The Absurd 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

He does not use a linear plot where one thing leads logically to another, but he adopts a circular plot which corresponds to the state of anger and confusion he presents in the world of Waiting for Godot. The play ends where it begins with “nothing to be done” (Beckett, 2), and “They do not move” (48). This signifies the state of inaction and anguish of modern man. There is no a beginning, rising actions, climax or end, as the inner feelings of the characters dominate the scenes and produce hardly any development. They are stereotypes who undergo no change. When they agree to go "They do not move" (48), and are waiting for Godot who keeps delaying his coming. Acocording to Carey Perloff, after Godot, there was nothing written the same again; It was the finest play in which covered the cultural movement and moved to the completion of the experience by the listener, viewer and reader (perloff,