Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett(1906-1989)

Waiting for Godot

Literature of the Absurd [from Abrams' A Glossary of Literary Terms]

--- human condition is essentially absurd

--- against the values of traditional culture and literature

--- Sartre and Camus: Existential Philosophy that human being as an isolated existent

Theater of the Absurd

--- man is lost

--- men's actions are senseless, useless and absurd

Waiting for Godot

--- grotesquely comic, irrational, absurd, helpless

--- the relationship between Didi and Gogo: master-slave; clown-tramp

--- the central theme: waiting

--- "Godot is life: aimless, but always with an element of hope"

--- struggle and routine in life

--- explores the dilemma between self and being

--- the plot is not important: there is no plot

--- "Nothing to be done"

--- theatrical space: within and outside

Relevant Links

* On-line resources and links