Paper : 110 Assignment

Paper : 110 Assignment 

"Theatre of Absurd"

Name - Hina Parmar

Batch - M.A. Sem 2 (2022-2024)

Enrollment no - 40692064202221

Roll no - 10

Subject code - 22403

Paper no - 110

Paper - History of English Literature from 1900 to 2000

Email address - hinaparmar612@gmail.com

Submitted to - Smt.S.B. Gardi Department of English M.K.B.U.

Date of submission - 31 march, 2023

This blog is written as  an assignment on paper no - 110 History of English Literature from 1900 to 2000. This assignment is assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir H.O.D of English Department M.K.B.U. In this particular blog I am going to discuss 'Theatre of Absurd'.

Introduction

Basically in the pre-modern world, theater expresses human experience and different scenarios of human life.

The word theater is derived from the Greek word ‘theater on’ which signifies ‘a place for seeing’ that consistently searches for the meaning of life. Theater has the informative and educational features that help in increasing awareness about significant issues, like social, political and educational aspects, and its specific target is audience. Therefore, Bert O states that -

“The real intimacy of the theater is not the intimacy of being within its world, but of being present at its world‘s origination under all the constraints visible and invisible of immediate actuality.”

The modern theater is dealing with life in realistic, naturalistic and surrealistic ways. On the other side the Theater of the Absurd is a new form of drama, it basically originated from France after the Second World War, going beyond superficial rationalizations of the modern drama to find the deeper meaning of life.  Every theater has its own artistic features in respect of its special background and social demands, the Theater of the Absurd uses multiple artistic features to express a tragic theme in a comic form. That's why  the absurdist plays shake up our mindset by revealing the strange isolation of human beings in this modern society.

 Theatre Of Absurd 

Theater of Absurd is a Western phenomenon, and this term was coined by the famous English critic Martin Esslin in his 1961 book 'Theater Of Absurd'. Esslin gave the original meaning of the word that -  'out of  harmony with reason  or propriety,  illogical'. The most important dramatists of the Absurd movements were-

             Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) 

  Arthur Adamov (1908-1970)

             Eugène Ionesco (1909-1994) 

             Jean Genet (1910-1986) 

             Edward Albee (1928) 

             Harold Pinter (1930-2008) 

             Tom Stoppard (1937)

During the 1940s-1960s, this  style of drama was written largely by European playwrights, spreading its popularity beyond France. This style was rebelling against theatrical traditions and this is shaping the characters in an absurd sense to reveal their pessimistic outlook toward life and society. Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, and Bidal Sarcar's Evam Indrajit are best examples of Absurd theater. Most of Absurd plays written during 1940 to 1960.

Theatre  of  the  Absurd  can  best  be  understood  as  a  new combination  of  a number  of  ancient,  even  archaic,  traditions  of  literature  and  drama.

Influences of Absurd Theater

Absurdist  Theatre  was mostly  influenced by  Existential  philosophy.  It  aligned best with the  philosophy in Albert  Camus' essay-

 The  Myth of  Sisyphus (1942)

In  this essay, Camus tried to present a reasonable answer as to why man should not commit suicide  in  face  of  a  meaningless,  absurd  existence.  In this work he also points out that life is meaningless but though humans pretend it is meaningful and to believe that they are continuously giving meaning to life. They tried to find meaning in every aspect of life.

In this work Camus  uses  the  Greek mythological figure, Sisyphus, who was condemned to push a boulder up a mountain, only to have it roll back down. He repeats this futile cycle for all of eternity. At the end of the essay, Camus concludes that, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy". He means that the struggle of  life  alone  should bring one’s happiness. Here man is derived by illusions and feels like a stranger.  He not only is deprived of memories of the familiar world surrounded by him but “lacks the hope of promised land  to  come."

   Themes in Absurd Theater

All Absurdist plays feature a wide variety of subject matter, there are certain themes, or ideas, which recur frequently within the movement. These themes are the product of  a new  attitude  that  swept  post-World  War  II  Europe.  It  consisted primarily  of  the acknowledgement that the "certitudes" and "assumptions" of prior generations had "been tested and found wanting, that they discredited as cheap and somewhat childish illusions' '. 

Two themes that recur frequently throughout absurdist dramas are-

 1) A meaningless world 

2) The isolation of the individual

A world without meaning…

Esslin notes this thing that - "masked until the end of the Second World War by the substitute religions  of faith  in progress,  nationalism, and  various totalitarian  fallacies". Yet these approaches also appeared flawed, leaving the other option and he asserted that there is no meaning behind human life. In his play, The Chairs, Ionesco capitalizes on this meaninglessness. Throughout the play, the two main characters prepare chairs for invisible guests who are all coming to hear the meaning of life as declared by an orator. The main characters kill themselves just before he speaks and then the audience discovers that the orator is a deaf-mute.

Lonesco who is character of this play he himself described the subject of the play as -  "not the message, nor the failures of life, nor the moral disaster of the two old people, but the chairs themselves; that is to say, the absence of people, the absence of the emperor, the absence  of  God,  the  absence  of  matter,  the  unreality  of  the  world,  metaphysical emptiness".

Form in Absurd Theater

Absurd theater did not want to show life as it really was, but it tried to show the inner life of man, what was going on inside his head. Esslin explains  that-

"The Theatre  of the  Absurd merely  communicates one poet's  most intimate  and  personal  intuition  of  the  human  situation,  his  own  sense  of  being,  his individual vision of the world".

In a way Theatre of Absurd tried to show the inner feelings and thoughts of humans, that what they feel and what their thinking is for the world. In order to portray this "personal intuition" the playwrights had to abandon conventional methods and adopt a more poetic, or lyrical, form.

    Devaluation of Language

One of the most important characteristics of this poetic form was the devaluation of language. The absurd dramatists felt that conventional language had failed man. it was an inadequate means of communication. As a result, the movement of the characters on stage often contradicts their words or dialogue. For example, both acts of Waiting for Godot conclude with the line-

 "Yes, let's go," 

only to be followed by the stage direction, "They do not move". Essentially, the dramatists are trying to emphasize a disconnect between "word and object, meaning and reality, consciousness and the world" 

Lack of Plot in Absurd Theater

Another important poetic aspect of absurdist plays is that they lack a plot or a clear beginning and end with a purposeful development in between. There is usually a great deal of repetition in both language and action, which suggests that the play isn't actually "going anywhere."

In  Waiting  for  Godot,  the  stage  directions  indicate  that  Vladimir  and  Estragon  are constantly moving. For example, they repeatedly "rummage" through their pockets and "peer"  into  their  hats.  These  actions  are  so  frequent,  however,  that  the audience begins to feel as if they are watching the same thing over and over again. They could even be called static actions as they contribute nothing to the flow of the play. Yet this lack of purposeful movement in Waiting for Godot and most other absurdist dramas is intentional. 

Therefore, if one does not view the play as a story,  but rather  as  a  single  idea  being  acted  out,  this supposed  lack  of plot  becomes irrelevant.

Absurdist writers

Samuel Beckett

He was the pioneer of absurd theater, and also contributed to the other fields of literature like poetry, Fiction and criticism. He wrote his major works in French language. Samuel Barclay Beckett was born on 13th April, 1906 at  Foxrock, near Dublin.  He  was  a brilliant  student  as  well as an  outstanding sportsman. He completed his Bachelor of Arts  at the  Trinity  College in  1927.  

His one of the famous plays 'Waiting for Godot' is a landmark in Absurd theater.

Hrold  Pinter

Harold Pinter is  also  the  leading  English language  playwright in  the genre.  Harold was  born on  10 October  1930  in  Hackney,  a  working-class  suburb  in  East  London.  Despite his  work  as  a  poet,  an  actor,  a director, and  a  writer  for films,  Pinter’s  reputation  rests  squarely on  his  full-length  plays.  The best  known  of these are  probably The Birthday  Party, The Caretaker,  The Homecoming,  No Man’s  Land,  and  Betrayal.  It is fashionable to  talk of  Pinter’s works  in terms  of comedies  of menace  and social comedies.

Jean Genet

Jean Genet is also one of the important writers, in a way he is 'biogıraphically, the most spectacular  author  of  the  twentieth century'.  He was born in Paris in 1910. His  plays are  mostly assertive with  expressing his  own  feeling of  helplessness and  solitude when confronted  with  the  despair  and  loneliness of  man.  

Conclusion 

To conclude, according to Shakespeare, "this world is a stage where all men and women are performing their parts. Therefore, all the players should have the responsibility to perform their roles with artistic excellence." Theater, irrespective of Western or Indian ones, and it has made a strong impact on people. Friedrich Nietzsche clearly observed that sufferings make the human beings strong enough to face the 

challenges smartly. 

Absurd drama believes that meaningless life will ultimately question the basic existence of human beings. Their view to accept the world, as it is, and rejection of language, principles and realities represent the absurdist plays in a powerful way.

work cited

MEHDI, ABDULHADI  DHIAA, and Dr. M.   SURESH KUMAR. “Research Journal of English Language and Literature (RJELAL).” THEATRE OF ABSURD: A CRITICAL STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO SAMUEL BECKETT’S  WAITING FOR GODOT, AND BADAL SIRCAR’S EVAM INDRAJIT, vol. 7, no. 4, 2019, doi:org/10.33329/rjelal.74.105.

Sharadgeh, Dr. SamerZiyad  Al. “Journal of Studies in Social Sciences.” The Theatre of The Absurd, vol. 17, 2 Nov. 2018, pp. 177–182.

SIULI, SHANTANU. “International Journal of English Language, Literature and Translation Studies.” THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD SHOWS THE FAILURE OF MAN WITHOUT RECOMMENDING A SOLUTION, vol. 4, no. 3, 2017, doi:10.33329/ijelr.

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