ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD Existential Absurd Just

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD Existential? Absurd? Just plain weird?

Existentialism • A philosophy of the 19 th-20 th century • Deals with the conditions of existence of the individual person and his or her emotions, actions, responsibilities and thoughts.

Soren Kirkegaard • He is referred to as the father of existentialism, and he believed that the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions, including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation and boredom.

Sartre • Existence precedes essence

Theatre of the Absurd • No real story line • Focus on incomprehensibility of the world or an attempt to rationalize an irrational, disorderly world • Language acts as a barrier to communication, isolates the individual even more, thus making speech almost futile. • Man plays a defined role, but it is a role that is unfathomable • Linear, not cyclical ( as in WFG)

Stoppard’s ultimate conclusion • “We as human beings will be better off if we learn to accept that death is just as incomprehensible as life, and the only way to psychological happiness must come from dismissing social conventions and beliefs of death and reconciling it with the ultimate view that we live in a world which defies reason and meaning. ” • He saw two levels of death – stage death and real death

Work Cited • From Beckett to Stoppard: Existentialism, Death and the Absurdity [home. sprintmail. com/lifeform/beckst]