The artistic features and themes of the Theatre of the Absurd

27 Janvier 2019

Theatre of the Absurd refers to a literary movement in drama popular throughout European countries from 1940s to approximately 1989. Absurdist playwrights adhere to the theories of the French- Algerian philosopher Albert Camus specifically his essay The Myth of Sisyphus published in 1942. In this essay Camus introduced his philosophy of the absurd in which he maintains that man’s quest for meaning and truth is an unavailing endeavour. He compares man’s struggle to understand the world and the meaning of life to Sisyphus, a famous figure in Greek mythology who rolls a heavy stone up a mountain only to watch it roll to the bottom. Theatre of the Absurd is a new form of drama which originated from France after The Second World War. Its name was coined by Martin Iselin in his book The Theatre of the Absurd, which was published in 1961. The movement flourished in France, Germany and England as well as in Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland). Samuel Beckett’s death in 1989 is said to mark the close of the movement’s popularity. The Theatre of the Absurd is, to a certain extent, the outcome of the doubts, fear and traumatic experience that people went through after The Second World War. This war did not only point up the decline of the traditional moral and political values, but also shed light on the aimless life of human existence. The Theatre of the Absurd can also be attributable to people’s reactions towards the disappearance of spiritual and religious dimensions from the modern society. Therefore, it is an attempt to give legends back their importance through making the human beings aware of their futuristic truths. Eugéne Ionesco defines his understanding of the term ``absurd`` as follows: ``Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose.... Cut off from his religious, metaphysical and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd and useless. ``

In this article light will be shed on the artistic features and themes of the Theatre of the Absurd. In fact, this new form of theatre is a sheer revolt against the traditional drama. The absurdist playwrights tend to create characters with curious and grotesque personalities on the stage from the beginning to the end. They shape the characters with the sense of absurdity and try to dig out their hopelessness to life and society. They have special personalities and nature. They sometimes talk to themselves continually or repeatedly and in most cases their words and sentences are broken off and disordered. Language fragmentation makes it hard for the reader or the audience to grasp the characters’ speech and behaviours. Unlike the Theatre of the Absurd, characters in a traditional drama are structured and outlined with their own personalities in common sense. Their language is usually simple and suitable. Their language and behaviour should be logical and easy to make out. Though Shakespeare’s plays were written many years ago, people can grasp their contents and enjoy them easily when they read them. In Waiting for Godot the two tramps are the protagonists in the play. From the start to the end of the drama, they speak continually. They sometimes talk to each other or to themselves. Their conversations are muddled and confused to the extent that they have no regularity to abide by. Every so often they blurt out some words and sentences without any implication. They always have inconsistent words, capricious behaviour and bizarre ideas in their minds. They leave no room for identification because they don’t reveal any personalities or peculiarities. We just know that they are two boys. We do not know any information about their homes, parents and even the times that they belong to. However, these protagonists whose personalities are different from those of the protagonists of traditional drama are, in fact, shaped with a kind of special personality by their authors. The audience encounters characters whose motivations and actions remain largely incomprehensible. The more mysterious their actions and nature are, the less humanistic the characters become. Therefore, the audience and readers fail to identify the characters in the play. If we identify a figure who loses his trousers, we feel embarrassed and shameful. We see what happens to the characters from the outside rather than from their own point of view. We are prevented from identifying the characters because of their mysterious nature

Language is a crucial constituent of literary work. In traditional dramas language is usually used in a logical order, but in the Theatre of the Absurd language has no fixed regularities. It is obscure and disordered. It is reduced to a very subordinate role. George Steiner pointed out in two radio talks entitled The Retreat from the Word, that :``much of reality now begins outside language.... large areas of meaningful experience now belong to non-verbal languages such as mathematics, formulae, and logical symbolism.... the world of the word has shrunk.`` The protagonists usually talk in disorder. Irrelevance is a key feature of their language. Sometimes a character asks his partner something but the partner says another thing that has nothing to do with what they are talking about. You can not guess what the characters will speak in their next statements because their language is irregular and unpredictable .That’s why communication between human beings often breaks down. Thus, it is so difficult to follow their thoughts. In spite of this difficulty, the Theatre of the Absurd is still popular among people because it is a mirror that reflects the darkness of reality in modern society.

The plot is the sequence of events that makes up a story. According to Aristotle, the plot `` must b a whole with a beginning, middle and end`` (Poetics, Part VII). Traditional dramas and the Theatre of the Absurd have different plots. The plot of the Theatre of the Absurd is fractured and scattered. Traditional dramas, however, are arranged in time, place or logical order. Sometimes the author gives us some hints not only to deduce the plot but also to guess what the protagonists would do according to their words and sense. The Theatre of the Absurd is, however, surprising and most of the time has no end or results. For example, in Waiting for Godot, the audience cannot guess the result of the play. They even do not know what the two boys will do or say in the next step. From the beginning to the end of this play we do not know what they are waiting for and what they are talking about. You need to read and read again Waiting for Godot to get the essence. In fact, the characters’ words and behaviours tell us about the emptiness in the protagonists’ hearts and the meaning of human being’s existence. People are fruitlessly searching for their existence in modern society.

The Theatre of the Absurd throws into relief the existence of human being which is full of suffering, cruelty and danger. Human beings feel lonely, frightened and hopeless. Emptiness and nothingness become the true essence of their daily lives. Isolation and absurdity gradually fill their minds. The Theatre of the Absurd is a reflection of the reality of life in a bleak modern society. People are tired, leading an aimless life. They do not know the real meaning and destination of their lives. Theatre is meant to show reality on the stage, but reality, which is serious and replete with danger and adventures, usually gives us tragic effects. Using comic form to end a play is a relative, comfortable and moderate way. The audience, while reading the play, may laugh at the characters and their words and behaviours. But after he/ she finishes reading the play, he/ she may change his/ her mind and consider its theme once again. Many absurdist playwrights describe degradation and oppression in a happy and comic form. The Theatre of the Absurd puts emphasis on the dissimilation of the society which means that many abnormal things have appeared as people regard the metamorphic things as normal things. Disease, death and hunger are often deemed as the themes to discuss. Evil, crime and violence are often thought to be natural things in the society. According to the Theatre of the Absurd, the world makes people feel unconcerned and even merciless. People no longer believe in any gods who can save them from the heaven. Material life is thought at the first place. Money is considered the most important thing in the world. People live in a world where love and shared help are meaningless. There is no love and trust among them. The Theatre of the Absurd sheds light on the meaninglessness of the existence of human beings. In Waiting for Godot the two characters could not find what they are waiting for. Their life is meaningless. They even could not find the essence of human existence. The absurdist playwrights endeavour to express the senselessness of the human race and the inadequacy of the rational approach by the open abandonment of rational devices and discursive thought. The isolation among people is another theme stressed by the Theatre of the Absurd. According to the absurdist playwrights, the relationship among people is measured through material and money. When they face some problems, few people come to help them. People who live in this society for a long time will feel lonely and indifferent. Therefore, human beings communicate with each other in an unfeeling and uninvolved attitude. The isolation is just like a snowball which is growing in people’s hearts. People seldom communicate with each other. Because selfishness and fear fill their hearts, they are afraid that people who have higher social status than them will laugh at or look down upon them. So they try their best to cover and hid themselves under the surface of the material. In Waiting for Godot, the boys seem to be good friends, but the relationship between them is isolated and apathetic. They cannot bring any warmth and comfort to each other.