Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Comparison between Greek theatre and modern theatre
Humor in a shakespeare play
Essay on theatre of the absurd
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Comparison between Greek theatre and modern theatre
The theatre of the absurd encompasses a form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing repetitious, meaningless dialogues and confusing situations, breaking the logical development, giving way to irrational and illogical speeches. A godless universe, human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. The theatre of the absurd is sometimes defined it as a “working hypothesis”, a device, instead of a real movement. Martin Esslin in his book the “Theatre of Absurd” quotes that absurdist theatre has renounced arguing about the absurdity of the human condition; it merely presents it in being- in terms of concrete stage images”. He indicated too, the influence of Camus’ Existentialism behind the absurd, with the idea that men are trapped in a hostile universe that was totally subjective, describing the nightmare that could follow when solitude and silence were taken to the ultimate degree.
Humour within absurdist plays is often found as black humour in which disturbing or sinister subjects like death, disease, or warfare, are treated with bitter amusement, usually in a manner calculated to offend and shock. In absurd theatre it is used to express the absurdity, insensitivity, paradox, and cruelty of the modern world. ‘Waiting for Godot’ by Samuel Beckett and ‘The Real Inspector Hound’ by Tom Stoppard. The plays are constructed into the form of meta-theatre, blurring the line between what is scripted and what goes on by accident, completely demolishing the “fourth wall" and engaging the audience. Both plays draw on Greek Theatre, with their small number of actors and absent divinity, including some ingredients from “commedia dell’arte”, vaudeville, and circus.
Waiting for Godot" is all about how the world is based on chance. A world based on chance can have no orderly time sequence, and thus time has no meaning. The extension, then, is that human life has no meaning. Realizing this, humans will create distractions and diversions, in the form of patterns and reliance on nebulous forces, to provide the purpose and meaning that is inherently lacking in their lives. "Waiting for Godot" is the classical, archetypical presentation of this facet of human existence. Although Waiting for Godot' is seen to be very depressing and contains many elements which may mark it as a tragedy, the four characters create a great deal of humour in their mannerisms and their behaviour. Waiting for Godot is a play on human emotions and character which may give off feelings of despair, yet also of humour simultaneously.
Beckett did not view and express the problem of Absurdity in any form of philosophical theory (he never wrote any philosophical essays, as Camus or Sartre did), his expression is exclusively the artistic language of theatre. In this chapter, I analyse the life situation of Beckett's characters finding and pointing at the parallels between the philosophical background of the Absurdity and Beckett's artistic view.
In ‘Waiting for Godot’, we know little concerning the protagonists, indeed from their comments they appear to know little about themselves and seem bewildered and confused as to the extent of their existence. Their situation is obscure and Vladimir and Estragon spend the day (representative of their lives) waiting for the mysterious Godot, interacting with each other with quick and short speech.
The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard For this unit, the play which we are studying is "The Real Inspector." Hound" written by Tom Stoppard, an English playwright famous for his clever use of language and ironic political metaphors. Stoppard was associated theatre of the absurd, and often his play referred to the meaninglessness of the human condition. He combined English tradition of the "comedy of manners" (a play that attacks the customs).
Albert Camus considers absurdity to be a fight, a force pushing between our mind’s desire to have meaning and understanding and the blank empty world beyond. In argument with Nagel, Camus stated “I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world.”[1] He continues that there are specific human experiences evoking notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with a choice: suicide, a leap of faith, or recognition. He concludes that recognition, or realization, is the only defensible option.[2]The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it.[3]
A basic human drive that appears in “Waiting for Godot” includes one of exisiting. After the men wait for Godot, which whom is never going to show up, they go through the same experiences over and over. They ask the same people about the same things and stay in the same spot the entire time. It is giving the readers an example of existence. The men need to discover the meaning of life through their own personal experiences throughout the world instead of waiting around and hoping for answers.
Life is made up of different routines and schedules that are followed by the ordinary human being daily. In ‘Waiting for Godot’, Samuel Beckett uses time and repetition consistently throughout the play to demonstrate how these routines and habits are key elements in the course of life itself. The three main devices Beckett uses are the illogical pass of time, the lack of a past or a future and the absurdity of repetition in both dialogue and actions within the main characters and their surroundings.
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot has been said by many people to be a long book about nothing. The two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, spend all their time sitting by a tree waiting for someone named Godot, whose identity is never revealed to the audience. It may sound pretty dull at first but by looking closely at the book, it becomes apparent that there is more than originally meets the eye. Waiting for Godot was written to be a critical allegory of religious faith, relaying that it is a natural necessity for people to have faith, but faiths such as Catholicism are misleading and corrupt.
Irish-born French author Samuel Beckett was well known for his use of literary devices such as black comedy in his various literary works. Written during late 1948 and early 1949 and premiered as a play in 1953 as En attendant Godot, Beckett coupled these devices with minimalism and absurdity in order to create the tragicomedy known to English speakers as Waiting for Godot. True to its title, Waiting for Godot is the tale of a pair of best friends known as Vladimir (Didi) and Estragon (Gogo) who are waiting for the character the audience comes to know as Godot to appear. Throughout Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett alludes to the monotheistic religion of Christianity through symbols, dialogue, and characters to reveal the heavy invisible influence of God in the daily life of man.
The problem with designating Beckett's work as Absurdist is, precisely, that this interpretation reduces his work. When a critic describes a work as "Absurd," she does not simply mean that the work is "outrageous" or "nonsensical" or merely silly. Coined by American critic Martin Esslin, the term "theater of the Absurd" can be defined as a kind of drama that presents a view of the absurdity of the human condition by the abandoning of usual or rational devices and by the use of nonrealistic form..Conceived in perplexity and spiritual anguish, the theater of the absurd portrays not a series of connected incidents telling a story but a pattern of images presenting people as bewildered beings in an incomprehensible universe. Holman 2. In the introduction to The Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Esslin provides a comprehensive explanation of "Absurdist" theater.
Melodramas were slowly pushed out of the metaphorical spotlight as Realism and Naturalism took its place. Naturalism is a philosophy of being able to put a ‘slice of life’ on stage (Hartnoll (ed.) 1967, p. 67); that is, a small piece of everyday life, as if the audience wasn’t there. Naturalism was a leader into the modernist period and was considered a revolutionary movement of the time. Naturalism was a new and improved kind of theatre, often confused with and mistaken for realism, which, in itself is a very similar type of theatre that began to emerge alongside Naturalism in the late 19th Century. Realism is the practise of Naturalism’s ideology; Naturalism being the theory of putting a ‘slice of life’ onstage; once something is placed on stage it is no longer ‘natural’, therefore Naturalism can never be created on a live performance stage. Realism however, is the practise of this theory in which the stage is made to look as close to real life a possible, accompanied by psychological development of characters rather than physical development, accompanied by extravagant stages, costuming and make-up, common in the melodramas seen before realism became
At the centre of the existential angst, dominating the great movements of life, there lays an essential absurdity. England in the aftermath of the two wars inherited this absurdity that upheld the human predicament in a world where “nobody thinks, nobody cares. No beliefs, no convictions and no enthusiasm.” Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus diagnoses humanity’s plight as purposeless in an existence out of harmony with its surroundings. This irrationality and pointlessness of experience is transferred to the stage where by all semblance of logical construction and all intellectually viable argument is abundant. In the same strain, developed the Angry Plays of the Theatre of the Absurd. Beckett, Adamor and Pinter with the difference of attempting
The absurdist plays Waiting for Godot written by Samuel Beckett and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead written by Tom Stoppard both incorporate human needs and concerns within their context through its whimsical and comedic dialogues. Both plays belong in the category of the theatre of the absurd, where the existentialist philosophy underlies all aspects of the plays. The central characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead share a deep friendship, this same friendship can also be seen within the relationship between Vladimir and Estragon who are the protagonists in Waiting for Godot. Beckett and Stoppard playfully express friendship and camaraderie throughout their plays, while both sets of characters delve deeper into human needs as it illustrates the dependency for one another that each character relies on .
The theme of futility is further reflected in the cyclical nature of the dialogue in the sense that nothing appears to change and everything is simply repeated, their conversation never reached a definitive conclusion they are ultimately still ‘waiting for Godot’ and longing for answers. The concept of time is used very successfully by Beckett in order to highlight and develop the theme of futility in ‘Waiting for Godot.’ Time can be seen as a very fluid concept in the sense that the audience is never made aware of how l...
Throughout literature, much has been assumed and gathered about the state of man and his purpose in life. Different poets, novelists, and playwrights have employed the powerful tools of language to broadcast their respective statement to the literate world. Many authors stand out for their overly romanticized or horribly pessimistic notations on life, but only Samuel Beckett stands out for his portrayal of absence. As Democritus, a Greek philosopher, noted, "nothing is more real than nothing," a quote which became one of Beckett's favorites and an inspiration for his masterful plays (Hughes 1). Beckett's works have astounded many through their utter divergence from the typical basis of a play. His blatant discount for the traditional concepts of character development, setting, time, and sequence of events distinguish Beckett's plays from a myriad of themed dramas. Because of such breaks from the standard, the message of Beckett's plays rings clearly. In his ground breaking play Waiting for Godot, Beckett describes two men, Estragon and Vladimir, who come to a rock and a tree beside a road and wait for an unknown "Godot" in vain day after day, idly making frivolous conversation and casually meeting another pair of characters, Pozzo and Lucky, who pass by daily. His follow up play, Endgame, creates a similar scenario with a blind, chair-bound man, Hamm, and his servantile friend, Clov, stuck in a room characterized only by two high windows and two ashbins housing Hamm's parents, Nagg and Nell. Such unusual plays portray the American Theatre of the Absurd perfectly. In both Waiting for Godot and Endgame, Samuel Beckett expertly incorporates nonconformist setting and dual chara...
The term ‘comedy of menace’ is applied to a group of plays in which comedy is intertwined with elements of tragedy. The term was first used by David Campton as a subtitle of one of his plays, The Lunatic View: A Comedy of Menace. Though both comedy and tragedy are based on incongruities and contradictions, the driving force in comedy is humour and the driving force in tragedy is horror and menace. In comedy the humour is generated through dramatic techniques such as divergences, repetitiveness, surprise, illogical events and statements that often lead to outcomes which are quite contrary to what the audience expect and thereby cause laughter and amusement. In comedy of menace, two contradictory