LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 14:2 February 2014
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIAL

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2012
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

The Concept of Nihilism and Torment in Samuel Barclay Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Azmi Azam, M.A. English Literature

Introduction

Nihilism, suggesting the theoretical doctrine of extreme pessimism toward the intrinsic fundamentals of human life, and, in contrast, idealism, advocating the philosophical canons of belief in a structured transcendental realm, are the two paradoxical dominating themes in Irish avant-garde dramatist Samuel Barclay Beckett’s famous absurd play Waiting for Godot. These two issues are responsible for the suffrage of mind. The major characters especially the megalomaniac Vladimir and less-intelligent Estragon who are waiting for unidentified Godot, demonstrate the clash of these two theories through epistemological, ontological and poetic form.

Keywords: Nihilism, frustration, time, waiting, hope, optimism, pessimism, suicide, society.

Analyses

Nihilism

The word ‘Nihilism’ derives from the Latin ‘nihil’, or nothing, which means the sense of instability of the achieved things in this earthly world that highlights the believe that something does not exist. It appears in the verb “annihilate,” meaning to bring to nothing and to destroy completely. Early in the nineteenth century, Friedrich Jacobi used the word to negatively characterize transcendental idealism. It only became popularized, however, after its appearance in Ivan Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons (1862) where he uses “nihilism” to describe the crude scientism espoused by his character Bazarov who preaches a creed of total negation.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Azmi Azam, M.A. English Literature
Arts, Law and Social Science Faculty
Department of English, Communication, Film and Media
Anglia Ruskin University
Cambridge, England
azmiazam13@yahoo.com
Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.