III. The
Theory of Absurdity
Absurdity
is a key word in Beckett's dramatic writings as well as of the whole Theatre
of the Absurd. This chapter is a brief introduction to the philosophical
background of Absurdity, in which I deal with three main problems: what
Absurdity is, in what fate life moments it appears, and what consequences
for a human view of life it holds with itself.
One of the most basic philosophical
questions asks whether there is any meaning in our existence at all. The
human necessity of unifying explanation of world has always been satisfied
by religion and creators of the philosophical systems who made the human
life meaningful. The natural desire to get to know and understand the world
in its most hidden spheres was fulfilled by religious dogmas about the
existence of God, which guaranteed the meaningful contingency of human
life. In 1883 Friedrich Nietzsche published his magnum opus Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, where of the revolutionary thesis that "God is dead"appeared.
From that time of Zarathustra the old everyday certainties of life started
to loose their certainty. World War I and World War II caused deep destruction
and loss of human ultimate certainties and definitely brought about a world
missing any unifying principle, a world senseless and disconnected with
human life. If one realises the absence of sense, and this is the expression
of the spirit of epoch, in which the Theatre of the Absurd is rooted, the
world becomes irrational and the conflict between the world and the human
being who begins to be estranged from it arises here. Martin Esslin mentions
Ionesco's parallel concept of the absurdity: "Absurd is that which is devoid
of purpose. ...Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental
roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless".
Albert
Camus (1913-1960), a French novelist and essayist, who worked out the theory
of absurdity and who also applied this thesis in his literary writings
iv
, deals with the absurd fate of man and literally demonstrates it with
the legendary ancient myth of Sisyphus in his stimulating analysis
The
Myth of Sisyphus. Camus goes into the problem what the absurdity is
and how it arises. He also gives the characteristics of human basic ontological
categories as the feelings of "denseness"(11) and "the strangeness of the
world" (11), which are the feelings of the Absurdity of man in a world
where the decline of religious belief has deprived man of his certainties.
Camus sees absurdity in a bilateral relationship between the human
being and the world he lives in. Absurdity does not reside in the world
itself, or in a human being, but in a tension which is produced by their
mutual indifference. Human existence is in its essence completely different
from the existence of things outside the human subject. The world of things
is impenetrable and because of its impenetrability it is also alien to
man. "If I were a tree among trees, a cat among animals, this life would
have a meaning, or rather this problem would not arise, for I should belong
to this world. I should be this world to which I am now opposed by my whole
consciousness and my whole insistence upon familiarity. This ridiculous
reason is what sets me in opposition to all creation.".
The
world becomes alien and the human being becomes estranged from it, he feels
isolated and limited.
Thus
absurdity arises from a natural unit composed of "I" and "the world", by
comparison of these two elements, which leads to the resulting decomposition.
This view of the world characterised by the subject-object dualism has
its roots in the philosophy of R. Descartes He was the first one who was
engaged in the problem of the relationship between man and the outside
world, and who was trying to solve the question of the connection of these
two essentially different substances (res extensa and res cogitas). ( See
chapter IV.) Consequently, absurdity has been born out of a comparison.
A man stands opposite to the world of things, which permanently makes an
attack on him. Absurdity is a divorce and it does not lie in any of the
two elements.
Absurdity appears in the moments when man realises his situation, in
the moments of awareness of his position in the world. Camus describes
this situation of realisation and understanding in these words: "Rising,
streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm-this path is
easily followed most of the time. But one day the "why" arises and everything
begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. ...Weariness comes at the
end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates
the impulse of consciousness"."The workman of today works of everyday in
his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic
only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious." In another words,
absurdity arises from moments when all the acts of life that flow mechanically
stop, and when consciousness starts to wake up and move. This means that
the non-sense of life has been opening in the only one incomprehensible
feeling. "Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined."
Beckett
illustrates this situation in his play Endgame through the character
of Hamm: |