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.
Of the many themes and philosophies that Camus struggled with during his life and presented to the world through his writings, one of the more prevalent was that of the absurd. According to Camus, the world, human existence, and a God are all absurd phenomenons, devoid of any redeeming meaning or purpose. Through Mersaults’ epiphany in The Stranger, where he opens himself to the “gentle indifference of the world”, we see how Camus understands the world to be a place of nothingness, which demands and desires nothing from humans. He further explores this philosophy in The Plague, where the world of indifference is understood as a world of fear, which takes a symbolically tangible form in the plague itself. In The Plague the citizens of Oran fear that which they cannot control, understand or fight. They are faced with the most fundamental experiences of life and death, and it is only in the end that a very few find a way to cope with and understand these two ultimatums.
From the moment that the curtain rises, Waiting for Godot assumes an unmistakably absurdist identity. On the surface, little about the plot of the play seems to suggest that the actions seen on stage could or would ever happen. At the very least, the process of waiting hardly seems like an ideal focus of an engaging and entertaining production. Yet it is precisely for this reason that Beckett’s tale of two men, whose only discernable goal in life is to wait for a man known simply as Godot, is able to connect with the audience’s emotions so effectivel...
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
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]
Chekhov is the true precursor of the theater of the absurd. Before the beckettian "waiting" there was the continuous "waiting" of the three sisters who never live for Moscow. Chekhov developed an aesthetic principle, according to which tragic and comic are not separated by an impassable wall but represent two sides of the same phenomenon of life, which can be viewed both in terms of tragedy and in terms of comedy.
The plots were different. The dramatists believed that the human existence is absurd and they used comedy in their plays such as ,Beckett's Waiting for Godot,(1953) (Drabble3). Beckett has tackled political themes in his plays such as, Catastrophe (1982), and What Where (1983) which deals with torture and totalitarian. Beckett's plays are not intellectually understood. Besides, irony was used in his works and his plays are closed compositions. The characters from the beginning until the end remain the same without development. In the Absurd Theatre the writers selected strange names for their works in order to reflect their rejection of the norms and the conventional values (Innes428-31). As for the Naturalistic Theatre, it rejects the natural laws. The naturalists and the realists share the same idea that the issues of the middle and lower classes should be tackled in the literary works. The writers at that time focused on the influence of the economic and material environment (drabble
In the first chapter Esslin deems all common definitions of drama as lacking and insufficient since they overlook dramatic genres that are not staged. He thus draws heavily on those who regard live theatre as the only true form of drama. And yet Esslin does not state his own definition. He instead declares that drama should not have ...
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.
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.
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.
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 .
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.
“Although works of the theater of the absurd, particularly Beckett’s, are often comical, their underlying premises are wholly serious: the epistemological principle of uncertainty and the inability in the modern age to find a coherent system of meaning, order, or purpose by which to understand our existence and by which to live” (Hutchings 28).
The theme of absurdity can also be judged by the structure of the play. There is no change in the plot and actions performed by the two characters, no change in the setting. Rather the only thing which the audiences can have a sense of is that the two characters waiting and waiting, there is no such beginning, middle and end, as in other plays. The structure goes on like this in the first act:
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.