The Absurdity of the Absurd Author(s): Martin Esslin Source: The Kenyon Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Autumn, 1960), pp. 670-673 Published by: Kenyon College Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4334078 . Accessed: 18/05/2013 22:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Kenyon Collegeis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Kenyon Review. http://www.jstor.org
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Author(s): Martin EsslinSource: The Kenyon Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Autumn, 1960), pp. 670-673Published by: Kenyon College
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4334078 .
Accessed: 18/05/2013 22:48
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Kenyon College is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Kenyon Review.
http://www.jstor.org
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"absurd" s being synonymouswith "veryfunny"or "grotesquely unny."He goes on to say: "But for the ordinaryplaygoer t may still be taken tomeanthe extremely ncongruous,nadequate,or irrelevant."
As I have alreadysaid, Mr. Hooker's definition is fully justified bycommon usage in the English-speaking ountries.The New English Dic-tionary, after mentioning the origin of the term from its use in music,where it means "inharmonious," efines it as follows: "Out of harmonywith reasonor propriety; ncongruous,unreasonable,llogical. In modern
use especiallyplainly opposed to reason and hence ridiculous,silly." InFrench, however, the meaning of ridiculous does not arise. The PetitLaroussedefinesabsurdemerelyas contraire2 la raison, 2 sens commun.Here seemsto me the source of the confusionof terms.In English absurdcan mean ridiculous. n French it meansmerelycontrary o reason.
That is the meaning of the term in the French avant-garde heatre,which has been called a Theatre of the Absurd. Camus' brilliant essay"Le Mythe de Sisyphe"ascribesabsurditynot only to "actionsand institu-tions" but to the human condition itself. And not because the humanconditionis funny, but because t is deeplytragic in an age when the lossof belief in God and human progress has eliminated the meaning ofexistenceand has made human existenceessentiallypurposelessand henceplainlyopposedto reason.
The "absurdity" f the French avant-gardedramatists hus does notspringfrom their use of irony. It springs from the subjectmatter of theirplays. In fact it is the subjectmatter of their plays. Both Ionesco andBeckett are concernedwith communicating o their audiencestheir senseof the absurdityof the human condition.As lonesco puts it in an essayon Kafka: "Absurd s that which is devoid of purpose. . . Cut off fromhis religious,metaphysicaland transcendental oots, man is lost; all hisactions become senseless,absurd,useless. In anotheressay Ionesco
describeshis senseof existence rom his earliestchildhood as one of vertigoat the thoughtof the transitoriness f the world: "I have known no otherimages of the worldapartfrom those which expressevanescence,hardness,vanity, rage, nothingness and hideous, useless hatred. That is how existencehas appeared to me ever since . . . " That is why the picture of the humancondition in a play like The Bald Primadonna is cruel and absurd (in thesense of devoid of meaning). In a world that has no purpose and ultimatereality the polite exchanges of middle-class society become the mechanical,senseless antics of brainless puppets. Individuality and character, which arerelated to a conception of the ultimate validity of every human soul, havelost their relevance (hence as Mr. Hooker rightly points out, Professor
Grossvogel's criticisms of these plays as lacking individuality in character-ization completely miss the terms of reference of this kind of avant-garde
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theatre). Nor can I see any irony in the examplequoted from The BaldPrimadonna. The audience knows no more about the mcaning of the
mechanicallysenseless dialogue than do the characters hemselves.What
is involved is a savagesatire (which is by no means the same as irony)
on the dissolutionand fossilizationof the languageof polite conversationand on the interchangeabilityf charactershat have lost all individuality,even that of sex. Such characters ead a meaningless,absurd existence.Mr. Hooker rightly observes that the audience neverthelessfinds them
extremelyfunny. My contention s that the source of this laughter is notto be found in any irony but in the releasewithin the audienceof theirown repressed eelings of frustration.By seeing the people on the stagemechanicallyperformingthe empty politeness-ritual f daily intercourse,
by seeing them reducedto mechanicalpuppetsacting in a complete void,
the audience while recognizingitself in this picturecan also feel superiorto the characters n the stage in being able to apprehend heirabsurdity-and this produces he wild, liberatingreleaseof laughter-laughter based
on deep inner anxiety, as Mr. Hooker has observedit in The Lesson.
This is analogous o the liberatinghystericalhilarityproducedby the release
of aggressionand sadistic impulses in the old silent film comedy by thethrowingof custardpies, or in contemporaryartoon films by the hideous
crueltiesinflictedon the mechanically onceivedhuman and animal char-
acters.Suchlaughter s purgative-but deepdown the things laughedabout
areof the utmost seriousness.The absurdityof the human conditionis also the theme of Beckett's
Waiting for Godot. The play portrayscharactersn the act of purposelesswaiting. It is indeed a religious allegory;it deals with the elusivenessofmeaningin life and the impossibilityof ever knowing the divine purpose,if it exists at all.
This is the theme of all of Beckett'spublishedworks. And Beckett
also uses the term absurdity n the sense of purposelessness-asopposedtonecessity.He does so even in those of his works which were originallywritten in English. In Watt for example,the chief character,who servesa master almost as elusive as Godot, Mr. Knott, thus meditatesabout hissituation:". . . he had hardly felt the absurdityof those things, on the
one hand,and the necessityof thoseothers,on the other (for it is rarethatthe feelingof absurditys not followedby the feelingof necessity)whenhefelt the absurdityof those things of which he had just felt the necessity(for it is rarethat the feeling of necessity s not followed by the feelingof absurdity)."
In the Londonperformance and I believe even more so in the New
York production)of Waiting for Godot the play was as far as possibleacted for laughs-with great success,for as with lonesco, the recognition
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of hidden fears causes liberating gusts of hilarity.But it is known thatSamuel Becketthimself preferred he Paris performancewhich was takenfar more slowly, seriouslyand solemnly.There can be no doubt that forBeckett the absurdity(i.e., the senselessness)of the human condition isanything but funny.
Nor, by Mr. Hooker's own definition,can I see any irony at all inWaiting for Godot. If irony implies that the audience knows more about
the meaning of what is going on on the stagethan the charactersnvolved,
then there is a completeabsence of irony in a play in which to the verylast moment the audience s kept in complete ignoranceof the meaning ofthe action as a whole. As Mr. Hooker points out, even the parallelismofthe two acts is designed to show that things do not change for Vladimirand Estragon.Cunningly the audience s led to hope that subtlythe secondact will provide a variationon the first which will reveal the meaning ofthe play and the identity of Godot. But this precisely does not happen.If there is any irony involvedit is at the expenseof the audience,whichis put into the position of Malvoliowho is led to expectthings which donot happen.
I do not think that it is possible o establisha continuity n the use ofironyand absurdityas betweenMarivaux,or even Giraudouxand Anouilh,and lonesco,Beckett,Adamovand their ever more numerous followers inEngland, Germanyand Italy. For these dramatistsare a real avant-gardein the sensethattheyaretryingto evolvea new kind of theatre, o establisha new theatrical onvention,a theatrewhichwill no longerdeal with moralproblems, social conditions or social conventionsbut with the humancondition itself. In the view of these dramatists he conventionaltheatrehas lost contactwith reality by being too rigidly rational in insisting thatevery conflictis fully motivated in the first act and neatly solved in thefinal scene accordingto a fixed scale of values of one kind or another.
Theircontention s that life in our age has lost any such readily dentifiablerationale, hat reality tself has becomemultidimensional nd problematical.What, they ask in fact, is reality?What is verifiable?What is the meaningof existence?Can language itself be still used to communicate betweenhuman beings? Is there such a thingas character, ersonality,ndividuality?By confronting heir audienceswith the senselessness f the human condi-tion they are trying to make them aware of the avenues of liberation romthe narrowness f their lives and perceptions.That is why the avant-gardetheatre of our time is concernedwith the Absurd-the Absurd in itsmetaphysical ense.
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