Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Illustrate the way Samuels Beckett's Waiting for Godot has the typical characteristic of an absurd play

Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for
Godot
reunites the most salient characteristics of the genre of the theater
of the absurd in that it features the following essential
elements:


a. A lack of plot- The play seems not to have a
beginning, middle, and end as well-defined as aclassical or typical theatrical piece.
When the play begins we do not know where Vladimir and Estragon come from. All know is
that they are sitting "at a country road", and that, at one point Vladimir says in Act
I



Hand in hand
from the top of the Eiffel Tower, among the first. We were respectable in those days.
Now it's too late. They wouldn't even let us
up.



From that information we
get very little more. That, and the fact that Estragon had been beaten up by some people
for reasons also unknown.  What makes this even more absurd is: We never really get to
find out. Nor do we get to see Godot. He never shows up. There is no clear
ending.


b. A disdain for life, and a surrender to fate- The
theater of the absurd illustrates the philosophy of existentialism as proposed by Camus
and Sartre, among many others. In this philosophy human life is seen as a weakness. Life
is not that important. We are just like the wind, floating as we go. Similarly, the
language, dialogue and use of description in these types of plays will show this affect
throughout the development of the plot. An example is when Estragon says of
people:



People
are bloody ignorant
apes.



This he says, as he
questions with Vladimir some random passages of the
Bible.


c. The theater of the absurd will present situations
that hint at black humor and, in the case of this particular play, even mockery of what
is considered "normal". Pozzo and Lucky represent the master and servant dynamics
between the rich and the poor. Pozzo's abuse of power seems to serve as a pun for a joke
in the play, and Lucky's desperate situation places him in the position of whipping boy.
All this is, as the genre is, absurd, and it is consistently displayed in the
play.


Therefore, there are several ways to broadly detail
how this play represents the theater of the absurd. These three are just the most
essential characteristics of this type of theatrical piece.

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