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Waiting For Godot. By Samuel Beckett. Samuel Barclay Beckett. Apr. 13, 1906 – Dec. 22, 1989 Irishman living in Paris (often wrote in French and translated back to English) novelist, playwright, theater director, poet Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969
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Waiting For Godot By Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett • Apr. 13, 1906 – Dec. 22, 1989 • Irishman living in Paris (often wrote in French and translated back to English) • novelist, playwright, theater director, poet • Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969 • HUGE influence – often considered THE most important playwright of 20th century
Theater of the Absurd - Origins • Beckett often credited as its central figure • Movement emerged after the horrors of WWII and took hold during the late 50s • Central tenet: Life is inherently without meaning • Term taken from Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus (1942): • “In a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger. His is an irremediable exile…This divorce between man and life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of Absurdity.” • If all life is absurd (e.g. Sisyphus) – does it necessitate suicide?
Theater of the Absurd - Views • Human beings are fundamentally isolated within an alien universe – connection to others difficult or impossible • World holds no inherent truth, value, meaning • Human life as hopeless search for purpose and significance • Existence begins in nothingness and ends in nothingness – “an existence that is both anguished and absurd” (M.H. Abrams)
Theater of the Absurd – On Stage • Universe is not inherently logical, rational, or understandable: • Language often breaks down into playful nonsense…and ultimately silence. • Settings often unrealistic/dreamlike/symbolic • Identity of characters unstable, questioned • Plot rejects sense – traditional realism (unsolved mysteries, emptiness, nothingness usually the center of play) • Characters often seem to be controlled by mysterious yet violent outside forces they can neither fight nor identify
Tragicomedy • The generic mode of the Theater of the Absurd • A mix between tragic and comic conventions: • Typically threatens protagonist with tragic disaster, but ends happily after a sudden reversal of circumstances • OR, a tragic play with numerous comedic elements (slapstick often gives comic effect to anguish of human existence) • "Nothing is funnier than unhappiness ... it's the most comical thing in the world.” (Nell from Beckett’s Endgame) • Mingles lower and upper class characters (former usually associated with derision/comedy and the latter with pity/tragedy) • Originates in Elizabethan theater – e.g. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice
Waiting For Godot Vivian Mercer (and the critics): The Play in Which Nothing Happens: • Play premiered in January of 1953 in Paris under original title En Attendant Godot • Beckett "has achieved a theoretical impossibility—a play in which nothing happens, that yet keeps audiences glued to their seats. What's more, since the second act is a subtly different reprise of the first, he has written a play in which nothing happens, twice." • Yet, there are innumerable interpretations of the play! And it is considered one of the most important plays every written. Nothing must mean something…
How to Read the Absurd • Because it is virtually impossible to make arguments about its plot…this play is an excellent test of close reading skills. • What patterns emerge in terms of themes, language, and allusions? A lack of meaning at the surface level doesn’t mean the play is meaningless. • This is a good play for thinking through symbolism – what might the characters/Godot represent?
