What is an absurd drama?:Waiting For Godot

MODERN DRAMA: SAMUEL BECKETT : Waiting for godot

Question : What is an absurd drama? Consider Waiting for Godot as a play belonging to the tradition of the theatre of the absurd.

or, What are the Absurd elements of Waiting For Godot?

or, What is the significance of the title of the play Waiting For Godot?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Answer: The Theatre of  the Absurd presents anxiety, despair, and a sense of loss at the disappearance of solutions, illusions, and purposefulness. Facing up to this loss means that we face up to reality itself. Thus Absurd drama becomes a kind of modern mystical experience. 

           

‘Absurd’ the term, comes not from a dictionary meaning, but from Martin Esslin’s books The Theater of the Absurd where he explains it as a ‘sense of metaphysical anguish at the absurdity of the human condition’.

An absurd work is a frightening one. It has in itself no norms, no absolutes, no consoling certainties and no direction. It simply exists. Nothing and nobody living in it has any pre-ordained scene or purpose.

            Bechett’s Waiting for Godot is an allegorical absurd play. There is no particular time and place in the play. It reveals the despair, nothingness, frustration of the post-war generation and its appeal becomes bitter as the plots are established on a false imagination. The play actually is full of nothingness, restless tiredness and childish fun. The for- nothing waiting of the characters and their activities give the play a rich tone of absurdity.

           

            The absurd dramatists are all concerned with the failure of communication of the modem humanity which leaves man alienated. They are also concerned with the lack of individuality and the over emphasis on conformity in our society.

            Characterization and characteristics of a play are not drawn and seen in Waiting For Godot. Conflict  and collision of  characters, psychological and inner suffering and developments of characters, turning point of any particular event and fascinating dialogues are the important characteristics of a play which are not found in this play. Instead of it, the play goes through nothingness with false wish which is a new trend in drama and it is absurdity.

            The play starts with the Waiting for Godot. We do not know what or who the godot is. Two passers –by- Estragon and Vladimir wait for  godot when the play comes to an end. The time-difference of the play is just a one day and there are two acts in it. But it seems to us that time has become stopped; the including characters cannot remember anything; even they cannot identify the same place. This absurdity, uncertainty and the destruction of time and place show the meaninglessness of human existence. The opening statement of Estragon is very significant:

            “Nothing to be done”

In the play, we see Estragon and Vladimir want to leave the place after a short while of the beginning of the play. But they do not. If we try to find out the subject- matter of the play, we will see that it is nothing but the infinite waiting for something of nothing in wretched condition. The following conversion will make us to realize it:

Est             : Let’s go.

Vlad          : We can’t.

Est             : Why not?

Vlad          : We’re Waiting For Godot.

In Waiting for Godot, we observe the use of symmetry in the incidents. We meet Pozzo and Lucky in each of two acts before the presence of the boy. In every case, we get the boy- messenger who says that the Godot will not go that day; he will go the day after. Symmetry is everywhere in the drama- inwardly and outwardly which is an important characteristic of an absurd play. The stage itself is divided into two parts and the tree is in the middle. Symmetry is also presented as an opposite ideology in the play. In Act 1 we hear a long lecture of Lucky; hard to get, but suggestive. And In Act-2 , we get Lucky as disabled, he can’t speak.

            In the play, we see another absurd feature, the half comic grotesque . Comic tone is heard from the very beginning i.e. to catch the boot, to see something by the cap etc. In the last scene the falling down of Estragon’s trouser is very comic though the desire is to commit suicide where there is no scope of fun.

            From the above discussion, we may think that Godot will never come. Estragon and Vladimir will remain still Waiting for Godot for time infinite. Perhaps, we all wait or waited once or another upon a time. We all have godots of our kind. At last, we see Estragon gets his pant up. They get themselves ready to go out. We hear the last dialogue:

            Vlad    : Well? Shall we go?

            Est       : Yes, lets go.

They do not move.

This immobility gives the play a rich tone of absurdity. We can conclude the discussion quoting Shakespeare’s eternal lines:

“Life is a tale told by an idiot;

full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

-----------------------------------------**********************************..............................................