Waiting as a manifestation of existential reality… as something which is lived beyond time. As we meander in and through waiting, we find ourselves traversing the lines between hope and resignation, boredom and desire; the absurd and the meaningful; the futile and the fulfilling. To my knowledge, before Waiting for Godot, by Samuel Beckett, there has never been a play on waiting. But making this claim is also too much, as the play is not really about anything, not strictly speaking about waiting, certainly not about Godot. Rather, the play enacts, performs, requires waiting (Schweizer, 2005).
In one scene of the Labyrinth, Jareth ask Sarah how the labyrinth is going. Sarah is having a really hard time but she says “It’s a piece of cake.” Even though it isn’t which proves it is verbal irony. My next example is when they are in battle and Didymus gets surrounded by goblins but he then says “I think we’ve got them surrounded.” But he is actually the one that is surrounded so he said something but is in the opposite situation. This shows that this is verbal irony. My final scene is when Hogle just finishes defeating the 3D guard monster and he says “ I ain’t interested in being friends.” When in reality he likes having friends because these are the only friends he’s ever had.
The absurdist themes of nothingness, oblivion, disability, despair, and uncertainty are central to the understanding of the play. Waiting for Godot is a play which does not do what it is supposed to do; that is, it does not tell us a story in an ordered and a proper manner. The play begins with one of the characters, Estragon, announcing “Nothing to be done”, and the audience is attacked in some consciousness with a solid denial of dramatic action in the history of theatre. The dialogue talks about the context of the speaker which is that he is unable to get rid of his boot despite continuous struggles, but it also sets in motion the general philosophical motif of the play –
Therefore, the theatre of absurd is related to existentialism, which is a philosophical movement postulating that human essence precedes existence and that man and other things are nothing but their own choices and freedom. Therefore, man takes responsibility as a result of his freedom of choice. Endgame is an expression or method through which individuals exist in seclusion and at the same time they have a yen for the past. There are some resemblances between Beckett’s play and existentialism because his characters displaying the existentialist man who is looking for becoming an authentic one ( Taniv).Furthermore, there is an essential amalgamation between existentialism and Beckett’s thoughts through highlighting absurdity. The existentialist deduces that life is ridiculous, disorganized and senseless
The next example of Intertexuality Vonnegut chose to incorporate in Slaughterhouse-Five proves acceptance of war and death as inevitable part of life. Serenity prayer is used twice in the novel: firstly it appears as a framework hanging on Billy’s office wall and for the second time Vonnegut sees it on the inside a chain locket hanging around Montana Wildhack’s neck. Vonnegut’s incidental incorporation of visual materials puts him at the beginning of more recent experimentations in intermediality from the combinations of photographs and text in the novels of W. G. Sebald to the combinations of text and drawings in the graphic novels of Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco. In the following image is the drawing of the pendant worn by BillyPilgrim’s Tralfamadorian lover above her naked breasts: Fig.2. Illustration of serenity prayer on Montana Wildhack’s locket from Slaughterhouse-Five (used by permission of Dell Publishing, a division of Random House, Inc.)Page 139 Vonnegut knew that through different narrative techniques he can tell his readers how the author feels apart from that he also knew that using illustration as a narrative technique describes the readers what you want them to see.
Many times throughout The Veldt, when the characters use dialogue, it helps them connect their thoughts and bring them together so that the plot makes more sense. When Lydia tried to explain to George how much the house was affecting them, George said, “You mean you want to fry my eggs for me?”(George) “Yes.” she nodded. (Lydia) “And darn my socks?” “Yes.”A frantic, watery-eyed nodding…”Because two characters of the story were able to use dialogue, they were able to gain an understanding between them, and know how the other was feeling. Last, but not least, Bradbury uses foreshadowing to give the reader a hint of what might happen in the future-and a little bit of suspense. For example, many times throughout the tale, the author mentions the characters hearing screams.
He says “misted and ebullient seas and cooling shores, towards Amphibia’s empiries.” The audience can feel the relaxation. Also, the author symbolizes heaven by using “amphibian empiries”. That shows the author is relaxed about the death and the soldier, or toad, is in a better place. The audience can also infer the author has PTSD from war. The last sentence says “in the wide and antique eyes which still appear to watch across the castrate lawn, the haggard daylight steer.” This imagery lets the audience see that the author is probably sitting and remember seeing all the accidents that happened in the war.
When the protagonist is walking in the street there are “curses of laborers” and “nasal chanting of street singers”. These imageries help emphasize the protagonist’s feeling of wanting to cover his ears because these sounds are often loud and intense. When he is in the priest’s room he describes it as in the house as silent but then he hears the rain from outside this gives the story a dramatic mood. When he arrives at the bazaar he describe the sound as silence after a church service which emphasizes that he has arrived late and has already missed something important. The silence can also be used as the impossibility of his fantasies.
The conversation between both of them is very lively up until he mentions the operation. “‘It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig,’ the man said. ‘It’s really not an operation at all’” (Hemingway p. 401). Once he says this line the disconnection between both characters becomes noticeable. As they continue on with the conversation, the disconnection between both of them grows and grows.
Specifically, language especially silence and pause, unequal distribution of information and reversed chronology are essential in constructing uncertainties. A silence urges the reader to wonder; a pause emphasizes a significant event; and a verbal expression can hint aggression or submission. As it is noted by Dukore (1962), “[e]ach piece of knowledge [in Pinter’s drama] is a half-knowledge, each answer a springboard to new questions” (p. 44). It is never explained why Robert and Emma do not tell Jerry that the former has become aware of his infidelity; neither is the blood relation between Ned and Robert verified. As a result, the reader is undergoing the same mental process as Jerry does.