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The Absurdity of the Absurd

Author(s): Martin EsslinSource: The Kenyon Review, Vol. 22, No. 4 (Autumn, 1960), pp. 670-673Published by: Kenyon College

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COMMENT

Martin Esslin

THE ABSURDITYOF THE ABSURD

A Note on Ward Hooker's essay on "Irony and Absurdity in the Avant-

Garde Theatre." (Kenvon Review, Summer, 1960.)

MR. WARD HOOKER'S ESSAY CONTAINS SOME PENETRATING OBSERVATIONS ON

the comic element in the French theatre from Marivaux to Beckett. His

exegesis of Waiting for Godot in particular is an illuminating piece of

criticism. Yet I should like to take issue with him on his use of the terms

irony and absurditv'. I do not want to suggest that he uses these terms

wrongly. In fact he follows common usage. My point however is that

common usage is different from the meaning given to these terms by the

practitioners of the French avant-garde theatre themselves. There is there-

fore a considerable danger of confusion here between the meaning of these

terms as generally understood in English-speaking countries and the sense

in which they are used by writers like Beckett and Ionesco. And surely in

critical writings about these authors it is dangerous to use the key term of

their theatre in a sense widely differing from their own understanding of it.

Mr. Hooker says: "Dramatic irony is usually defined as speech or action

which is more fully understood, or differently understood, by the audience

than by the speaker." He quotes the example of Malvolio. Another example

would be Schiller's Wallenstein, of whom the audience knows that he is

about to be murdered, and who retires to bed with the words, "I intend tohave a long sleep." Dramatic irony can thus be meant to be funny as well

as deeply tragic. Yet in the course of his essay Mr. Hooker tends to use the

term "ironical" as generally synonymous with "funny."

He regards the meaning of absurd as an intensification, a superlative

of "ironical." "If [the difference in understanding] is great enough, the

resulting phenomenon may be called 'absurdity.'" Mr. Hooker is aware of

the fact that this use of the term is at variance with its use by the French

avant-garde. He says, "This term has acquired a new connotation since

Albert Camus has taught us to find absurdity in actions and institutions

that had been taken seriously before." (My italics.) From the juxtaposition

of absurdity and seriousness it is clear that Mr. Hooker understands

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671

"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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672 COMMENT

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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MARTIN ESSLIN 673

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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