The Portrayal of the Theatre of the Absurd

The Portrayal of the Theatre of the Absurd

Throughout literature, much has been assumed and gathered about the state of man and his purpose in life. Different poets, novelists, and playwrights have employed the powerful tools of language to broadcast their respective statement to the literate world. Many authors stand out for their overly romanticized or horribly pessimistic notations on life, but only Samuel Beckett stands out for his portrayal of absence. As Democritus, a Greek philosopher, noted, "nothing is more real than nothing," a quote which became one of Beckett's favorites and an inspiration for his masterful plays (Hughes 1). Beckett's works have astounded many through their utter divergence from the typical basis of a play. His blatant discount for the traditional concepts of character development, setting, time, and sequence of events distinguish Beckett's plays from a myriad of themed dramas. Because of such breaks from the standard, the message of Beckett's plays rings clearly. In his ground breaking play Waiting for Godot, Beckett describes two men, Estragon and Vladimir, who come to a rock and a tree beside a road and wait for an unknown "Godot" in vain day after day, idly making frivolous conversation and casually meeting another pair of characters, Pozzo and Lucky, who pass by daily. His follow up play, Endgame, creates a similar scenario with a blind, chair-bound man, Hamm, and his servantile friend, Clov, stuck in a room characterized only by two high windows and two ashbins housing Hamm's parents, Nagg and Nell. Such unusual plays portray the American Theatre of the Absurd perfectly. In both Waiting for Godot and Endgame, Samuel Beckett expertly incorporates nonconformist setting and dual characters to illustrate that man is a bewildered being in an incomprehensible universe.

Through both plays, the purposeful confusion of time and setting make the perceived universe unclear not only to the characters, but also to the audience. Beckett purposefully strips the setting of all elements of reality--namely time and definition. In Waiting for Godot, his stage directions simply state, "A country road. A tree. (1)" Such simplicity initially seems to muddy the clarity of the work, causing confusion as to the location and specifics of the characters' plight and conditions. However, as Daryl McDaniel constitutes, bareness of the set only serves to create a "complex fictional and highly theatrical world (McDaniel 1)." As the play goes on, this vague scenario also serves to make the work universal, due to the commonality of such elements in nature. Similarly, although Endgame's plot plays out in a more confined and defined space, a room with two high windows and two ashbins, the surroundings are bleak and undefined. Collectively, Beckett's use of setting defies reality. Jean-Jaques Mayoux elaborates on this point to clarify, "a realistic setting would spoil everything (Mayoux 42)." Beckett's intentional bleaching of the set allows for the perfect portrayal of the world as incomprehensible. The distortion of time serves to enhance the incomprehensibility of Beckett's works. Not only does Beckett fail to specify a time period, the element of time passage becomes unfathomable, implying the same about the world in which we live. Waiting for Godot opens with the questioning of memory; Vladimir states "But what Saturday? And is it Saturday? Is it not rather Sunday? Or Monday? Or Friday? . . . What'll we do? (10)." Similarly, when conversing once again about the date, Vladimir says "But you say we were here yesterday," to which Estragon concludes, "I may be mistaken. (10)" Later in the play, the pair decides that they have been coming to this spot fifty years. Clearly, the protagonists' confusion at the simple prospect of remembering the previous day's events speaks volumes about Beckett's use of time--it breeds confusion and adds to the bewilderment of man. Endgame goes farther to support such claims, evident through Hamm's incessant request of "Is it not time for my pain-killer?" Throughout the play, Hamm begs Clov for his medicine time and time again, further showing the passage of time as a meaningless endeavor. Martin Esslin attributes the lack of plot in Endgame and Waiting for Godot to the tackling of the subject matter at a base level unattained by classical writing (Esslin 24). The concept of grueling time passage further alienates Beckett's plays from the classic play, and thus exaggerates the hostility and confusion of the world he portrays. Edward Murray writes that the play's "mute action underlies the playwright's vision of an absurd universe. (Murray 35)" Therefore, Beckett's consistent and effective negation of setting and regulatory time passage establishes a world characterized by confusion and distortion.

In addition to the distortion of the world, Beckett employs character pairs throughout both plays to make a strong statement about the bewildered state of the individual. In both Endgame and Waiting for Godot, Beckett pairs characters together--Hamm and Clov, Nagg and Nell, Vladimir and Estragon, and Lucky and Pozzo--to illustrate that all individuals are weak, faulty, and insufficient alone. Vladimir, constantly focused on issues of the mind such as the legitimacy of the crucifixion (Waiting for Godot 6) and his hat, representing the mental component of man, whereas Estragon, pictured sleeping or sitting on a rock, fumbling with his boot, or eating, represents the physical. When given a choice for Lucky to dance or to think, Estragon says, "I'd rather he'd dance, it'd be more fun," to which Vladimir replies, "I'd well like to hear him think. (41)" Estragon's obvious desire for solely the physical aspect of dancing is sharply contrasted by Vladimir's yearning for the intellectual. Clearly, then, because of the extremity to which each character appeals, neither Vladimir nor Estragon is a complete individual--Beckett's repeated mention of their clinging together illuminates such a point. A recurrent theme throughout Waiting for Godot is the possibility of the couple's separation. On many accounts, Estragon states, "I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have been better off alone, each one for himself (59)," a point the pair continually dismisses. Each act closes with a similar encounter, Estragon says, "Well, shall we go?" to which Vladimir responds, "Yes, let's go," upon which they do not move (59). Such recurrent mention of separation only shows the couple's inability to separate, for their existence bases itself solely on interaction with each other.