THE THEATRE OF THE ABSURD BECKETT AND PINTER

Abstract

As a direct consequence of long and brutal World Wars, Europe witnessed the destruction of the established values of life. The growing sense of despair and alienation, losing communication with one another were for a long time what people suffered inEuropethat changed the whole world.  Coupled with the decline in faith in religion and the rise of science with the enlightenment and the social revolution’s turning into a totalitarian regime, the world will never be the same for anyone. Now the human beings had to confront their own selves which are however fragmented and largely unknown.

            The plays that are termed as absurd originate from those times, aftermath of the Great Wars. Absurdist playwrights produced plays that staged the very the absurd human condition in universe. As opposed to the modern drama, the absurdist plays attacked the notion of a linear plot and traditional characterization. In the absurdist plays, there is almost no conflict to be solved but a static, a seemingly ever-present situation that haunts the whole play. This work will strive to examine basic tenets of the theater of the absurd and then will analyze Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter.

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