd ritual, exposing the emptiness of hope in a world without guarantees. Together, these works demonstrate how waiting can generate illusion, sustain identity, or expose existential voids, confirming its central role in a poetics of waiting that interrogates the fragile tension between hope, reality, and human desire.

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