Absurdity of Absurd: Prophet Beckett's Waiting for Godot

What makes ‘Absurd’ mean ?When I searched the glossaries ,I found the word to be ‘out of harmony’(1).But yet the definitions trying hard to explain the term , just to end in total ‘Absurdity’ (assuming for a piece that we cognize the meaning of the word),as they talk in total sense, the nonsense just about it and of course that means they fail(in their attempt ).But considering the term to be coupled with literature (and another forms of art too!),when I searched for much I came across the lines that states that no ‘literary criticism’ [in which I include the attempts to explain the literary terms] can take the literary activity itself ,or to be much specific ‘…it [literary criticism]is not substitute for reading the activity itself’(2),as it [the piece of work]is the most exactly and precisely ,the thought sent or explained.So,I reached the idea that to understand ‘absurd’ .I must view an absurd activity by an artist, rather than poring over the talks just about it. Therefore as a literary student what 1st came to my mind at this instant is none, but WAITING FOR GODOT by Prophet Beckett,the so called absurd play structured about ‘Godot’,the axis all absurdity[as till the date none could declare with confidence ‘who’ or ‘what’ Godot is !]

What I found in the ashcan of my memories just about this godot is:

"On 19 Nov 1957, a group of disquieted actors were preparing to face their audience . The actors were members of the institution of the San Francisco Actors’ Workshop . The audience consisted of fourteen hundred convicts at the San Quentin penitentiary . No live play had been preformed at San Quentin since Married woman Actress appeared there in 1913 .Now ,fourty four years later ,the play that had been chosen ,largely because no woman appeared in it , was Prophet Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT’(3). …"Beckett real triumph ,…came once WAITING FOR GODOT which appeared in book form in 1952,was 1st make on 5 Gregorian calendar month 1953 , at the little Theatre de Babylone (now defunct ),…’(4)

And I found besides several lines of this play:

"…

ESTRGON:Didi.

VLADIMIR:Yes.

ESTRGON:I can’t go on like this.

VLADIMIR: That’s what you think.

ESTRAGON:If we parted?That mightiness be better of us .

VLADIMIR:We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow.(Pause)Unless Godot comes.

ESTRAGON:And if comes?

VLADIMIR:We’ll be saved

…"(5)

It is aforesaid just about Author that once he was asked that what he meant by Godot he answered "If I knew ,I would-be have aforesaid so in the play"(6).’WAITING FOR GODOT makes not tell a story ;it explores a static situation ‘(7).So it is clean from the really beginning that Author tried to create a ‘character’ with out a character’ as he himself doesn’t cognize him [Godot], and once again the movement of plot tends to zero ,i.e. there is perfectly no plot . Antecedently it was taken for granted that if there exits a literary piece then there must be either a story( or plot) to tellor any character to be delineated .But did exactly opposite to revolutionize his conception .He presents a ‘character’ whom he himself makes not cognize and tell a plot which is nothing but variations in arrangements and sequences of few events with negligible movement or action :’nothing happens , cipher comes cipher goes …’ (8).

But can be the term ‘Absurd’ allotted to just these qualities of the play? No, there are still much as mentioned by critics .In an essay on Kalfka ,Ionesco defined his understanding of the term as ‘ Absurd is that which is absent of purpose…’(9).And the purposeless becomes evident once ‘ the much things change , the much they are the same ‘(10).And this is done by creating uncommon situations in the play by Breckett . For instance the boy who carries message of Godot to Estragon and Vladimir fails to recognize them on each day of his reappearance ."The French version expressly states that the boy who appears in the second act is the same boy as the one in the 1st act , yet the boy denies that he has even as seen the two tramps before , and insists that this is the 1st time he has acted as Godot’s messenger’(11).And this is done piece ‘waiting’ which is taken by Martin Esslin as ‘Waiting is to experience the action of time , which is constant change . And yet , as nothing real ever happens , the change is itself an illusion .The constant activity of time is a self defeating purposeless…’(12).

And thus by this aimlessness Author tries to prove the absurdity of his play .But is this actually absurd ? If we view it from several some point of views we can suddenly find thing contradicting . It is because we cognize the fact that ‘ truth is ne'er real’ ,and what we define for a situation becomes a truth for us , for that moment . So is the case of abnormality or normality of a situation . Once any action is most common that becomes ‘ normal ‘ for us and this is the really base of our understanding .We understand what is most common and general .We understand thing uncommon by referring it to several common things or actions we understand .So our really base of understanding is based upon several general truth or common events ,the state which we call normal .Now once we thing out of order in a play (e.g. WAITIG FOR GODOT) ,we interpret it in terms of those ‘ commons’ of our memory .But on this view we analyze , can uncommon or absurdity be perceived by us directly without any aid or reference to our definition of ‘normality’ ? It is similar to what Rene’ Wellek tried to explain in his essay ‘ATTACK ON LITERATURE’ by citing an example of Prophet Beckett’s ENDGAME .Becket has depicted a character in END GAME who was ‘ looking for the voice of his silence ‘(13).’The artist’s discontentment with language can only be expressed by language .Pause may be a device to express the indefinable ,but pause can’t be prolonged indefinitely ,can not be just silence as such . It inevitably contrast , it inevitably a beginning and an end…’(14).

This statement suggests the importance of contrast and this is as true in case of absurdity and non-absurdity as it is true in the case of silence and music .

In this light we can reach decision that there is no sense of absurdity with out the normality . But how this is true in case of Godot can be analysed as follows :

Beckett tries hard to accomplish absurdity by doing through his characters , the abnormal things (or at least normal things in abnormal sequence ), still there remains the elements of non-absurdity in every corner of the play . The boy who doesn’t recognize the two tramps bring message from the same Godot (It ne'er happens ever that Godot brings a message from the boy ;or the tramps bring message from the boy to godot ;or tramps speak out the message that the boy brings from the Godot for them ;or Godot ne'er receives message from tramps and so galore can be the absurd case ).It was only one angle of interpretation of the situation .Other interpretations can be galore in amount :Godot waits for tramps ;or tramps don’t wait for Godot piece they say they waited. etc. etc.

When I mean to say is that any action is done in the play has there fore the elements of non-absurdity .We could have recognized them if what we call absurdity would-be be the most normal and what we now feel normal would-be have been absurd .In fact we can’t express absurdity itself and this is the deceiving nature of ‘Absurdity’ , because the moment we speak out thing it becomes a little several from what we originally meant to express . ‘Words , the medium of fiction ,are a fabrication of man’s intellect .They are a part of human lie ‘(14).And for this reason any literature inevitably that medium to be expressed , that becomes deceptive .So Roland Barthes of France says therefore that ‘Literature is a system of deceptive signification…emphatically signifying ,but ne'er finally sense ‘(16).

There fore what ever actions Author tried to fancied in to the play , stands till now between in the limits of absurd and non-absurd and how this action is nearer to any of these two limits depends on what words are used and how they are used to define the limits .

That’s why the play ‘..of the purportedly abstruse avant-grade do so imidiate and so deep an impact on an audience of convicts…’(17),where as the critics could not easily accepted the play as an art in the beginning .

Martin Esslin writes : ‘ because it confronted them [the prisoners] with a situation in several route correspondent to their own ? Possibly . Or possibly because they were un sophisticated enough to move to the theater without any create by mental act notions and readymade expectations ,so that they avoided the mistake that at bay so galore established critics who condemned the play for its lack of plot ,development , characterizations , suspense or plain common sense ‘(18).And of course this is what we see as the attempt to define absurd with non-absurd .Similarly galore another attempts have been ready-made in the past and present to create uncommon out of common .For example the Dadaist Movement . ‘Attempts have been ready-made not only to widen the realm of art ,but to get rid of the boundery between the art and the non-art . In music , noises of machines or the streets are used ; in painting, collage uses stuck-on news papers , buttons , medals and so on , or ‘found objects’ –soup cans , bicycle wheels , electric bulbs , any piece of junks—are exhibited . the newest fad is ‘earth works’ , holes or trenches in the ground , tracks through a corn field , square sheets of leads in snow . A ‘sculptor’ , Christo wrapped a million square feet of Australian outline in plastic . At 1972 Bicnnale in City , a painter ,Gino de Dominicis , exhibited a mongoloid picked up from the streets as a activity of art .In poetry poems have been concocted by the Dadaists by drawing news paper clippings from a bag at random ; much recently poems have been make by computer and a shuffle novel (by Brandy Saporta ) has appeared , in which every page can be replaced by another in any order …’(18).

Similarly we can cite the example of Pop-Culture now so popular by the young generations ,which was once considered as absurd .So what conclusion we reached can be seen in the light of that contrast theory of silence and music told in this essay in the beginning , that what ever we want to express (may it be ‘Silence’ or ‘Absurdity’ ) we need words to express . But ‘a word can ne'er be a thing ‘(20).So we can either accomplish a situation or express it , but we can not do several because , if we try to do , the situation won’t be the same .This is what we can imply once we speak of absurdity ; i.e. we can’t be wholly absured in expression as there is no proper medium exists .

By final this I think I have reached at the ‘ right place at the right time’ , because if I am right then I wish reach the right thing , but if I reach the wrong (as I wish get non-sense)that wish be rather a right thing due to our context . My attempt of criticism , ‘ is an attempt to do us much reasonable’

About The Author

Samir K. Dash

Presently Samir is Director of an animation firm www.anigraphs.com

For much articles by him visit www.samirshomepage.zzn.com

samirk_dash@yahoo.com

This article was announce on Gregorian calendar month 04, 2005