Absurdity of Absurd: Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Activity spot
What does ‘Absurd’ beggarly ?When I searched the glossaries ,I begin the chat to be ‘out of harmony’(1).However even the definitions trying dense to account for the word , aloof to point in complete ‘Absurdity’ (assuming for a while that we understand the acceptation of the chat),as they speak in complete idea, the absurdity approximately it and of direction that method they fail(in their attack ).However considering the word to be linked with literature (and other forms of art also!),when I searched for added I came across the lines that states that no ‘literary criticism’ [in which I comprehend the attempts to account for the literary terms] can booty the literary assignment itself ,or to be added particular ‘…it [literary criticism]is no substitute for reading the assignment itself’(2),as it [the lot of work]is the most right and exactly ,the idea conveyed or explained. So, I reached the abstraction that to accept ‘absurd’ .I must appearance an absurd assignment by an artist, rather than poring over the talks approximately it. Hence as a literary student what aboriginal came to my apperception at this immediate is none, however WAITING FOR GODOT by Samuel Beckett, the so called absurd play structured encircling ‘Go dot’, the axis all absurdity[as till the time none could declare with confidence ‘who’ or ‘what’ Activity spot is !]
What I begin in the ashbin of my memories approximately this activity spot is:
“On 19 November 1957, a accumulation of worried actors were preparing to face their audience . The actors were members of the corporation of the San Francisco Actors’ Workshop . The audience consisted of fourteen hundred convicts at the San Quentin penitentiary . No alive play had been performed at San Quentin because Sarah Bernhardt appeared there in 1913 .Immediately ,fourty four age subsequent ,the play that had been chosen ,especially as no woman appeared in it , was Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT’(3). …”Beckett absolute triumph ,…came when WAITING FOR GODOT which appeared in textbook anatomy in 1952,was aboriginal produced on 5 Jan 1953 , at the small Theater de Babylone (immediately defunct ),…’(4)
And I begin again some lines of this play:
“…
ESTRGON:Didi.
VLADIMIR:Affirmative.
ESTRGON:I can’t activity on love this.
VLADIMIR: That’s what you anticipate.
ESTRAGON:Provided we parted?That might be bigger of us .
VLADIMIR:We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow.(Stop)Unless Activity spot comes.
ESTRAGON:And provided comes?
VLADIMIR:We’ll be saved
…”(5)
It is said approximately Beckett that when he was asked that what he meant by Activity spot he answered “Provided I knew ,I would accept said so in the play”(6).’WAITING FOR GODOT does not impart a narrative ;it explores a static bearings ‘(7).So it is bright from the too alpha that Beckett tried to actualize a ‘character’ without a character’ as he himself doesn’t understand him [Go dot], and again the movement of plot tends to aught ,i.e. there is actually no plot . Formerly it was taken for granted that provided there exists a literary lot then there must be either a narrative( or plot) to tellor any appearance to be represented .However did right adverse to revolutionize his idea .He presents a ‘character’ whom he himself does not understand and impart a plot which is annihilation however variations in arrangements and sequences of hardly any events with negligible movement or activity :’nothing happens , nobody comes nobody goes …’ (8).
However can be the word ‘Absurd’ assigned to merely these qualities of the play? No, there are even added as mentioned by critics .In an essay on Kalfka ,Ionesco defined his compassionate of the word as ‘ Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose…’(9).And the purposeless becomes evident when ‘ the added matters chicken feed , the added they are the identical ‘(10).And this is done by creating few situations in the play by Breckett . For case the boy who carries note of Activity spot to Estragon and Vladimir fails to know them on each time of his reappearance .”The French story explicitly states that the boy who appears in the moment fact is the identical boy as the one in the aboriginal fact , even the boy denies that he has much seen the two tramps before , and insists that this is the aboriginal age he has acted as Activity dot’s messenger’(11).And this is done while ‘waiting’ which is interpreted by Martin Esslin as ‘Waiting is to familiarity the activity of age , which is fixed chicken feed . And even , as annihilation absolute ever happens , the chicken feed is itself an phantasm .The ceaseless life of age is a self defeating purposeless…’(12).
And thus by this purposelessness Beckett tries to prove the absurdity of his play .However is this actually absurd ? Provided we appearance it from some altered mark of views we can suddenly acquisition something contradicting . It is as we understand the actuality that ‘ accuracy is never real’ ,and what we define for a bearings becomes a accuracy for us , for that second . So is the position of abnormality or normalcy of a bearings . When any activity is most general that becomes ‘ usual ‘ for us and this is the too model of our compassionate .We accept what is most general and common .We accept something few by referring it to some general matters or actions we accept .So our too model of compassionate is based upon some common accuracy or general events ,the government which we phone usual .Immediately when we something outside of course in a play (e.g. WAITIG FOR GODOT) ,we read it in terms of those ‘ commons’ of our reminiscence .However on this appearance we analyse , can few or absurdity be perceived by us directly without any help or reference to our definition of ‘normality’ ? It is agnate to what Rene’ Wellek tried to account for in his essay ‘ATTACK ON LITERATURE’ by citing an archetype of Samuel Beckett’s ENDGAME .Becket has portrayed a appearance in Point Pastime who was ‘ looking for the articulation of his silence ‘(13).’The artist’s dissatisfaction with speech can alone be expressed by speech .Stop may be a device to accurate the inexpressible ,however stop can’t be prolonged indefinitely ,cann’t be simply silence as such . It needs contrast , it needs a alpha and an end…’(14).
This statement suggests the accent of contrast and this is as accurate in position of absurdity and non-absurdity as it is accurate in the position of silence and air .
In this blaze we can grasp accommodation that there is no idea of absurdity without the normalcy . However how this is accurate in position of Activity spot can be analysed as follows :
Beckett tries dense to accomplish absurdity by doing buttoned up his characters , the abnormal matters (or at least usual matters in abnormal sequence ), even there remains the elements of non-absurdity in every corner of the play . The boy who doesn’t know the two tramps bring note from the identical Activity spot (It never happens ever that Activity spot brings a note from the boy ;or the tramps bring note from the boy to activity spot ;or tramps say outside the note that the boy brings from the Activity spot for them ;or Activity spot never receives note from tramps and so abounding can be the absurd position ).It was alone one angle of construction of the bearings .Other interpretations can be abounding in numbers :Activity spot waits for tramps ;or tramps don’t wait for Activity spot while they affirm they waited. etc. etc.
When I beggarly to affirm is that whatever activity is done in the play has accordingly the elements of non-absurdity .We could accept recognized them provided what we phone absurdity would be the most usual and what we immediately air usual would accept been absurd .Actually we can’t accurate absurdity itself and this is the deceiving attributes of ‘Absurdity’ , as the second we say outside something it becomes a small altered from what we originally meant to accurate . ‘Words , the medium of fiction ,are a fabrication of man’s mind .They are a thing of human aspersion ‘(14).And for this ground any literature needs that medium to be expressed , that becomes misleading .So Roland Barthes of France says accordingly that ‘Literature is a process of misleading signification…emphatically signifying ,however never finally signified ‘(16).
Accordingly whatever actions Beckett tried to fabricated in to the play , stands till nowadays between in the limits of absurd and non-absurd and how this activity is nearer to any of these two limits depends on what text are used and how they are used to define the limits .
That’s why the play ‘..of the supposedly esoteric avant-grade accomplish so prompt and so abysmal an force on an audience of convicts…’(17),where as the critics could not easily general the play as an art in the alpha .
Martin Esslin writes : ‘ as it confronted them [the prisoners] with a bearings in some ways similar to their own ? Maybe . Or maybe as they were un sophisticated enough to come to the theatre without any preconceived notions and readymade expectations ,so that they avoided the error that trapped so abounding established critics who condemned the play for its absence of plot ,process , characterizations , suspense or direct general idea ‘(18).And of direction this is what we look as the attack to define absurd with non-absurd .Similarly abounding other attempts accept been fabricated in the former and show to actualize few outside of general .For archetype the Dadaist Movement . ‘Attempts accept been fabricated not alone to widen the realm of art ,however to stop the boundary between the art and the non-art . In air , noises of machines or the streets are used ; in portray, collage uses stuck-on account papers , buttons , medals and so on , or ‘found objects’ &ndashsoup cans , bicycle wheels , electric bulbs , any lot of junks&ndashare exhibited . the newest fad is ‘earth works’ , holes or trenches in the ground , tracks buttoned up a corn world , square sheets of leads in snow . A ‘sculptor’ , Christo wrapped a million square feet of Australian coastline in plastic . At 1972 Bicnnale in Venice , a painter ,Gino de Dominicis , exhibited a mongoloid picked up from the streets as a assignment of art .In poetry poems accept been concocted by the Dadaists by picture account paper clippings from a bag at haphazard ; added recently poems accept been produced by machine and a shuffle book (by Marc Saporta ) has appeared , in which every sheet can be replaced by another in any course …’(18).
Similarly we can cite the archetype of Pop-Culture immediately so general by the adolescent generations ,which was once considered as absurd .So what conclusion we reached can be seen in the blaze of that contrast opinion of silence and air told in this essay in the alpha , that whatever we desire to accurate (may it be ‘Silence’ or ‘Absurdity’ ) we charge text to accurate . However ‘a chat can never be a object ‘(20).So we can either accomplish a bearings or accurate it , however we cannot accomplish both as , provided we best shot to accomplish , the bearings won’t be the identical .This is what we can imply when we say of absurdity ; i.e. we can’t be completetly absurd in word as there is no proper medium exists .
By concluding this I anticipate I accept reached at the ‘ appropriate put at the appropriate time’ , as provided I am appropriate then I will grasp the appropriate object , however provided I grasp the amiss (as I will amuse non-sense)that will be rather a appropriate object due to our case . My attack of criticism , ‘ is an attack to accomplish us added reasonable’
