Absurdism

Absurdism's meaning in literature

Before we dive into the roots of the literature of the absurd, let's start with two key definitions.

Although 'Absurdism' as a term does not refer to a unified movement, we can, nonetheless, view the works of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Harold Pinter, among others, as constituting a movement. The works of these playwrights all focused on the absurd nature of the human condition.

Absurdism refers broadly to all types of literature, including fiction, short stories, and poetry (such as Beckett's) that deal with the absurdity of being human. When we speak of the Absurdist plays composed by these playwrights, this movement is specifically known as 'The Theatre of the Absurd' - a term assigned by Martin Esslin in his 1960 essay of the same title.

But how did we arrive at this understanding of Absurdism?

Origins and influences of Absurdism in literature

Absurdism was influenced by several artistic movements, writers, and playwrights. For example, it was influenced by Alfred Jarry's avant-garde play Ubu Roi which was performed only once in Paris in 1986. The play is a satire of Shakespearean plays that uses bizarre costumes and strange, unrealistic language while providing little backstory for the characters. These bizarre features influenced the artistic movement of Dadaism, and in turn, the Absurdist playwrights.

Out of Dadaism grew Surrealism, which also influenced the Absurdists. Surrealist theatre is also bizarre, but it is distinctively dream-like, placing an emphasis on creating theatre that would let the audience's imaginations run free so that they can access deep inner truths.

The influence of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) on Absurdism cannot be overstated. Kafka is known for his novel The Trial (published posthumously in 1925) about a man arrested and prosecuted without ever being told what the crime is.

Also famous is the novella 'The Metamorphosis' (1915), about a salesman who wakes up one day transformed into a giant vermin. The unique strangeness found in Kafka's works, known as 'Kafkaesque', was hugely influential to the Absurdists.

The philosophy of Absurdism

The philosophy of Absurdism, developed by French philosopher Albert Camus, emerged as a response to the problem of the Absurd, as an antidote to nihilism, and as a departure from existentialism. Let's start at the beginning - of the philosophical Absurd.

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

The Danish Christian philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's ideas of freedom, choice, and the absurd were influential to the existentialists and the absurdists.

The absurd

Kierkegaard developed the idea of the absurd in his philosophy. For Kierkegaard, the absurd is the paradox of God being eternal and infinite, yet also being incarnated as the finite, human Jesus. Because the nature of God makes no sense, we cannot believe in God through reason. This means that to believe in God, we must take a leap of faith and make the choice to believe anyway.

Freedom and choice

To be free, we must stop blindly following the Church or society and confront the incomprehensibility of our existence. Once we acknowledge that existence makes no sense, we are free to determine our own paths and views for ourselves. Individuals are free to choose whether they want to follow God. The choice is ours to make, but we should choose God, is Kierkegaard's conclusion.

Although Kierkegaard's aim is to reinforce the belief in God, this idea that the individual must evaluate the world and decide for themselves the meaning of it all was highly influential to the existentialists, who argued that in a universe without meaning, the individual must make their own.

Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Camus saw Kierkegaard's decision to abandon reason and take a leap of faith as 'philosophical suicide'. He believed the existentialist philosophers were guilty of the same thing, as, instead of abandoning the pursuit of meaning altogether, they gave in to the need for meaning by claiming that the individual should forge their own meaning in life.

In The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), Camus defines the absurd as the tension that emerges from the individual's pursuit of meaning in a universe that refuses to provide evidence of any meaning. So long as we are living, we will never know if God exists because there is no evidence of this being the case. In fact, it seems as though there is plenty of evidence that God doesn't exist: we live in a world where terrible things happen that don't make any sense.

To Camus, the mythical figure of Sisyphus is the embodiment of the human struggle against the absurd. Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill every day for eternity. Every time he gets to the top, the boulder will roll down and he will have to start again the next day. Like Sisyphus, we must struggle against the meaninglessness of the universe without any hope of succeeding in finding meaning in it.

Camus argues that the solution to the suffering brought on by our obsessive need to find meaning is to abandon the quest for meaning altogether and embrace that there is no more to life than this absurd struggle. We should rebel against meaninglessness by enjoying our lives with the full knowledge that they have no meaning whatsoever. For Camus, this is freedom.

Camus imagines that Sisyphus has found happiness in his task by abandoning illusions that there is any meaning to it. He is condemned to it anyway, so he might as well enjoy it rather than be miserable trying to find purpose in his turmoil:

Fig. 1 - In literature, Absurdism often challenges traditional narrative conventions and rejects traditional forms of storytelling.

Absurdism examples: The Theatre of the Absurd

The Theatre of the Absurd was a movement identified by Martin Esslin. Absurdist plays were distinguished from traditional plays by their exploration of the absurdity of the human condition and the anguish this absurdity inspired at the level of form and plot.

We'll be focusing on two key Absurdist dramatists, Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco.

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

Samuel Beckett was born in Dublin, Ireland, but lived in Paris, France for the majority of his life. Beckett's absurdist plays had a huge impact on other Absurdist playwrights and on the literature of the absurd as a whole. Beckett's most famous plays are Waiting for Godot (1953), Endgame (1957), and Happy Days (1961).

Waiting for Godot (1953)

Waiting for Godot is Beckett's most famous play and it was hugely influential. The two-act play is a tragicomedy about two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting for someone named Godot, who never comes. The play has two acts that are repetitive and circular: in both acts, the two men wait for Godot, another two men Pozzo and Lucky join them then leave, a boy arrives to say that Godot will come tomorrow, and both acts end with Vladimir and Estragon standing still.

There are many different interpretations as to who or what Godot is or represents: Godot could be God, hope, death, etc. Whatever the case, it seems that Godot is likely representative of some sort of meaning; by believing in Godot and waiting for him, Vladimir and Estragon find comfort and purpose in their depressing lives:

Vladimir and Estragon are desperate for purpose, so much so that they never stop waiting for Godot. There is no purpose in the human condition. While waiting for Godot is as useless as our search for meaning, it does however pass the time.

Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994)

Eugene Ionesco was born in Romania and moved to France in 1942. Ionesco's key plays are The Bald Soprano (1950), The Chairs (1952), and Rhinoceros (1959). In the latter, a small French town is blighted with a plague that turns people into rhinoceroses.

The Chairs (1952)

Ionesco described the one-act play The Chairs as a tragic farce. The main characters, Old Woman and Old Man, decide to invite people that they know to the remote island where they live so that they can hear the important message that the Old Man has to offer humanity.

Chairs are laid out, and then the invisible guests begin to arrive. The couple make small talk with the invisible guests as though they were visible. More and more guests keep coming, more and more chairs are put out, until the room is so invisibly crowded that the old couple has to shout at each other to communicate.

The Emperor arrives (who is also invisible), and then the Orator, (played by a real actor) who will deliver the Old Man's message for him. Glad that the Old Man's important message will finally be heard, the two jump out of the window to their deaths. The Orator tries to speak but finds that he is mute; he tries to write down the message but only writes nonsensical words down.

The play is intentionally enigmatic and absurd. It deals with themes of the meaninglessness and absurdity of existence, the inability to effectively communicate and connect with one another, illusion vs. reality, and death. Like Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot, the couple takes comfort in the illusion of meaning and purpose in life, as represented by the invisible guests that fill the void of the loneliness and purposelessness of their lives.

Characteristics of Absurdism in literature

As we have learned, 'absurdity' means much more than 'ridiculousness', but it would be wrong to say that absurd literature doesn't have a quality of ridiculousness. Absurdist plays, for example, are very ridiculous and strange, as the two examples above have illustrated. But the ridiculousness of absurdist literature is a way of exploring the ridiculous nature of life and of the struggle for meaning.

Absurdist literary works express the absurdity of life in aspects of plot, form, and more. Absurd literature, particularly in absurdist plays, are defined by the following unusual features:

• Unusual plots that don't follow conventional plot structures, or entirely lack a plot. The plot is composed of futile events and disjointed actions to express the futility of life. Think of the circular plot of Waiting for Godot, for example.

• Time is also distorted in Absurdist literature. It is often hard to pin down how much time has passed. For example, in Waiting for Godot, it is hinted that the two tramps have been waiting for Godot for fifty years.

• Unusual characters without backstories and defining characteristics, who often feel like stand-ins for all of humanity. Examples include The Old Man and The Old Woman from The Chairs and the mysterious Godot.

• Unusual dialogue and language are composed of clichés, nonsensical words, and repetitions, which make for disjointed and impersonal dialogues between characters. This comments on the difficulty of effectively communicating with one another.

• Unusual settings that reflect the theme of absurdity. For example, Beckett's Happy Days (1961) is set in a post-apocalyptic world, where a woman is submerged up to her shoulders in a desert.

• Comedy is often an element in Absurdist plays, as many are tragicomedies, containing comic elements like jokes and slapstick. Martin Esslin argues that the laughter that the Theatre of the Absurd evokes is freeing:

Through the element of comedy, Absurdist literature invites us to recognise and accept the absurd so that we can be liberated from the constraints of the pursuit of meaning and simply enjoy our meaningless existence, just as the audience enjoys the comic absurdity of Beckett or Ionesco's plays.