Who is Godot and who are the characters in Waiting for Godot?

As the dramatis personae at the beginning of the text
indicates, there are five characters seen on stage in Waiting for
Godot.

Vladimir and Estragon are two clowns (in the colloquial sense
of the word). They spend their days in idle banter waiting for a mysterious Godot -- who
neither man has ever actually met or seen, but whom both (at times) are convinced will
be arriving at the tree on the corner of a road where they currently
reside.

Midway through the first act, a loudmouthed slave-driver named
Pozzo arrives. Didi and Gogo mistakenly believe Pozzo to be Godot, but he soon assures
them in no uncertain terms that this is not the case. In the second act, Pozzo returns
and appears to have suffered a strange twist of fate.

Pozzo is flanked
by Lucky, an elderly bag-carrier who appears at first to be deaf-mute and almost
subhuman. Pozzo swears that Lucky taught him everything he knows, which confuses Didi
and Gogo, and Lucky later launches into a nonsensical monologue, which only serves to
further confuse the two travelers.

The final character who appears
onstage is "the boy," an apparent messenger from Godot himself. The boy brings news to
the men from the unseen Godot. Like Pozzo and Lucky, the boy appears once in each act of
the play.

Godot is never seen onstage. His identity remains largely a
mystery, both to the characters and to the audience. Some have suggested that the
etymology of the character's name indicates that he is, in fact, a "God"(ot) -- while
others have argued that the character is merely symbolic of an eternity spent waiting
for any unseen reward. From the characters perspective, Godot has sent for them (or so
they believe), and has promised to arrive at this predestined spot at this predestined
time (but again, they are increasingly unsure of the validity of this information as the
play unfolds).