Name         :   Ravi  BhaliyaRoll No       : 24Paper          : The Modernist LiteratureM.A             :  Sem -3Enrollment No : 14101004Year             :  2015-16Submitted  To : Smt S.B Gardi 

Department of  English                 Maharaja  krishnakumarsinhji

                    Bhavnagar University 

Influence of ‘Theatre of Absurd’ on  play      ‘The Birthday Party’

INDEX

• INTRODUCTION• What is Theatre of Absurd ?• According to Martin Esslin • Important plays and play writers of this  type’s

• Absurdity  in  The Birthday  Party •  

Theater of the Absurd, term used to identify a body of plays written primarily in France from the mid-1940s through the 1950s.

The term "absurd" was originally used by Albert Camus in his 1942 essay “Myth of Sisyphus,” wherein he described the human condition as “meaningless and absurd.”

INTRODUCTION

    Albert  Camus              “Myth of Sisyphus”

No Beginning

No Middle

No End

 The Absurd Theatre What  is  Theatre of Absurd ?

It means the expression in art of the meaninglessness of human existence.

Difficult  to  Justify – what is  going  on 

Continue…

World is without meaning & life is without purpose.

Associated with Existentialism.

• The Balcony

• The Birthday Party

• The Bold Soprano

• Waiting For Godot

Smauel Beckett

EugeneLonesco

Jean Genet

Harold Pinter

Important plays and play writers of this  type’s

These works usually employ illogical situations, unconventional dialogue, and minimal plots to express the apparent absurdity of human existence.

Broad comedy

Menacing and tragic

effect

Hopelessness and

Fragmentationin characters

Ambiguity and

Mystery

Shifting Identities

Absurdity  in  The Birthday  

Party 

He is the artist who had rebelled against the mode of life which society tries to impose upon its members, but the pressures of society make the artist conform to the prevailing social manners and mores.

Society could not tolerate the free-thinking individualistic artist because it saw him as a threat to its own stability. Society symbolized by Goldberg and McCann has destroyed the artist’s individuality.

Mainly it is found in the characters of Meg, Stanley and Lulu. “Meg: Stan! I'm coming up to fetch you if you don't come down! I'm coming up! I'm going to count three! One!

Two! Three! I'm coming to get you! (She exits and goes upstairs. In a moment, shouts from STANLEY, wild

laughter from MEG)”

“Meg: What are the cornflakes like, stanley? Stanley: Horrible.”

Broad  Comedy

Frightening effect we find very much as it is “Comedy of Menace” also.

In movie background sounds play vital role for it.

In movie we have many dialogues and scenes such as Blindmen’s Buff scene( Menace) and Interrogation scene (tragic element). 

Very much use of screaming and shouting in the play.

Menacing and tragic effect

Life  under  the  Constant Shadow of  Fear and  Menace 

In almost every character we find a kind of disappointment and complain from life.

Meg keeps on running meaningless conversations like “how is cornflakes ?” or “didn’t you enjoy your breakfast ?”etc. It is perhaps to fill the emptiness within her.

And Petey’s indifferent silence.

Lulu’s frustration comes out when the dialogue between her and Goldberg occurs.

Hopelessness and fragmentation in characters

Ambiguity and Mystery 

Stanley’s past is so Mysterious

Goldberg and McCann  way of asking questions 

to Stanley

Kafka’s work intensifies the dreadful angst 

experienced by the protagonist    

Shifting Identities : Contradictions : Identities remains unclear

         Goldberg

Benny

Simey

NatDermot ( In talking with Petey)

Semus (In talking with McCann