Riassunto esame Letteratura e Cultura Inglese, libro consigliato Waiting for Godot, Beckett

Theatre of the absurd

The 'Theatre of the Absurd' is the term used to define the avant-garde type of drama which sprang up in the 1950s and 1960s and whose exponents were Beckett, Pinter, Ionesco, and Genet. They were a loosely associated group (who cannot be said to form an organic school) whose forerunners were French writers of the post-war period Camus and Sartre. The expression was coined by Martin Esslin in his 1962 book. The term 'absurd' took on its specific meaning when Camus used it in his famous essay 'Le Mythe de Sisyphe' (1942) to define and describe the sense of loss, disillusionment, and alienation characteristics of the contemporary world where man feels a stranger.

Metaphor of absurdity

The situation of Sisyphus forever rolling a stone up a hill, forever aware that it will never reach the top is a perfect metaphor for the play Waiting for Godot too. Such a futile action symbolizes all human effort on earth. Awareness of this lack of purpose in all we do produces a state of metaphysical anguish which is the theme of writers in the Theatre of the Absurd. The theatre of the absurd represents trends that have been apparent in literature since the 1920s (Joyce, Surrealism, Kafka...) or in painting since the first decade of the century (cubism, abstract painting).

Philosophical background

In philosophy, the term absurd means 'out of harmony with reason', referring to a vision of the condition and existence of man, his place and function in the world, and his relationship with the universe. The idea of the absurd condition of man has arisen from the need to provide an explanation of man's purposeless existence in a world which seems to be devoid of any meaning. According to William, “The absurdist playwrights believe that our existence is absurd because we are born without asking to be born, we die without seeking to die. We live between birth and death trapped within our body and reason, unable to conceive of a time in which we were not or a time in which we will not be for, nothingness is very much the concept of infinity: something we perceive only in so far as we cannot experience it. Thrust into life, armed with our senses, will, and reason, we feel ourselves to be potent beings. There, ultimately, comes a sense of helplessness and impotence, something, which the plays of Beckett also deal with.”

Characteristics of absurd theatre

The theatre of the absurd expresses a sense of metaphysical anguish, which goes beyond this world; this sense of loss cannot be explained, it can just be accepted. This kind of theatre is also defined as empty, because it uses techniques different from the ones used in the past, in tradition, and it’s a combination of old and new techniques. The basic theme is man’s inability to find a connecting link between his own dimension as a human being and the social scene. It’s the tragedy of modern men, who find themselves alone in a world that don’t recognize, where the old and traditional codes had broken down. Nevertheless, Absurd Theatre is not here to explain how things are; it doesn’t argue about absurd, but simply presents it 'in being' in terms of concrete stage images. They represent life as it is through images, which are concrete.

Role of reality

Something has been broken forever: in Joyce, Woolf, T. S. Eliot, reality is still there, somehow, because it’s broken. In Beckett’s plays, reality isn’t there anymore. Beckett is some sort of ring connecting modernism and post-modernism.

Form and devices of absurd theatre

The Absurd theatre has come to find new and appropriate forms and manners to present irrationality, absurdity. Some of the typical devices in this theatre are:

• Plays tend toward a radical devaluation of language, what happens on the scene transcends and often contradicts the words spoken by the character.
• The idea that language is just a futile attempt to communicate the impossible.
• Farce and tragedy are mixed to create an unpredictable world which is simultaneously tragic and funny.
• Characters are like puppets, there’s something that makes them say and do certain things. There are no psychological interpretations and as a result audience is emotionally detached, which is also what modern men feel in reality.
• Absurdist plays have no true story or plot; they often have neither a beginning nor an end.