Exiles in the absurdity of the human condition : an exposition of ideological concepts in Albert Camus’ ‘The Plague’ and Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’

Abstract

This dissertation discusses the existentialist and absurdist dynamic in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Albert Camus’ The Plague. Few studies adopt the absurdist paradigm when comparing the above works and this dissertation will provide more extensive research on the subject as well as analyse their impact on contemporary literature. The Introduction details existentialism from the perspective of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus and Beckett. The fundamental questions of the comic and tragic absurdity of life, God’s absence, death and suicide, and life’s objective meaninglessness are analysed from the various viewpoints of leading philosophers. The rest of the study focuses on the way Beckett and Camus embraced absurdist notions in their work. This is done with reference to language, theme and style, underscoring similarities and differences. The study ends by showcasing Camus’ and Beckett’s legacy echoed in the works of Arthur Miller, Ralph Ellison, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard. Despite the stylistic and formal differences in Waiting for Godot and The Plague, both works present human beings as exiles in the absurdity of their condition. However, whereas Beckett’s characters are imprisoned in an endless purgatory of futile waiting induced by self-denial and isolation, Camus’ characters revolt against the absurdity of their existence as a community. In spite of the novel’s sombre moral tone, Camus injects The Plague with a ray of optimism that is never allowed to shine through in Beckett’s tragi-comic Waiting for Godot.