Samuel Beckett Essay -- essays research papers

Becketts Absurd CharactersBeckett did not view and stockpile the problem of Absurdity in any form of philosophical surmise (he never wrote any philosophical essays, as Camus or Sartre did), his expression is merely the tasty language of theatre. In this chapter, I analyse the life agency of Becketts characters finding and pointing at the parallels between the philosophical background of the Absurdity and Becketts artistic view.As I have al exhibity mentioned in the biography chapter, Beckett read various philosophical treatises he was mostly interested in Descartes, Schopenhauer, and Geulincx. These thinkers ar the main sources which influenced and formed Becketts view of the world as well as his literary writings.Becketts major(ip) and the only theme appearing and recurring in all his works, is exclusively the theme of man. Beckett is interested in man as an individual, in his government issueive attitude to the world, in confrontation of individual subject with the objectiv e reality.According to Descartes, human being is composed of two various substances body (res extensa) and mind (res cogitas).21 The body is a part of a robotic temper, a material substance independent from spirit and the mind, a minute thinking substance. This distinction of the two qualitative different substances is called subject-object "Cartesian dualism", 22 and it gave rise to number of philosophical problems, the essence of which is Their mutual connection.Becketts characters are such(prenominal) subjective thinking substances surrounded by mechanical material nature and as the subject-object connection was the most problematic part of Descartes concept, it is one of the major motifs Beckett deals with. He uses dramatic symbols, to express the barriers and the walls between the worlds "in" and "out" as to demonstrate their incompatibility. His characters are physically isolated from what is happening "outside" and the lay they are impriso ned in, is their inner subjective world. "A Beckett hero is incessantly in conflict with objects around him... he is divided from the rest of the world, a stranger to its desires and needs. The dichotomy between his own mind and body finds an coincidence in the outside world in the dichotomy between passel and objects. ...tension is created between mind and body, on one hand, and people and objects, on the ot... ...tion, 1992. 10. Friedrich Nietzsche, Tak pravil Zarathustra, trans. Otokar Fischer, (Olomouc Votobia, 1992) 9. / deracination mine/ 11. Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (London Penguin Books, 1986) 23. 12. wait on Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and other(a) Essays, trans. Justin OBrien, (New York time of origin Books, 1961) 21-24. 13. Camus 38. 14. try out Diane collinson, Fifty Major Philosophers A Reference Guide (London Routledge, 1997) 57-60. 15. Camus 10. 16. Camus 90. 17. Camus 4. 18. see Camus 3-8. 19. Camus 88. 20. Camus 89. 21. see Collinso n 58. 22. Collinson 57. 23. Carolyn Riley and Barbara Harte, eds., Contemporary Literary Criticism Excerpts from Criticism of the Works of Todays Novelists, Poets, Playwrights and Other Creative Writers, vol. 1 (Detroit Book Tower, 1973- ) 20. 24. Camus 11. 25. see Collins 100-103. 26. see Collins 100-103. 27. see Arthur Schopenhauer, Svet jako vule a predstava. trans. Jan Dvorak, ed. Thomas Mann (Olomouc Votobia, 1993). 28. Collins 103. 29. see Camus 33. 30. see Schopenhauer 19. 31. see Friedrich Nietzsche, Filosofie v tragickem obdobi Reku, trans. Jan Brezina and Jiri Horak, (Olomouc Rektorat UP, 1992) 46-52.