THINKING ACTIVITY : WAITING FOR GODOT
Man's pursuit of knowledge
Camus' initial narrative begins with a conflict between the protagonist and the gods, who are displeased because the protagonist, Sisyphus, steals their secrets and is governed by a thirst for knowledge which they find to be arrogant and threatening. So they seek to punish him.
This conflict is interesting within Camus' corpus because Camus believes that life is inherently meaningless and absurd. That might lead the reader to understand knowledge as a futile act as well, but in fact, Camus argues in this essay that knowledge is integral to man's noble resistance of his own futillity and mortality. Knowledge then becomes a type of bravery. Fear keeps people from acknowledging their own fate, but the absurd hero is aware and active in resisting the consequences of the truth.
Camus juxtaposes observations about Sisyphus' thirst for wisdom and his alleged profession as a thief: "According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman." Camus' conclusion about the two themes is given in the next line: "I see no contradiction in this." This illustrates Camus' assumption about wisdom as an act of theft. Of course, knowing a thing does not remove the knowledge from the person you took the knowledge from, but it is an act of robbery. When you learn something for yourself, you seize power from he who kept the knowledge from you. This is an essential doctrine of the absurd hero, that he gains authority of his own fate by learning it, even though Sisyphus' own main conflict is not resolved by his awareness of it. But, it is his knowledge of the truth of his own existence that allows him to be a hero.
The futility of human existence.
The central conflict is presented by Camus to be Sisyphus' fateful duty in the underworld of rolling a stone up a hill each day just to watch it fall back to where it started. But, it is preceded in the narrative by a few lines about the time between his putting Death in chains and his capture. "But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth." Comments about Sisyphus' persistent love of nature and existence seem antithetical to his awareness of the futility of his own fate, yet Camus is careful to indicate that Sisyphus is still consoled by nature, still warmed by the sun by the coast, still very much craving a life in the natural world. This is an important argument in Existentialism, because it confronts the idea that awareness about the futility of life should bring about apathy, spite and suicide. Through Sisyphus, Camus shows why that isn't true; life is still rich in experience, though it lacks inherent meaning.
When Sisyphus is finally bound to toil for naught in the darkness of the underworld, we see another comment (arguably the dominant one) that life is lived most nobly when we face our triviality and choose to continue on in spite of it. Note Camus blatant comment, "You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture." He tells us in that comment that he believes herocisim to include desire and futility. He believes Sisyphus' heroicism stems primarily from his understanding that his life has no consequence or essence, but still finds peace in his state, and still desires to live. Camus says this in the last paragraph of the essay by asserting, "One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well."
The religious connotation of Camus' comment can be seen easily in his use of religious terms ("fidelity," "all is well," and others throughout) which is because his own religious beliefs strengthened his conviction that life was not validated through religious belief. He believed religion to be unnecessary, and maybe even unhelpful in the ends of an absurd hero. The point of his religious disposition in this work is that it emphasizes his main thesis in the essay, that man ought to understand his nothingness and still carry on in his futility. His earlier comments further this point: "Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
Camus's main thesis is an answer to the futility of life. He argues that man ought to despise his fate and thwart the capricious nature of existence through an awareness of his poor state, and through continuing on the pursuits of his own vain desires. Secondarily, the essay contains an embedded argument against those who use religious faith instead of objective knowledge.
Man and love
Camus' comments about romance are brief but insightful. He recasts a portion of the myth this way: "It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by and obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife." This passage is insightful to the thematic intent of the story, because it involves the tragedy of human romance, and it contrasts the dark solitary punishment that characterizes Sisyphus' story with his own frustrations with the failure of human romance.
Camus' tale describes the paradox of romance by showing the wife honoring Sisyphus' request, contrary to Sisyphus' true desires. This is a poignant reflection of the complexity that undergirds love--that what we ask for and what we want are different. According to Sisyphus' reaction, we assume that he feels slighted by her not seeking to do best for him despite his explicit directions. There is no easy solution to the conflict, and none is given in the piece.
Perhaps the most notable detail of Sisyphus' frustration is that there is no redemption or validation for his relationship with his wife. Instead, he spends time by the shore, entranced by the beauty of nature. In this way he demonstrates a calm peace with the failures inherent in human relationships. His fate is not multi-personal. It is his own struggle against his own absurdity, and love, like religion, is not offered as an easy solution to the problems of his existence.
*Do you agree that Existentialism is Humanism?
Existentialism Is a Humanism (French: L'existentialisme est un humanisme) is a 1946 work by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, based on a lecture by the same name he gave at Club Maintenant in Paris, on 29 October 1945. In early translations, Existentialism and Humanism was the title used in the United Kingdom; the work was originally published in the United States as Existentialism, and a later translation employs the original title. The work, once influential and a popular starting-point in discussions of Existentialist thought, has been widely criticized by philosophers, including Sartre himself, who later rejected some of the views he expressed in it.
My purpose here is to offer a defence of existentialism against several reproaches that have been laid against it.
First, it has been reproached as an invitation to people to dwell in quietism of despair. For if every way to a solution is barred, one would have to regard any action in this world as entirely ineffective, and one would arrive finally at a contemplative philosophy. Moreover, since contemplation is a luxury, this would be only another bourgeois philosophy. This is, especially, the reproach made by the Communists.
From another quarter we are reproached for having underlined all that is ignominious in the human situation, for depicting what is mean, sordid or base to the neglect of certain things that possess charm and beauty and belong to the brighter side of human nature: for example, according to the Catholic critic, Mlle. Mercier, we forget how an infant smiles. Both from this side and from the other we are also reproached for leaving out of account the solidarity of mankind and considering man in isolation. And this, say the Communists, is because we base our doctrine upon pure subjectivity – upon the Cartesian “I think”: which is the moment in which solitary man attains to himself; a position from which it is impossible to regain solidarity with other men who exist outside of the self. The ego cannot reach them through the cogito.
From the Christian side, we are reproached as people who deny the reality and seriousness of human affairs. For since we ignore the commandments of God and all values prescribed as eternal, nothing remains but what is strictly voluntary. Everyone can do what he likes, and will be incapable, from such a point of view, of condemning either the point of view or the action of anyone else.
*What is Theater of Absurd?
The Theatre of the Absurd (French: théâtre de l'absurde [teɑtʁ(ə) də lapsyʁd]) is a post–World War II designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s. It is also a term for the style of theatre the plays represent. The plays focus largely on ideas of existentialism and express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down. The structure of the plays is typically a round shape, with the finishing point the same as the starting point. Logical construction and argument give way to irrational and illogical speech and to the ultimate conclusion—silence.
Theatre of the Absurd, dramatic works of certain European and American dramatists of the 1950s and early ’60s who agreed with the Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus’s assessment, in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), that the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose. The term is also loosely applied to those dramatists and the production of those works. Though no formal Absurdist movement existed as such, dramatists as diverse as such, Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter, and a few others shared a pessimistic vision of humanity struggling vainly to find a purpose and to control its fate. Humankind in this view is left feeling hopeless, bewildered, and anxious.
The ideas that inform the plays also dictate their structure. Absurdist playwrights, therefore, did away with most of the logical structures of traditional theatre. There is little dramatic action as conventionally understood; however frantically the characters perform, their busyness serves to underscore the fact that nothing happens to change their existence. In Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1952), plot is eliminated, and a timeless, circular quality emerges as two lost creatures, usually played as tramps, spend their days waiting—but without any certainty of whom they are waiting for or of whether he, or it, will ever come.
Language in an Absurdist play is often dislocated, full of cliches, puns, repetitions, and non sequiturs. The characters in Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano (1950) sit and talk, repeating the obvious until it sounds like nonsense, thus revealing the inadequacies of verbal communication.
(1) What connection do you see in the setting (“A country road. A tree.Evening.”) of the play and these paintings?=>
In this picture two people are there. Both have desire. This picture also suggests that they are waiting for something. But In picture Longing is the theme of this painting. So Samuel Beckett inspired by this painting and then he writes "Waiting for Godot". In the painting they have desire but for which things, maybe they have desire to meet with God and to get position in Heven. So when we look towards painting we find that In painting they have desire and then when we look towards Beckett's play both waiting for something. So maybe In painting and In play both have same reason for waiting and for desire.
=>
(5) Do you agree: “The play (Waiting for Godot), we agreed, was a positive play, not negative, not pessimistic. As I saw it, with my blood and skin and eyes, the philosophy is: 'No matter what— atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, anything—life goes on. You can kill yourself, but you can't kill life." (E.G. Marshal who played Vladimir in original Broadway production 1950s)?
=> In the play Estragon and Vlalidimir both are talking. And both argues with each other. Both have their own point of view. That's why sometimes they becomes hiper to prove their point of view. No according to me the play is not negative but positive. Because it shows the reality of life. It is bitter but it is effective. Both are talking but in their small talk both tells the truth of life. So play is positive.
=> Hat and Boots becomes symbol. One hat is Pozzo's hat. And Vladimir takes this hat and put on his head. Another hat gives to Estragon and then he also put Vladimir's hat on his head and his hate gives to Vladimir. And then they again and again doing that. So it becomes a symbol of master - slave relationship. One is in top position so another is in bottom. And that situation constantly happens in society. One becomes poor and another becomes rich. And one becomes rich so another is in poor position.
(7) Even when the master Pozzo is blind, he obediently hands the whip in his hand. Do you think that such a capacity of slavishness is unbelievable?
=> yes, I agree that the subject of the play is not Godot but Waiting, because In whole play nobody came, they waiting in the beginning of the play both ate waiting and at the end of the play both are waiting so waiting becomes the theme of the play.
(10) Do you think that plays like this can better be ‘read’ than ‘viewed’ as it requires a lot of thinking on the part of readers, while viewing, the torrent of dialogues does not give ample time and space to ‘think’? Or is it that the audio-visuals help in better understanding of the play?
=> Sometimes reading the dialogues, text becomes important because every seen does not gives deep impact but reading the text becomes necessary because when we read this play it gives a deep message, and in the movie the dialogue goes speedily that's why it becomes difficult to understand.
(11) Which of the following sequence you liked the most:
* Pozzo – Lucky episode in both acts
* Converstion of Vladimir with the boy
=>
Comments
Post a Comment