Existentialism or Absurdism in Waiting for Godot

 

Existentialism is a philosophical approach that rejects the idea that the universe offers any clues about how humanity should live. A simplified understanding of this thought system can be found in Jean-Paul Sartre’s often-repeated dictum, ‘‘Existence precedes essence.’’ It means , a being first exits then it defines the life. The purpose of life is not depend on some inherent values, but we exist and then create values. Existentialist literature focuses on freedom and responsibility.

 Existentialism attained the height of its popularity in France during World War II. While the German army occupied the country, the philosophers and writers who gathered to discuss and argue their ideas at the cafe´s in Paris captured the attention of intellectuals around the world. The oppressive political climate under the Nazis and the need for underground resistance to the invading political force provided the ideal background for Existentialism’s focus on individual action and responsibility. Although the French war-era writers are most frequently associated with Existentialism, its roots began much earlier. Existentialism can be seen as the response to the frightening loneliness that prompted Friedrich Nietzsche to pronounce in the 1880s that ‘‘God is dead.’’ People’s loss of faith in religious and social order created an understanding of personal responsibility, which led to literary works that reflect the existentialist’s loneliness, isolation, and fear of the uncaring universe. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novels, written in the 1860s and 1870s, show existential themes, as do twentieth-century works by Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, and Nathaniel West. The French existentialists were so influential on writers elsewhere in Europe and in the United States that many contemporary philosophical works show some influence of their thought.

 

Waiting for Godot has become a mainstay of modern theater. Its absurdist plot features two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who wait near a barren tree on an empty stretch of road for someone named ‘‘Godot,’’ who may represent their pointless hopes. The fact that nothing significant happens during the play’s two acts helps to make the existential point of the play: the lack of meaning when life is not actively lived. Beckett’s artful use of language makes it easy for readers and viewers to experience the play without becoming bored. Even when the dialogue seems to make no sense and when the characters seem to be arguing with each other pointlessly, there is a deeper meaning to Beckett’s structure that offers a running commentary on the state of modern existence.

 

 

Absurdism, and its more specific companion term Theatre of the Absurd, refers to the works of a group of Western European and American dramatists writing and producing plays in the 1950s and early 1960s. The term ‘‘Theatre of the Absurd’’ was coined by critic Martin Esslin, who identified common features of a new style of drama that seemed to ignore theatrical conventions and smash audience expectations. Characterized by a departure from realistic characters and situations, the plays offer no clear notion of the time or place in which the action occurs. Characters are often nameless and seem interchangeable. Events are completely outside the realm of rational motivation and may have a nightmarish quality commonly associated with Surrealism (a post-World War I movement that features dream sequences and images from the unconscious). At other times, both dialogue and incidents may appear to the audience as completely nonsensical, even farcical. However, beneath the surface the works explore themes of loneliness and isolation, of the failure of individuals to connect with others in any meaningful way, and of the senselessness and absurdity of life and death. The writers most commonly associated with Absurdism are Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter, and Edward Albee, as well as a number of lesser known dramatists.

 

The avant-garde nature of absurdist writing contributed in part to its short life as a literary movement. Features of the plays that seemed completely new and mystifying to audiences in the 1950s when absurdist works first appeared, soon became not only understandable, but even commonplace and predictable. With the exception of Ionesco, most playwrights abandoned the absurdist style after the 1960s; however, many of the individual plays were later considered classics of European and American drama.

 

Waiting for Godot is the most famous and most critically acclaimed work associated with Absurdism,  produced in 1953 in Paris as En Attendant Godot and translated into English a year later. The setting is sparse, almost vacant, and the characters are two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who do little except wait, on two successive nights, for someone who never appears. While waiting they engage in a series of apparently random discussions, some involving philosophy, and other insignificant activities from taking off their shoes to eating a carrot, that seem vaguely reminiscent of a comedy routine or a vaudeville act. They also attempt suicide twice but fail each time. At the end of the play, when Godot has still not appeared, the characters agree to leave, at least according to their limited dialogue, but the stage directions contradict their words by insisting that ‘‘they do not move.’’ One of the most important productions of Waiting for Godot took place in San Quentin prison in 1957,

performed by the members of the San Francisco Actors’ Workshop. Several critics have commented on the enthusiastic reception the prisoners gave the play, suggesting that they seemed to instinctively grasp its meaning at the same time audiences apparently more educated and more sophisticated were confused by the play’s unconventional nature. Many critics believe Waiting for Godot is Beckett’s most important work, citing its influence on the Theatre of the Absurd and on contemporary drama in general.