Waiting for Godot

With so few other unique items found on the stage, those props that the text describes in detail take on an added importance. Vladimir, Estragon, and Lucky all wear hats. They are interchangeable, switching back and forth between the characters as they are lost and found. As Vladimir finds Lucky’s hat and switches it for his own, there is the suggestion that this is not the first time that this has happened. Ultimately, whose hat belongs to whom is a meaningless distinction.

Though Lucky is mostly silent throughout the play, Pozzo informs Vladimir and Estragon that they must give him the hat if they want him to perform. For Lucky, it seems, the hat is transformative. When it is on his head, he is able to speak; when it is removed, he falls silent once again. The next day, when he appears on stage after losing his hat, Pozzo informs Vladimir that Lucky is now mute. The hat—and the change it precipitated in Lucky —is lost.

At the beginning of the second act, Vladimir and Estragon perform a complicated series of hat switches in which they swap three hats between themselves.