The theatre of the absurd
In English literature Samuel beckett, is perhaps the author who best represents a movement, called the
theatre of absurd, because he ,like other representatives, focuses his attention on human beings, detached
from any political, social events; so doing he creates a new kind of drama.
In general, the theatre of absurd is a movement made up of different plays, written between 1940 and
1960. The name comes from a book written by the critic Martin Esslin in 1960 “absurd drama”, a collection
of four plays written by the dramatists, Ionesco, Adamov, Arrayal and the American Albee.
They see man as a complex creature obliged to face reality, and dominated by obscure forces. This point of
view is a consequence of the world after the Second World War.
The theatre of absurd used simple language, in it we can find only principle sentences and the common
pattern is “question/ answer or question/ question”, so we cannot clearly understand the situation or the
characters, but there is only confusion. Language is, so, not able to communicate and there is the repetition
of the words.
Samuel beckett
The theatre of absurd sees in S.B. its founding- father.
Beckett was born in Ireland, but soon he settled in France and made French his second language. In 1930,
he returned to Dublin, and when his father died, he began traveling to Paris London and Italy. When the
Second World War broke out, he joined the French Resistance, to escape the Gestapo police. He worked as
a farm laborer in Avignon. Here he wrote partly of his novels and the trilogy “Molloy, Malone Dies and the
Unnamable”. However, Samuel Beckett’s fame arrived when he wrote “Waiting for Godot” where he tried
to describe and explore human condition.
In this play, there are two old tramps, Vladimir and Estragon who are waiting for a mysterious man, Godot
who never arrives. At the end of the day, a little boy appears and tells them Godot cannot come, but he will
came surely the next day. Godot never appears and at the end of the play, they try to commit suicide but
they never do it.
Waiting for Godot has a circular structure, there is no conclusion and the acts start and end at the same
time, there is not any plot, too. This is because according to beckett human problems are more important
than the plot itself; Godot never appears in the play but he is always present, he is infact at the center of
every one’s life, even if it’s not certain he is real or not.
The setting of the play is poor; for example, there is one tree and it does not represent the image of life and
vitality, but as a means of suicide. In it, we can find Beckett’s philosophy of life, close to the philosophy of
Existentialism, according to which nothing really happens, there is no past, or future but only repetitions
and without any purpose. That is why in beckett’s drama language is disintegrated and there are only
sentences and silence. Beckett continued to write for the stage, producing novels and radio drama. In 1969,
he was awarded the Nobel Prize to literature.
