Existentialism is a philosophical movement that developed in continental Europe
during the 1800’s and 1900’s. Most of the members are interested in the
nature of existence or being, by which they usually mean human existence.
Although the philosophers generally considered to be existentialists often
disagree with each other and sometimes even resent being classified together,
they have been grouped together because they share many problems, interests, and
ideas. The most prominent existentialist thinkers of the 1900’s include the
French writers Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sarte, and Gabriel Marcel and German
philosophers Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger. The Russian religious and
political thinker Nicolas Berdyaev and the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber were
also famous existentialists. Existentialism is largely a revolt against
traditional European philosophy which reached its climax during the late
1700’s and early 1800’s. Principles of knowledge that would be objective,
universally true, and certain were produced. Existentialists rejected the
methods and ideals of science as being improper for philosophy. They
investigated what it is like to be an individual human being living in the world
instead of making the traditional attempt to grasp the ultimate nature of the
world and abstract systems of thought. They stress the fact that every
individual is only a limited human being. Each must face important and difficult
decisions with only limited knowledge and time in which to make these decisions.
Human life is seen as a series of decisions that must be made without knowing
what the correct choice is. They must decide what standards to except and which
ones to reject. Individuals must make their own choices without help from
external standards. Humans are free and completely responsible for their
choices. Their freedom and responsibility is thrust upon them and they are
“condemned to be free”. Their responsibility for actions, decisions and
beliefs cause anxiety. They try to escape by ignoring or denying their
responsibility. To have a meaningful life one must become fully aware of the
true character of the situation and bravely accept it. Existentialists believe
that people learn about themselves best by examining the most extreme forms of
human experience. They write about such topics as death and extreme situations.
This concentration upon the most extreme and emotional aspects of experience
contrasts sharply with the main emphasis of contemporary philosophy in England
and the United States. This philosophy focuses upon more common place situation
and upon the nature of language rather than experience. JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Jean-Paul Sarte was born in Paris in 1905, and died in 1980. In 1964, he was
awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. However he refused to accept the reward.
Sarte was a French existentialist philosopher who expressed his ideas in novels,
plays, and short stories, as well as theoretical works. The mere existence of
things, especially his own existence, fascinated and horrified him. To Sarte
there seemed no reason why anything exists. He stated that only human existence
is conscious of itself and of other things. He argued that non-living objects
simply are what they are and people are whatever they choose to be. People exist
as beings who must choose their own character. He agreed with the
existentialists philosophy that people are completely free. Sarte said,
“People are afraid to recognize this freedom and to accept full responsibility
for their behavior.” Throughout his philosophical and literary works, he
examined and analyzed the varied and subtle forms of self-deception. In
Sarte’s chief philosophical work, Being and Nothingness, he investigated the
nature and forms of existence or being. In his essay, Existentialism and
Humanism, he defined existentialism as the doctrine that, for humankind,
“existence precedes essence”. In the Critique of Dialectical Reason, Sarte
presented his political and sociological theories. THEATER OF THE ABSURD
MOVEMENT The theater of the absurd refers to tendencies in dramatic literature
that emerged in Paris during the late 1940's’s and early 1950’s. It’s
roots can be found in the allegorical morality plays of the middle ages and the
allegorical religious dramas. The term theater of the absurd derives from the
philosophical use of the word absurd by such existentialists thinkers as Albert
Camus and Jean-Paul Sarte. A fully satisfying rational explanation of the
universe was beyond its reach and the world must be seen as absurd. The images
of the theater of the absurd tend to assume the quality of fantasy, dream, and
nightmare. The theater of the absurd movement heightened people in abstract
situations. It was informative and overall made the audience think. Its purpose
is to provoke thought with laughter. Theater of the absurd does not stay in key
and is sometimes described as crazy. It always has intense moments, does not
look like conventional theater, and has no start, no middle and no end. SAMUEL
BECKETT Samuel Beckett was born in Foxrock, Ireland in 1906. He attended Trinity
College in Dublin and left for Paris when he was twenty-two. Throughout his life
he wrote in both English and French, but most of his major works were written in
French. Beckett was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1969. He died in
Paris in 1989. Beckett’s works are explored in novels, short stories, poetry,
and scripts for radio, television, and film. He is best known for his work in
the theater. His most famous play Waiting for Godot became one of the most
dramatic works in this century. The strange atmosphere of Godot, in which two
tramps wait on what appears to be a desolate road for a man who never arrives.
This made his audience come back to see other major works. Beckett’s drams are
most closely associated with the Theater of the Absurd. He has a minimalistic
approach, stripping the stage of unnecessary spectacles and characters. His
works cover much of the same ground as World War II French existentialists.
WAITING FOR GODOT Waiting for Godot captures the feeling the world has no
apparent meaning. In this misunderstood masterpiece Beckett asserts numerous
existentialist themes. Beckett believed that existence is determined by chance.
This is the first basic existentialist theme asserted. The play consists of four
vulgar characters, and in a simple way who twice arrives with a message from
Godot, a naked tree, a mound or two of earth and a sky. Two of the characters
are waiting for Godot who never arrives. Two of them consist of a flamboyant
lord of the earth and a broken slave whimpering and staggering at the end of a
rope. It is almost certain that Godot stands for God and those who are loitering
by the withered tree are for salvation, which never comes. Many critics have
agreed that Godot does not necessarly mean God, merely “the objective of our
waiting- an event, a thing, a person, a death.” Another basic existentialist
theme on which Beckett reflects is the meaninglessness of time. Because past,
present and future mean nothing, the play follows a cyclic pattern. Vladimir and
Estragon returned to the same place each day to wait for Godot and encounter the
same basic people each day. Godot’s messenger does not recognize Vladimir and
Estragon from day to day. This suggests that the people we meet today are not
the same as they were yesterday and will not be the same tomorrow. Beckett also
examines a theme of self-deceptive attempts to dodge reality by making excuses
for one’s actions. Vladimir and Estragon fool themselves by engaging in petty
discourse that reflects the absurdity of life. They even contemplate suicide
numerous times for numerous reasons, but ultimately persist in the futility of
life. TOM STOPPARD Tom Stoppard was born in Czechoslovakia on July 3, 1937, the
son of Eugene Straussler, a doctor employed by Bata, the shoe manufacturers. In
1942, his family moved to Singapore. He and his mother evacuated to India with
his brother before the Japanese invasion. His father was left behind and killed.
He then went to a multi-racial English speaking school in Darjeeling, India. His
mother later married Kenneth Stoppard, who was in the British army in India.
Stoppard was educated in a prep school at Nottingham Shire, and a grammar school
in Yorkshire. He was then employed by Western Daily Press in Bristol, were he
lived. There he was a news reporter, feature writer, theater critic, film critic
and gossip columnist. Eventually he married Jose Ingle. He wrote such works as
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, a one-act play in verse. He also
wrote Rosecrantz and Guilenstern Are Dead. He won the John Whiting award and
Evening Standard award in 1967. ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD
Rosencrantz creates a picture of characters who inhabit a world which is
stranger than they had supposed, which they know it is not as it seems but what
it is . He evokes the ability of all man kind to understand those forces
ultimately in control of their lives and fates. Because Rosencrantz’s and
Guildenstern’s fate is determined by Hamlet and not by random forces. At
outset of the play, Rosencrantz remains oblivious to any oddity and their
coin-tossing, describing the improbable run as 85 heads as merely a new record.
The destiny which awaits Rosencrantz and Guildenstern consists of nothing for
which they are prepared. Instead they are to be “kept intrigued without ever
being enlightened”. The purpose of the coin-tossing scene is the obvious
conclusion that forces beyond their control are guiding their fate and it is
obvious Guildenstern is more conscious of the two. He also sets up the quest
theme that the play will take on. The ranting and ramblings of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are reminiscent of the spiritual pilgrim of the protagonist of
Waiting for Godot. They both spend the entire play searching for a fate and
spiritual rationale that is always alluding them. It can be concluded that the
title characters are searching for a divinity that will make itself evident.
Irony comes to fit in the framework of the play because we know that the pair
are to loose their heads. The humor of this situation is a game of questions
where they “answer” every question with another question, but really realize
how the game is mirroring their predicament, which is to inhabit a world full of
questions which, for them, have no answers. For every action they partake in
order to answer their calling, they are met with a hundred more questions, and
In this lies the irony of the entire production. T.S. ELIOT T.S. Eliot
(1888-1965) was born in St.Louis, Missouri and graduated from Harvard. He lived
in England for most of his life, returning to the United States periodically to
lecture and teach at Harvard and other universities. Eliot achieved the fullness
of his poetic expression in The Waste Land and other poems on this recording. In
1948 he was awarded a Nobel Prize. Eliot ranks among the most important poets of
the 1900’s. He departed radically from the techniques and subject matter of
pre-World War I poetry. His poetry, along with his critical works, helped to
reshape modern literature. Many of Eliot’s views on literature appeared in The
Criterion, a literary magazine he edited from 1922 to 1939. Eliot served as a
director of a London Publishing house from 1925 until his death. Eliot also
received the Order of Merit for literature during his lifetime. He finally found
happiness in his second marriage which took place eight years before his death
on January 4, 1965. Two important factors in Eliot’s development as a poet
were his introduction to French symbolist poetry and his friendship with fellow
American Ezra Pound. It was in Pound that Eliot found a devoted mentor and a
sensitive critic of the early drafts of his poems. With Pound’s help, The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was published in Poetry in 1915 and Preludes in Blast
that same year- thus launching Eliot into the midst of literary modernism.
Eliot’s first major poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, revealed his
original and highly developed style. The poem shows the influence of certain
French poets of the 1800’s, but its startling jumps from rhetorical language
to cliche, its indirect literary references, and its simultaneous humor and
pessimism were quite new in English literature. THE WASTE LAND The Waste Land
has become the poem of the twentieth century. The poem offers an epochal insight
into the modern world, the urban blight, of death and destruction, of
meaningless relationships, and of a profound absence of spiritual, social, and
cultural assurances. It is presented with a series of allusions, fragments of
texts and documents, because Eliot wants the reader to experience that sense of
fragmentation for themselves through a kind of collage technique. There are
glimpses of a sense of underlying order and unity expressed throughout this
literary masterpiece. Eliot suggests that the poem draws upon the powerful myth
of the wounded king who must be restored to health before his lands can be
returned to wholeness and fertility once more. Eliot also suggests that, deep
within the cultural unconscious of our modern wasteland, there are underlying
patterns and a sense of continuity. This poem has references to previous empires
and cultures such as Rome, Alexandria, and Vienna. The Waste Land is widely
regarded as loose or impressionistic.