Human Values Versus Technology in Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Freud's Civilization and its Discontents
One of the most significant and wondrous features of today's society is the progress that has occurred with the passing of years and generations. Never before has humanity witnessed the technological advances that are now transpiring. Such advances encompass almost every facet of life as humanity knows it: from biomedical engineering to the exploration of outer-space. Science has proven to be beneficial to life as well as to the expansion of the mind. However, civilization is not in need solely of scientific revolutions. As the famous Beckett and Freud have implied in their literary works, humanity has not lost touch with innate human values that have been intrinsically bestowed upon it. These values, implicitly stated in the works created by Beckett and Freud, are the need for companionship, and purpose and meaning in life.
The ideas of companionship and meaning in life are ubiquitous in Beckett's play Waiting for Godot. Much of the play is a mockery of the condition humanity would be faced with in a meaningless world. The four main characters in the play, Vladimir, Estragon, Pozzo, and Lucky, undeniably represent the lazy side of humanity in that they spend their lives waiting for something elusive that evidently will not ever appear. By the end of the play, Vladimir and Estragon are still hoping for this arrival, and there has been no trace of it. This demonstrates the futility of spending so much time anticipating an event that is not likely to happen, given previous experience. Beckett's play is therefore a mockery of the human value of purpose and meaning in life.
Not only does Beckett's play ...
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With the progress of new knowledge and technology, it seems reasonable that human values would advance as well. This, however, has not proven to be the case. Instead, the values that are innate to humanity have remained firmly established since the beginning of time. For example, people are still seeking the meaning of life in religion, as they did thousands of years ago, even though there has not been any discovery that has supported religion. In addition, people still seek companionship in the form of dating, families, sex, and friendship. Companionship has not become obsolete with the advancement of technology, and the way companionship is viewed has not adapted to the realities in society. As much as technology and science have contributed, a value as simple as acceptance of diversity has not progressed nearly as much.
Federal Way Public Academy is an alternative college preparatory school that is a part of the Federal Way Public School System. The school’s program offers a traditional academic curriculum for every student in every subject, and the Public Academy uses rigorous, academic instruction to prepare students for college.
Students may easily lose their attention and concentration with easy access to such incredibly rich store of information. With such new technologies as television, internet and social networks, people nowadays tend to multitask more often as they have easy access to a large amount of information. However, such easy access may sometimes be a distraction. Study “Your Brain on Computers” reports that heavy multitaskers perform up to 20% worse on most tests compared to performance of light multitaskers. Working efficiency of people, who multitask, is claimed to be significantly lower. The same is with concentration. (Crovitz 353) As a result, they are not engaged in working process. Students tend to be easily distr...
Moreover, Carr’s article mentions that by using technology of any kind, users tend to embody the characteristics stimulated by that technology. He says that given that the Internet processes information almost immediately, users will tend to value immediacy. To explain, Carr gives the example of a friend of his named Scott Karp who was a literary major on college and who used to be an avid book reader. However, since the arrival of the Internet, Karp skim articles online because he could no longer read as much as he used too. He cannot pay attention and absorb long texts ever since he read online articles. Internet...
Science and Human Values in Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents
In Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Henry James’ The Beast In the Jungle the theme of waiting for life to come to you is apparent. Waiting as oppose to taking ambition and determining your life for yourself is a problem present in both of these works. Waiting for Godot and The Beast In the Jungle take two relatively similar stances on the theme of waiting, but they differ in the way the two works present the problem of waiting and how the problem of waiting presents their views on the world.
Humans spend their lives searching and creating meaning to their lives, Beckett, however, takes a stand against this way of living in his novel ‘Waiting for Godot’. He questions this ideal of wasting our lives by searching for a reason for our existence when there is not one to find. In his play, he showcases this ideology through a simplistic and absence of setting and repetitious dialogue. Beckett’s ability to use these key features are imperative to his ability of conveying his message of human entrapment and existence.
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot : tragicomedy in 2 acts. New York: Grove Press, 1982. Print.
Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: tragicomedy in 2 acts. New York: Grove Press, 1982. Print.
Samuel Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot between October 1948 and January 1949. Since its premiere in January of 1953, it has befuddled and confounded critics and audiences alike. Some find it to be a meandering piece of drivel; others believe it to be genius. Much of the strain between the two sides stems from one simple question. What does this play mean? Even within camps where Waiting for Godot is heralded, the lack of clarity and consensus brings about a tension and discussion that has lasted over sixty years.
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...
We live on a planet revolving around the sun, while there are at least about one septillion other stars in this universe. What is the significance of our existence in this infinite cosmos? What is the purpose of our lives? With the explosion of scientific knowledge and the WWII bombs in the modernity epoch, the insignificance of our lives was realized; Samuel Becket staged the futility of human existence in the play Waiting for Godot. He portrayed nothingness through the use of structure, language, dialogue, and setting. He further demonstrated that the lives of the two characters Vladimir and Estragon takes meaning when they wait for the ambiguous Godot. In order to be relieved from the crippling question of existence, they occupy themselves with meaningless activities. Due to the lack of a plot in Waiting for Godot, one can deduce that perhaps Beckett is referring to the futility of human existence in general.
Absurdism, a very well known term in the era of modern theatre has played a very significant role in the field of dramas. It’s significance and its presence in the modern theatre has created all together a different and a specific area in the world of theatre widely known as “the theater of the absurd”. Theatre of absurd was given its place in 1960’s by the American critic Martin Esslin. In a thought to make the audiences aware that there is no such true order or meaning in the world of their existence. It’s an attempt to bring the audiences closer to the reality and help them understand their own meaning in life.
Samuel Beckett was Nobel Prize winning author, a modernist, the last true modernist according to many.
This online article was useful for my research because it showed how over use of technology impact on people. This article also gives background information on internet addiction and internet dependence. The source is one of the best sources used in my research due to the fact that it had some of the basic information about the harmful effect of becoming so much dependent on technology.
Although Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot, has no definite meaning or interpretation, the play acts as a statement of hopelessness regarding human existence. Debate surrounds the play because, due to its simplicity, almost any interpretation is valid. The main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, are aging men who must wait for a person, being, or object named Godot, but this entity never appears to grace the men with this presence. Both characters essentially demonstrate how one must go through life when hope is nonexistent as they pointlessly attempt to entertain themselves with glum conversation in front of a solitary tree. The Theater of the Absurd, a prevalent movement associated with Waiting for Godot, serves as the basis for the message of hopelessness in his main characters. Samuel Beckett's iconic Waiting for Godot and his perception of the characteristics and influence of the Theater of the Absurd illustrate the pointlessness and hopelessness regarding existence. In the play, boredom is mistaken for hopelessness because the men have nothing to do, as they attempt to occupy themselves as, for some reason, they need to wait for Godot. No hope is present throughout the two-act play with little for Estragon and Vladimir to occupy their time while they, as the title indicates, wait for Godot.