While reflecting on the purpose of this worldly life, I pondered how it unfolds in a sphere that seems all null and void – where a man runs after uncertainty and ambiguity, only to find himself lost in a deep, dark forest with no way out. My eye then fell upon A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. I pulled it out from the congested bookshelf and, upon opening the very first page, happened to read the term ‘Literature of the Absurd’.
Mohd Ishaq Shah
While reflecting on the purpose of this worldly life, I pondered how it unfolds in a sphere that seems all null and void—where a man runs after uncertainty and ambiguity, only to find himself lost in a deep, dark forest with no way out. My eye then fell upon A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. I pulled it out from the congested bookshelf and, upon opening the very first page, happened to read the term “Literature of the Absurd,” which has its foundation in the “Theatre of the Absurd.” I decided to read it in full and evaluate it. What I gathered from this brief conceptual exploration, I have jotted down below.
The Emergence Of Absurdist Literature
In the late 1880s, a distinctly different view of human life emerged in the form of absurdist literature. The chief proponent of this worldview is regarded as Eugène Ionesco, the French author of The Bald Soprano (1949) and The Lesson (1951), who wrote: “Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, and useless.” He also stated, “People drowning in meaninglessness can only be grotesque; their sufferings can only appear tragic by derision.”
Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay “The Theatre of the Absurd,” which begins by focusing on playwrights Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugène Ionesco. Esslin states that their plays share a common denominator—the “absurd”—a word he defines with a quotation from Ionesco: “Absurd is that which has no purpose, or goal, or objective.” The French philosopher Albert Camus, in his 1942 work The Myth of Sisyphus, describes the human situation as meaningless and absurd. Esslin quotes Camus’s essay, which uses the word “absurdity” to describe the human condition: “In a universe that is suddenly deprived of illusions and of light, man feels a stranger. … This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, truly constitutes the feeling of Absurdity.”
However, its roots go back to 1896, as both the mood and dramaturgy of absurdity were anticipated in Alfred Jarry’s French play Ubu Roi (Ubu the King). Although absurdist philosophy has links with Expressionism and Surrealism, as well as the fiction written in the 1920s by Franz Kafka (The Trial and Metamorphosis), the movement itself emerged in France after the horrors of World War II (1939–45) as a rebellion against the basic beliefs and values of traditional culture and literature. That tradition had included the assumptions that human beings are fairly rational creatures who live in an at least partially intelligible universe, that they are part of an ordered social structure, and that they may be capable of heroism and dignity even in defeat. William Shakespeare aptly captured this in Macbeth:
“Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Kafka’s Metamorphosis: A Case Study
The Metamorphosis—also translated as The Transformation—is a novella by Franz Kafka, published in 1915. One of Kafka’s best-known works, it tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a “monstrous vermin.” He initially considers the transformation temporary and slowly ponders its consequences. Unable to get up, Gregor reflects on his job as a travelling salesman and cloth merchant, which he characterises as being plagued with “the always changing, never enduring human exchanges that don’t ever become intimate.” He sees his employer as a despot and would quit if he were not his family’s sole breadwinner, still working off his bankrupt father’s debts.
When his office manager arrives to check on him, Gregor attempts to communicate, but all they hear is incomprehensible vocalisation. Upon seeing Gregor’s new form, the manager flees, and Gregor’s family is horrified. His father drives him back into his room, injuring him in the process. Deprived of financial stability, the family locks Gregor in his room. His sister Grete is the only one who brings him food, noticing he prefers it rotten. Gregor spends much of his time crawling on the floor, walls, and ceiling. When Grete and her mother try to remove his furniture to give him more space, Gregor desperately clings to a portrait of a woman clad in fur, fearing he might forget his past as a human. His mother faints at the sight, and his father, enraged, hurls apples at him—one lodging in his back, severely wounding him.
Gregor’s family eventually takes jobs and begins to neglect him. They rent out a room to three tenants, who are unaware of Gregor. One evening, drawn by his sister’s violin playing, Gregor crawls out and is spotted by the tenants, who threaten legal action and leave without paying. Grete, tired of caring for him, declares that the creature is no longer Gregor and that they must get rid of it. Understanding he is no longer wanted, Gregor returns to his room and dies of starvation. His body is discovered by the charwoman, who disposes of it. The relieved family takes a day off, travels to the countryside, and plans for a smaller apartment, realising that Grete has grown into a young woman ready for marriage.
The novella has been widely discussed by literary critics. Vladimir Nabokov viewed its central theme as the artist’s struggle for existence in a society filled with narrow-minded people who destroy him step by step. He wrote, “The transparency of [Kafka’s] style underlines the dark richness of his fantasy world. Contrast and uniformity, style and the depicted, portrayal and fable are seamlessly intertwined.”
Beckett’s ‘Waiting For Godot’
Similarly, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot has a subtle plot with only two scenes where Vladimir and Estragon wait for “Godot,” who never arrives. There is no specific development of action, no tragedy or comedy, no history. It is a play in which nothing happens—no one comes and no one goes—signifying a null and void world with no specific meaning. Each piece of art related to the Theatre of the Absurd conveys almost the same theme.
From the references and quotes above, it can be inferred that life inherently has no set meaning. Different structures shape it in their own way and reshape it as their needs and demands dictate. Once a man undergoes a metamorphosis, he becomes unacceptable to society and meaningless in purpose. Gregor Samsa is no longer accepted by his own family. Thus, the belief in a specific subject of life has no validity in the Theatre of the Absurd. Vladimir and Estragon wait for “Godot,” who never comes—indeed, they wait for someone or something they themselves do not even know. This correlates to the senselessness of life in a world that seems entertaining and enjoyable but is not. The topic highlights the delusion of living a meaningful life in a world that is inherently without purpose and meaning.
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