Study of Samuel Beckett with a New Perspective

Abstract

The term ’absurdity’ is very much attached with the playwright, Samuel Beckett of the 1950s. It is a state of mind where nothing is concrete; everything is hazy and fluid. That type of mental make-up is made mainly due to a vacuum created in the socio-political and cultural arena after the World War II and culminated into a concrete shape in the fifties. In the field of theatre Samuel Beckett for the first time exposed the absurd situation of human beings on the stage. Though apparently he is tagged as an absurd dramatist, a question always peeps in the mind of the readers. Should he rightly be called an absurdist? Does he really believe in the concept of absurdity? This article tries to find out a rational answer to these queries analysing his two plays and attaching him with other dramatists of the time. It appears the dramas –‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Endgame’ speak of the meaningless journey of human life and it is the destiny. But, perhaps, there is a scope to analyse his dramas from a new perspective which is related to his new dramatic technique and the ending of his plays. Perhaps it can be boldly said that Beckett has not finished the dramas in an absurd manner; a kind of positive outlook towards life is coming out at the end of the plays. Waiting for a meaningful life is very much explicit in ‘Waiting for Godot’ and in ‘Endgame’. His other contemporary dramatists have dealt with the absurd situation of human life of the time in their own ways. Hence, Beckett has not only presented the absurd human condition in vivid manners, but has also tried to hint a way out to overcome the issues.