LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 12 : 1 January 2012
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.

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Agonies of Existence in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Shabnum Iftikhar, M.A.

Waiting for Godot

Understanding Beckett: Absurdism

Samuel Beckett as a playwright is not easy to describe and not easy to understand as well. No two opinions on that indeed! Beckett belongs to the category of those writers, who are considered the members of the “Theatre of the Absurd”. His characters are the complete product of the philosophy of Absurdism. “The Absurd” refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any, that is, in this meaningless universe, human existence is meaningless altogether”. In this context, Absurd does not mean “logically impossible” but rather, “humanly impossible”. All the efforts by human beings to find the meaning of life have dashed to the ground. This is exactly what Beckett’s characters have been doing and trying to convey throughout their lives. Agony of existence is the core problem of all Beckett’s characters and the ruthless life compels them to bear this agony and to admit this fact that there is no option for them.

Beckett’s Unparalleled Breadth of Influence

Human life and its agonies are merciless and Beckett reveals this fact through his characters without any mawkishness. No other dramatist has the capacity to represent this naked truth with such a perfect rectitude. From the very threshold of his career, he presented the art which was common neither for the readers nor for the audience. In his plays, he does not give an account of the stark and harsh realities of life, instead of it, he tells that life itself is a stark and harsh reality in this universe. Here his art makes him conspicuous among his contemporaries and predecessors.

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

Shabnum Iftikhar
Georgia, USA

Institutional Affiliation:
M.A. Political Science, M.A. English Literature, ELT
University of the Punjab
Lahore 54590
Pakistan
shabnum53@hotmail.com
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