House of Notes

Summary of  WAITING FOR GODOT- Samuel Becket Introduction: The  Theatre  of  Absurd  literally  means  “out  of  harmony”.  Ionesco,  who  is considered as one of the major dramatists  of the school of the absurd, defines, the ‘Absurd’ as that “which is devoid of purpose…. cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost, all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless”. In Beckett’s words, human life is the endurance and tolerance to “the boredom of living” “replaced by the suffering of being”. Samuel Beckett’s first play, Waiting for Godot (1948) written originally in French is a play in two Acts, in which two characters wait for someone named Godot, who never arrives. It does not tell a story, and it does not have a plot. Instead, it explores a static situation  where  nothing  happens,  nobody  comes  and  nobody  goes.  It  represents  an ‘awful’ human condition. The play has a symmetrical structure. There are two Acts, two messenger boys, and two

Waiting for Godot A Brief Overview Samuel Beckett – Irish – b. 1906 Waiting for Godot – 1947 - 1949 Beckett was obsessed with man-as-machine and man-as-a-user-of-machines. (Descarts idea). If man is a machine created by a perfect Being, why is that machine so defective? If man can himself create machines, does he in some way resemble the Creator of man-as-machine? What are the responsibilities of a creator toward his defective creature, and vice versa, and of one creature toward another? (Frankenstein) Most of Beckett’s characters suffer either from failure to face themselves, or from the pain that results from only half-trying. In Waiting for Godot, Didi (Vladimir) hovers on the verge of selfdiscovery but he is too terrified and so lapses into unfulfillment. Kierkegaard – “Man is paralyzed by dread. Of what? Why? Because if he breaks out of his mindlimited, objectivist way of life, the possibilities are infinite, and nothing is certain. In all crises man must act decisively. The most

Arms and the Man:   Major Themes The themes of “Arms and the Man” are love and war and these two themes have been welded into a single whole with great skill. Shaw has shown that it is the romance of war that leads to the romance of love. His treatment of these two themes is characterized by realism. The contrast between realism and idealism is constantly stressed, and this results in a number of entertaining situations. As the play opens, we are introduced to Raina, a pretty, young lady with romantic views of love and war, the result of her reading Byron and Pushkin. She stands on the balcony of her bedroom admiring the beauty of the night, and dreaming of her fiancée, Sergius, who is out on the front fighting the Serbs. Soon her mother enters the room to inform her that Sergius has become the hero as a result of his splendid victory in the battle. On his own initiative ignoring the orders of his Russian commander, he made a heroic charge on the artillery of the Serbs

Arms and the Man: Wit and Humour “Arms and the Man” is not merely a farce but a true comedy . The purpose of a comedy is to ridicule and expose human or social folly or weakness and to drive that folly out of courts. Though there is ample of farcical, loud laughter in the play, but the laughter has a serous purpose and this differentiates the play from a mere farce. Shaw laughs, but his laughter has a serious purpose. Besides provoking mirth he also provokes thoughts. Shaw is one of the greatest humorists in English literature the other humourist are Shakespeare and Dickens. However, Shaw’s is different from both Shakespeare and Dickens as his humour arises from the difference between instinctive conduct, or social institutions and social codes of conduct. This is Shaw’s contribution to the art of comedy. “Arms and the Man” is rich in humour. There is enough of humour of character in the play. Major Petkoff, Catherine Petkoff, Sergius and Captain Bluntschli are all h