1 EXORDIUM: Before going for the discussion of the main topic, one may know about the term Absurd. So, what absurd means? According to Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary, Anything which is completely ridiculous, not logical and sensible is absurd, While Merriam- Webster defines it as ridiculously unreasonable and unsound. There are many synonyms for the term absurd e.g. bizarre, crazy, insane, nonsensical, unreal, wild etc. The term absurd derives from Middle French Absurde, from Latin Absurdus, meaning Out of tune, hence irrational. The Latin Surdus means deaf, implying stupidity [Wikipedia.org]. Absurd is contrasted with seriousness in reasoning. In specialized usage, absurdity is related to extremes in bad reasoning or pointlessness in reasoning; ridiculousness is related to extremes of incongruous juxtaposition, laughter and ridicule; and nonsense is related to a lack of meaningfulness [Wikipedia.org]. Here, one question may occur in one s mind that what is the relation between the terms absurd and play? THE THEATRE OF ABSURD: During 1950s and 1960s, a particular term became very popular and that is The Theatre of the Absurd. This term refers to a particular type of play which became famous during that period. The phrase, the theatre of the Absurd, coined by Hungarian-born critic Martin Esslin in his same book The Theatre of the Absurd (1962). Actually Esslin took this phrase from Albert Camus essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). In The Myth of the Sisyphus, Camus argued that humanity had to resign itself to recognizing that a fully satisfying rational explanation of the universe is beyond its reach, the world must ultimately be seen as absurd. The existentialist philosopher Albert Camus and other philosophers such as Jean Paul Sartre used the term absurd to express their inability to find any rational explanation for human life [Aqsa Sabir, Waiting for Godot, Scribd].
Camus defines the absurd as the tension which emerges from man s determination to discover purpose and order in a world which steadfastly refuses to evidence either. In his book The Theatre of the Absurd, Esslin uses a quote from Eugene Ionesco to illustrate his use of the term: Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose...cut off his Religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, Man Is lost, all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless. Ionesco here expresses the thoughts that were being voiced by many philosophers and writers. People were become disillusioned and were losing faith in the beliefs that had once sustained them. Friedrich Nietzsche had declared that God is Dead and the World- Wars had shaken the fundamental laws of life, which shows the total impermanence of any values, shook the validity of any conventions and highlighted the precariousness of human life and its fundamental meaninglessness and arbitrariness. The trauma of living from 1945 under the threat of nuclear annihilation also seems to have been an important factor in the rise of the new theatre. People no longer had a strong sense of purpose of identity; they were lost without direction or guidance. At the same time, The Theatre of the Absurd also seems to have been a reaction to the disappearance of the religious dimensions from contemporary life. The Absurd Theatre can be seen as an attempt restore the importance of myth and ritual to our age, by making man aware of the ultimate realities of cosmic wonder and primeval anguish. The Absurd Theatre hopes to achieve this by shocking man out of an existence that has become trite, mechanical and complacent. It is felt that there is mystical experience in confronting the limits of human condition. 2
3 ABSURD DRAMA: Absurd drama is the drama that deals with the absurdities and inescapable of life. It is characterized by illogical situations, unconventional dialogues, minimal and nearly non-existent plots, fantasy sequences etc. Absurd drama is sometimes comic on the surface, but the humor is infused with underlying pessimism about the human condition. Plays within the groups are absurd in that they focus not on logical acts, occurrences, or traditional character development; they, instead, focus on human beings trapped in an incomprehensible world subject to any occurrence, no matter how illogical. The theme of incomprehensibility is coupled with the inadequacy of language to form meaningful human connections. PLOT: Traditional plot structures are rarely a consideration in the Theatre of the Absurd. Plot can consist of the absurd repetition of Cliché and routine, as in Godot for the Bald Soprano. Absence, emptiness, nothingness, and unresolved mysteries are central features in many absurdist play for example, in The Chairs, an old couple welcomes a large number of guests to their home, but these guests are invisible so all we see is empty chairs, a representation of their absence. Likewise, the action of Godot is centered on the absence of a man named Godot, for whom the characters perpetually wait. Plots are frequently cyclical, for example, Endgame begins where the play ended- at the beginning of the play Clov says, Finished, nearly finished, it must be nearly finished - and themes of cycle, routine and repetition are explored throughout. CHARACTERS: The characters in Absurd drama are lost and floating in an incomprehensible universe and they abandon rational devices and discursive thoughts because these approaches are inadequate. Many characters appear as auto automatons stuck in routines speaking only in Cliché.
Characters in Absurd drama are frequently stereotypical, archetypal, or flat character types. The more complex characters are in crisis because the world around them is incomprehensible. In many of Pinter s plays, feature characters trapped in enclosed space menaced by some force the character can t understand. LANGUAGE: One of the most important aspects of Absurd drama is its distrust of language as a means of communication. Words failed to express the essence of human experience, not being able to penetrate beyond its surface. Absurd drama uses conventionalized speeches, clichés, slogans and technical jargon, which are distorts, parodies and breaks down. By ridiculing conventionalized and stereotypical speech pattern, the theatre of Absurd tries to make people aware of the possibility of going beyond everyday speech conventions and communicating more authenticity. Language frequently gains a certain phonetic, rhythmical, almost musical quality, opening up a wide range of often comedic playfulness. Despite its reputation for nonsense language, much of the dialogues in absurdist plays are naturalistic, this make the Theatre of Absurd distinctive. 4 ABSURD PLAYWRIGHTS: There are many playwrights whose works can be described as absurd. Some major absurd dramatists are Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, and Harold Pinter. Other playwrights associated with this type of theatre are Tom Stoppard, Fernando Arrabal, Edward Albee, Boris Vian, Peter Weiss and Vaclav Havel.
5 AN ICONOCLAST PLAYWRIGHT: Samuel Barclay Beckett had born on 13 th April, 1906 in Fox rock, Dublin, Ireland. He was a novelist, poet, essayist, theatre-director, and a playwright. He was the first playwright, who started to write absurd dramas. Beckett is an iconoclast and an image-breaker. He has shattered conventions and pioneered a new kind of drama. His drama is above the category of tragedy and comedy, above the classification of divisions, above message, above entertainment. It does not teach lessons, it does not preach, it does not do any propaganda. His plays show the situations in which we all are; they expose us in our existential predicament, watching a Beckett play is no more entertainment. It is a total involvement of personality, for his plays are total theatre. It is pointless to look for a logical, universal message behind Beckett s work. Beckett presents an experience, not an argument; truth, not a statement. A typical Beckett play has certain recognizable characteristics which differentiate it from the works of other writers. They have no plot or action in the ordinary sense of the world. Nothing really happens in them. Their lack of surface meaning is meant to reflect the utter meaninglessness of modern existence. There is a little movement on the stage-in some plays there is no movement at all. Beckett s characters are without past or future. They are timeless creations. They exist as long as they have come to the situation in which one finds them. The concept of the hero in the traditional sense is not really applicable to Beckett s play. Since, among other things, many of his plays give attention to more than one character. His language is so bare and functional that he seems to devalue it, yet this only a surface impression, for only a real master of language could be content to use words so simple and austere. In fact, a historian of the twentieth century poetic drama goes to extent of saying that the best poetic drama of the century is to be found in Beckett s prose plays.
6 Beckett wrote many works in his life. They are: 1. Murphy 1938 2. Molloy 1951 3. Malone Dies 1951 4. The Unnamable 1953 5. Waiting for Godot 1953 6. Watt 1953 7. Endgame 1957 8. Krapp s Last Tape 1958 9. How It Is 1961 [R.L.Varshney, Publication, Laxmi Narain Agarwal] Waiting For Godot, Narain s THE IMAGE-BREAKING PLAY: There are two plots in Waiting for Godot. Act-1 begins on a country road near a tree. It is evening. Estragon, an elderly man, sits on a low mound trying to remove his boot. Vladimir, another elderly man, joins himthey are half tramps-half clowns. They begin to chat. They have apparently known each-other for years. Once perhaps respectable, they are now homeless, debilitated, and often suicidal. They wonder out loud why they did not kill themselves. Years ago; they consider the possibility of doing it today. They are waiting for someone they call Godot, while they wait, they share conversation, food and memories. Two other elderly men, Pozzo and Lucky, arrive on the scene. It is clear that Pozzo is the master and Lucky is the slave. Upon command, the slave dances and thinks out loud for the entertainment of the others, until he is forcibly silenced. After Pozzo and Lucky depart, a boy arrives. He tells Estragon and Vladimir that Godot will not come today, but will be there tomorrow. He leaves, and they continue to wait. The second act is almost the same as the first. The tree has sprouted leaves, Estragon and Vladimir chat while they waiting for Godot, and Pozzo and Lucky arrive again. This time, Pozzo is blind and helpless, and Lucky is mute.
After some interaction, Pozzo and Lucky leave, and the boy arrive. He has the same message as before. Godot will be there tomorrow. Estragon and Vladimir are left to wait as before. The sun sets; the moon rises abruptly: the two men again contemplate suicide; and then, despite their agreement to leave make no movement as the curtain falls. [E-notes.com] PLOT: The most famous, and the most controversial absurdist play is probably Waiting for Godot. In traditional drama there is development of story while in Waiting for Godot there is no story, no plot, and nothing happens. In this play characters interact to fill their time, pauses and silence are as important as words. The quarrel, they put on or off boots (Estragon) or hat (Vladimir). They speak but not to communicate something, they just fill up the time to avoid silence. SETTING AND CHARACTERS: The setting of Waiting for Godot is a country-road, a bare tree. This setting sustains till the end. There are two tramps Estragon (go go) and Vladimir (di di). There are also other two tramps: Pozzo (the boss) and Lucky (the slave). There is a small boy who announcing the arrival of Godot and Godot never comes in the play. Godot may recall the idea of God (in French= little god ). Got +. (Dot)- they want to go but they do not move). Actually Beckett never said it was god. The characters are just waiting for Godot. Godot is something/someone that could relieve man from an unbearable situation. The tramps had no defined personality or social class. Estragon is also known as Go Go and Vladimir as Di Di (two different aspects of the same personality= body (go go) and mind (di di). They need each-other. Vladimir is more intellectual, he plays with his hat. Estragon has to do with corporal activities (he is angry, sleepy, he always complains, he is beaten by someone during the night. Pozzo is the boss (the oppressor/ the power of the body), Lucky is slave (the power of the mind, he can speak- when his hat is on). Godot is the savior or the saving event that never comes. LANGUAGE: There is incoherent babbling, puns, and gags in Waiting for Godot. There are many pauses, miming, and silence in it. The language they use is often ludicrous, and following the cyclical pattern. What happens on the stage is often contradicted by the words spoken by the protagonists. 7
It includes a grotesque humor (irony about everything because everything is equal meaningless). It may be consider as tragic-comedy. Estragon and Vladimir would like to commit suicide to put an end to their absurd, desperate situation, while there is no tragic end, they fail, and they can t escape from their existential situation. Its tone is tragic and desperate. TIME: There is no development in time. No past, no future, the character do not remember their past or figure-out their future. One day is similar to the following. First act is almost identical to the second. 8 Structurally, Waiting for Godot is a one-act play which is primarily cyclical. It begins with two lonely tramps on a road-side, who are awaiting the arrival of a figure referred to as Godot and ends with the same premise [Crina Mariana Jude, Waiting for Godot, Scribd]. Many critics concluded that act-two is simply a repeat of act-one. In other words, Vladimir and Estragon may forever be waiting for Godot; we are never given an answer to their predicament [Crina Mariana Jude, Waiting for Godot, Scribd]. As an audience, we can only watch them do the same things, listen to them say the same things, and accept the fact that Godot may or may not come. Much like them, we struck in a world where our actions dictate our survival. We may search for an answer or a meaning to our existence [Crina Mariana Jude, Waiting for Godot, Scribd]. Anthony Jenkins writes, There can be no answer, Godot may or may not exist And may or may not arrive, we know no more about Him than do Vladimir and Estragon. [Crina Mariana Jude, Waiting for Godot, Scribd]. Thus, this play is structurally arranged in such a way as to make us believe that Godot will probably never come, and that we must accept the uncertainty of life.
Beckett conveys a sense of hopelessness and absurdity of modern life in his depiction of two men passing time, as they vainly wait for the title character to arrive. The play is not a story about life, but rather the condition of living, being itself a metaphor for what Beckett saw as the mental state of the twentieth century [Crina Mariana Jude, Waiting for Godot, Scribd]. The apparent simplicity of the play is deceptive, for the text can be read at multiple levels and is densely filled with usual and linguistic symbolism, drawing on Freudian psychology, Christian mythology, and various philosophical outlooks. Beckett calls the play a tragicomedy through which he wants to suggest that since life is so strange and impossible to comprehend, laughter might be the only sane response to it [Crina Mariana Jude, Waiting for Godot, Scribd]. The play challenged the most theatrical expectation of its time with tits illogical plot, purposeless action, virtually non-existent set, and repetitive language, which frequently contradicts the action [Crina Mariana Jude, Waiting for Godot, Scribd]. The play s humor, often bawdy, comes from farcical stage action, wordplay, and defeated expectancy (where we are tricked into expecting one thing and given other). Its seriousness is conveyed by extended philosophical monologues and the layered symbolism of all we see and here. Characters exchange hats as easily as they exchange roles, depicting the fluidity of the identity, and boots fail to fit, just as lifestyles or religion. A bare tree takes on varying significance, as the denatured tree of life, the site of a crucification that forever changed the world, or as it grows leaves, the possibility of progress [Crina Mariana Jude, Waiting for Godot, Scribd]. Samuel Beckett got Noble Prize for literature in 1969 for his this work. 9
10 CONCLUSION: Beckett s Waiting for Godot is generally considered to be at the forefront of the absurdist movement. It was written during 1945-50, and was first published in 1952 (its original French name is En Attendant Godot ), and was produced in 1952 in Paris. It proved to be a tremendous success; ran for four hundred consecutive evenings. Later on, it was staged at another theatre in Paris. In 1954, Beckett s English translation of the play was published in the U.S.A. the world premiere of the play was performed in London in 1955, on the third of August. It is estimated that a million of people witnessed the performance of the play. It was translated into all major languages of the world. During the70 s it was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. It won its author fame and recognition of an extraordinary nature. The play s supporters describe it as an accurate parable on the human condition in which the more things change, the more they are the same. In 1955, the famous character-actor Robert Morley predicted that the success of Waiting for Godot meant the end of theatre as we know it. His generation may have gloomily accepted this prediction but the younger generation embraced it. They were ready for something new-something that would more beyond the stereotypes and reflect their increasingly complex understanding of existence. As per the term the Theatre of Absurd concerns, there is no organized movement, no school, and no artists, who claim the label for themselves. A good many playwrights have been classed under this label when asked if they belong to the Theatre of the Absurd, will indignantly reply that they belong to no such movement- and quite rightly so. For each of the playwrights conveyed seeks to express no more and no less their own personal vision of the world. [Simone Motta]
11 REFERENCES: 1. Crina Mariana Jude, Absurd Theatre 2. Jerome P. Crabb, Absurd Theatre 3. Aqsa Sabir, Absurd Theatre 4. Philo Derrida, Absurd Theatre 5. Aditya Sahay, Absurd Theatre 6. Simone Motta, Absurd Theatre These six articles has been taken form an application named Scribd. One can download this application from an Android or Apple phone. 7. R. L. Varshney, Waiting for Godot, Narain s Publication, Laxmi Narain Agarwal, Agra. Address: Educational Publisher, Anupam Plaza-1, Block No. 50 Sanjay Place, Agra-282002 Telefax: (0562) 2527448. 8. www.e-notes.com 9. www.wikipedia.com Inspired by: Helped by: 1. Dr. K.G. Rathod, Professor-head of Dept. of English, D.K.V. College, Jamnagar. 1. M.K. Vaishnav.