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"Tay te tonk, toc a toc, Ruoi tnot,skon trap"
Watt |
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THE ABSURDITY SENSE
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 , 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"
and "the strangeness of the world" , which are the feelings of
the Absurdity of man in a world where the decline of religious belief
hasdeprivedman 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). 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. ...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."
Hamm:...One day you'll be blind, like me. You'll be sitting
there, a speck in the void, in the dark, for ever, like me. (Pause.) One day
you'll say to yourself, I'm tired, I'll sit down, and you'll go and sit down.
Then you'll say, I'm hungry, I'll get up and get something to eat. But you
won't get up. You'll say, I shouldn't have sat down, but since I have I'll
sit on a little longer, then I'll get up and get something to eat. But you
won't get up and you won't get anything to eat. (Pause.) You'll look at the
wall a while, then you'll say, I'll close my eyes, perhaps have a little
sleep, after that I'll feel better, and you'll close them. And when you'll
open them again there will no wall anymore. (Pause.) Infinite emptiness will
be all around you, all the resurrected dead of all the ages wouldn't fill it,
and there you'll be like a little bit of grit in the middle of the steppe... Clov: It's not certain... Hamm: Well, you'll lie down then, what the hell! Or you'll come
to a standstill, simply stop and stand still, the way you are now. One day
you'll say, I'm tired, I'll stop. What does the attitude matter? Absurdity consists in permanent conflict, it is a
contradiction and a struggle. It can be faced only through struggling with it
and disagreeing with it. That is why, as Camus says, to commit suicide means
to agree with absurdity, it means to give in, because the sense of life is
looked for in another world. (None of Beckett's characters commit a suicide
or die in any way.) It seems that it is impossible to escape from the absurd
fate, to stay here means to face it, to commit suicide means to consent to
it, and therefore it must be accepted. That is the basis of human freedom.
Absurdity does not have any sense, does not have any reasons, any aims, that
is why it does not reflect yesterday, nor tomorrow. The absurd man misses any
hopes, plans, and troubles about his future. He is offered only an instant
moment and that is what his freedom consists of. The only way how to
paralyse absurdity is to not ask for reasons |
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ANTECEDENTS
Although the absurdity sense makes its more evident
during the 20th century, this anticipates its, since so earlier; well with
others tinges. From Erasmo de Roterdam in his Madness Eulogy (1511), the
excentric, the man which ideas and facts results absurds for the system of
evidences admited by the comun sense, adquire a new signification. Names
Alonso Quijano, the truth is, that sometimes have been present in the world
literature; but his predilect land is England, where Ben
Jonson in 1598 stablish his theoria of the humours, base of the
inglish humours, having like a start point the calculated absurdity, that bud
of the excentric conduct. From Robert Burton (1577-1640) to Laurence
Sterne (1713-1768), the big course of the inglish exentrics disembogue in the
19th century in the sense, represented by Edward Lear (1812-1888) and by Lewis
Carroll (1832-1898). The nonsense anticipates the surrealistics
investigations and some subterraneous cources of the human spirit that they
have bring the psicoanalisis. But to adopt the new face that the 20th century
will see in the absurdity, it lacks even the fundamental ingredient for the existencial
anguish, filtered by minds so important like Nietzsche (1844-1900), with the
death of God; Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), that placed
the man in a world unprovided of the sense, armed only with the liberty that
his existence consents him. Like the same way, the atheist existencialism of Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and the though
of Albert Camus (1913-1960) rest both in an absurdity experience: the man
lives for nothing in a nonsense world, in which he can´t afirm if it isn´t by
the rebound, the liberty expression. The “Phenomenology” of Husserl
(1859-1938) or the though of the danish Kierkegaard
(1813-1855) considered the first existencialist thinker, although adduced his
small grain of sand in the spring of this absurdity sense. However, this sense was present in the literary
sense more earlier of the existencialist generation. According to some
theorics can trace it his track, in the mad poets like Alfred Jarry and George Fourest, and later
in some surrealistics manifestations; and inclose in the Kafka,
James Joyce, André Malrauxs and Henry de Montherlant novels. |
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the absurdity theater
Previous
considerations
In this chapter I am interested in the form of
the Theatre of the Absurd, which I see as an optimal form for expressing
Absurdity. In addition I will make some comparison with epic theatre, which I
consider important in reaching a better understanding of Beckett's dramatic
intentions and his plays in general. Theatre, in its original ancient meaning
THEAacute;pTRON (place of watching, auditorium), is a special artistic form,
one of the three literary modes, narrative, lyric, dramatic, which is
constituted not only of words, but also by exclusively dramatic visual
components such as movement, physical gestures, scenes,...etc. It does not
occur inside the human soul as other forms do (novel, poem, essay), but it
happens in an outside world. In consequence, drama is a rather spectacular
genre, more a visible than a literary one, the means of which is a
multidimensional picture. At the same time, drama is composed of two
different spaces, which are in a mutual relationship - the stage and the
auditorium. Both components, being in mutual polarity (the audience watches
and the actors are watched), can exist only through communication with each
other. This communication can only work if both sides are aware of their
roles. If the general form of theatre is a fictive
picture, the Theatre of the Absurd is a "picture in a picture",
because its content is, at the same time, also a picture - an image, the
author' subjective vision. He transforms his vision through the symbolic
language of theatre (dramatic pictures) into the symbolic life situation of
fictional characters. Therefore, a "picture in picture" is a
picture of the author's vision, this is content, expressed in a dramatic
picture, as a formal component of a dramatic play. The absurd character is in an absolutely
different position. He is not formed by his surroundings in its own image, he
is not tossing about in the flood of life events and processes. On the
contrary, he is isolated, static, and motionless , and thus appears and
illustrates himself from inside; he is recognised through his own picture of
the world he puts before us. The whole stage is a symbol showing the inside
mental world of the characters, who are organic parts of it. The reality of
the situation in which the absurd character appears, is a psychological
reality expressed in images that are the outward projection of states of his
mind. That is why the Theatre of the Absurd can be considered an image of the
human being's inner world. It presents a truer picture of reality itself,
reality as apprehended by an individual. "If a good play must have a
cleverly constructed story, these have no story or plot to speak of; if a
good play is judged by subtlety of characterisation and motivation, these are
often without recognisable characters and present the audience with almost
mechanical puppets; if a good play has to have a fully explained theme, which
is neatly exposed and finally solved, these often have neither a beginning
nor an end; if a good play is to hold a mirror up to nature and portray the
manners and mannerisms of the age in finely observed sketches, these seem
often to be reflections of dreams and nightmares; if a good play relies on
witty repartee and pointed dialogue, these often consist in incoherent
babblings". (Although Esslin marks the plays which are oppositions to
the absurd ones "good", he does not express their artistic value,
but points out by the truthful and essential comparisons the specificity and
singularity of the plays of absurdity). While the epic character remains in the centre
of the active, forming world; the absurd one stays in centre of the world
picture he creates himself. In other words: the world exists according to
man. "It means that the existence of man is not determined by anything
external, lying outside of him, e.g. surroundings, history, God's order,
etc.; but he is only himself, he is exclusively his own work, the result of
his own decisions and behaviour". In this sense, it is possible to
understand the Theatre of the Absurd as a return to what was, for the first
time in Greek philosophy formulated by the Sophists. They diverted human
interest from nature and directed it at man and his thinking. This interest
in a subject, individual human thinking, and the individual's situation
corresponds with the philosophy of existentialism (Heidegger, Jaspers, Camus,
Sartre...), which is focused on the subjective, individual's experience in a
concrete fatal situation. While the philosophers deal with the absurdity of
human existence rationally, using philosophical language; the absurd
dramatists express it in concrete dramatic pictures. They offer us the opportunity
to not only think about absurdity, but to feel it and experience it
simultaneously with the actors and the author, who transforms his mind into a
symbolic dramatic language. I consider the plays my thesis deals with
multidimensional pictures stating the author's individual feelings and, at
the same time, a remarkable intimate communicative relationship between the
author and his thinking, the actor's symbolic pose, and the spectator's
perception.. The
absurdity theater
According to the founts, this denomination was
employed for the first time in 1961 by the critic Martin Esslin to define
contemporaneus dramaturgs group which work turns around the absurdity of the
human condition, and subside about the basis of the existencialist thoughs of
Albert Camus But some theorics inclose soar them more behind
and consider to the creator of the effect of the “theater in the theater”[1]
Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) like the precursor
of this course, even the extension and the diversity of his work (Six
characters looking for the author, Each other to his way, Thus is if thus
your seams) and his important aportation to the narrative impide to pronounce
of a contundent way. In the same way it have wanted its to see the
antecedents of the absurdity theater in the work of Jean Cocteau. But without doubt the more important characters
that incarnate the two principal tendences in which manifested its the
absurdity theater are, the romany Eugéne Ionesco (1912-1994) , and the irish
Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). Although they have to included too in this course
athors so detadhed like the italian Dino Buzzati (1906-1972 Clínic case), the
inglish N.F. Simpson (1919, El retintineante tintinear), the french Jean,
(1903, La ventanilla, La cerradura) and the armenian Arthur Adamov
(1908-1970, La Parodia y La invasión). All this titles iniciated the precence
of a new theater in contrast to the tradicional theater. A theater against
the psicologic theater, a theater against the metaphysic of the language and
the ideologics discurses; reclamed, continuing the Artaud watch-word, a
"physics of the scenary". In the Adamov theater all was visible, inclose
the mystirious motives that sustented his dramas; for example, in The
invasion, the mental disorder that caracterice his characters reflexes by the
disorder of the room inwhich they are living. In The big and the small handiwork of 1950 the physic mutilation of
the heros traduce his interior ruin. Since his first refulgent issue (The bald
singer, opened in 1950) Ionesco aported to the contemporaneus theater the
more extrem absurd model: the mechanized, the proverbs, the deep
incomunication of the social class. In his following works (The lesson, The
chairs) that search was accompanied with a humour each time more ferocious,
to arrive in his works of maturity (Rhinocerous, The king dies, The thirst
and the man) an anguish manifestation neighbouring in the desperation.The
chairs (1952), according to his words, the theme of the piece doesn´t is the
missage, nor the life downfalls, the theme is simply "the chairs",
the absence of life materia, the irreality of the world, the metaphysic void. Insted of his excellent works(Molloy, Malone
dies, The Unnamable) Beckett started his theater walks with his most
significative work Waiting for Godot (1952), the mayor metaphore about the
hopeless and nonsense of the present life. And it is with any doubt, Waiting
for Godot the play is more nearer to this “visible” and “literal” theater that proposed, a theater
farly of the past miths and the dramaturgics principes that ruled in the
occidental theater. In Waiting for Godot we clarely perceibe a
theater that indicate full and exclusively the “presence in the stage”: the
two vagabounds limite them to stay there, something that never we had
couldn´t see before; the theater characters,limited anteriorly to represent a
rol, while the Beckett´s vagabounds seams that they don´t have any. They are
there, but doesn´t seams to have a learned text, they had to invente it. Are
his books for everything except to abandone the scene, becouse his commited
is to wait for Godot. The lector- espectator doen´t go to find a concret
history, nor the solution of a problem. Is only a theater fruit of his time,
of a ilogycal and absurdity world. To it, he used representation techniques,
sometimes truthly old-fashion, like the way and the clown proceeding of the
old Greece and Rome, the "auto Sacramental" of Spain, the
"pantomima" or the Music-hall in Grand Bretain, etc...and posterior
influences of Jarry, Artaud , the dadaists or Apollinaire at the rest of his
production ( Endgame, Krap´s tape, Happy Days), that went losing weight
formaly to the almost silence of his last titles. But we haven´t got to understand the absurdity
theater like a movement or a school in the traditional sense. Trated simply
about a concept that englobe some dramaturgs that, in a concret moment,
coincided in their particular form to see the world. Evidently it had to
exist with a historical concept that acted like a cultivated broth that made
emerger the dramatic concience of the world and the human destin
irracionality. The social antecedents profundly conditionates doesn´t lack:
the first world war ; the dishumanitation of the
society united to the cruel progress, the desilution that provoqued the enter
of Stalin to the authority of the soviet union, converted in a totalitary
tirany, after the hopelessness theories of Marx; the second world war, gave cruel image of
the human essence; finaly, the spiritual voild that provailed in the prosper
societies of occidental Europe and EE.UU. What to think about this?.
Phylosophs, dramaturgs, plastic artists..."translated" what they
were seing: a desilusionated picture of a destroyed and licentious world by
conflicts and dissapointed ideologies. So the absurdity play emerged again like a
anti-work of the classic dramaturgy, of the brechtian epic system and of the
realism. His prefered form is the work without intrig nor characters clarely
defined: the hazar and the sudden idea to prevail sovereignly.The scene
renunce to all the psicologyc or gestual mimetism, to all the ilution effect,
even the spectator was obligated to accept the physical convencions of a new
fictition univers. The absurdity work, to center the trama in the
comunication problems, frequently transforms in a discurs about the theater,
in a meta-work. The surrealistics investigations about the automatic
writting, the absurdity have had the capacity to sublim in a paradogical form
the "sleep writting", of the subconcient and of the mental world
and the finding of the scenic metaphore to imagine this interior
scenary. In this form the absudity sustituted to the
tragic like a resorte of the theatral fiction. Both have a rest in the
isolation and the incommunication, but while the tragedy conserves from his
origens the caracteristic of a rite in which imcompatibly to oppose mans and
Gods, sommeted both misterious and incredible fatality, the absurdity
theater doesn´t already use the mediation of this "Miths" for
translate and purefy the anguish of the human condition. Contrary, the
experience directly, convertes in a event, in a happening, in something that
succeds. In our days dont´t exist any human activity
that isn´t marked by the anguish conscience. According to someones, this
anguish only can resolve by a free act: revelion, politic compromise, ethic decision,
artistic and scientific invention, inclose a new conduct in front of
religious experience. Others think that, thanks to her, is posible to
elaborate a new humanism in the contradictions more evident of the
contemporaneus world. And other.... Das Ratsel gibt es nicht. Ween sich eine Frage Uber
haupt stellen laBt, so kaan sie auch beanwortet
werden. Skeptizismus ist nicht
unwiderleglich,sondern offenbar unsinning, wenn er
bezweifeln will, wo nicht gefragt werden kann. Denn Zweitel kann nur
bestehen, wo eine Frage besteht; eine Frage nur, wo
eine Antwort besteht, und diese nur, woetwas gesagt werden kann. Tractatus
Logico-Psilosophicus por Ludwig Wittgenstein
Academic year 2000/2001 |
