Absurdity In Samuel Barclay Beckett's Waiting For Godot

Samuel Barclay Beckett is a 20th century Irish novelist, playwright and poet. Beckett was born on April 13, 1906, in Dublin, Ireland. During the 1930s and 1940s he wrote his first novels and short stories. He wrote a trilogy of novels in the 1950s as well as his famous play Waiting for Godot. In 1969 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. His later works included poetry and short story collections and novellas. He died on December 22, 1989 in Paris, France. Beckett belongs to the theatre of the absurd. The "theatre of the absurd" -as defined by the Free dictionary- is “A form of drama that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that lack realistic or logical development” ("Theatre of the absurd"). Beckett uses his finest dramatic tools and “created in all of his works a mysterious alchemy of force and tragedy that focuses squarely on the central issue of modern existence: the struggle of each individual simply to go on, despite the inescapable awareness of our fundamental meaninglessness” (Broderson, 9), and his influence is evident in the whole play. Since the play is considered as an anger play at this age, one

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is a clear reflection of the sense of absurdity, anger, and anguish that characterizes the state of modern man after the Second World War. The play depicts a world of destruction, spiritual void, purposelessness and boredom with life. Throughout the play, Beckett stresses the fact that modern man is deprived of human communication and suffers from a state of loss, uncertainty, anger and despair. Beckett’s attitude is well illustrated in G.C Thornley’s book, An Outline of English Literature “It is the perfection of despair. It is based on the view of the modern man who expects nothing in life, or indeed after death. Its main effect is one of misery, hopelessness and nothingness”