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waiting for godot > CONTEXT > Flashcards

CONTEXT Flashcards

1
Q

what is cruelty in theatre as defined by Artaud

A

the capacity of a work to hsock and confront the audience- to go beyond words and connect with the emotions

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2
Q

Artaud believed that theatre should be…

A

an act of organised anarchy

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3
Q

what triggered Artauds development of ideas on theatre/ gesture and perfomance

A

a piece of Balinese theatre at the Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931

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4
Q

Hugh Kenner on Beckett’s works

A

they can be grasped as a whole, if we are willing to let the patches of darkness fall where they do, and not worry about them. we shall not find out who Godot is, and shall waste our time trying

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5
Q

O’toole on waiting for godot

A

‘Waiting for Godot is essentially a joke on which the whole theatrical experience, an extended invitation to the audience to get up and leave. Nothing is going to happen, the play keeps telling us, its going to get more boring, why do you insist on hanging around in futile expectation? like Didi and Gogo our decision to stay is the triumph of hope over experience

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6
Q

what according to Cronin is Beckett able to do

A

make funny jokes about the genuinely worst aspects of human existence

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7
Q

MH Abrams definition of comedy

A

1) the materials are selected and managed in order to interest, involve and amuse us.
2) the characters and their disconfortures engage our delighted attention rather than our profound concern
3) we feel confident thbat no great distaster will occur
4) usually the action turns out happily for the cheif characters

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8
Q

MH Abrams definition of rom comedy

A

1) concerned with a love affair

2) the course does not run smooth but overcomes difficulties to end in a happy union

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9
Q

MH Abrams definition of satirical comedy

A

ridicules political policies or philosophical doctrines, or else attacks the disorders of society by making ridicules the violators of its standards of morals or manners

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10
Q

MH Abrams definition of farce

A
  • designed to provoke a simple hearty laughter
  • commonly employs highly exaggerated or caricutred types of characters and puts them into ludicrous situations
  • makes free use of broad verbal humour and physical horseplay
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11
Q

MH Abrams definition of silent comedy/ double act

A
  • emotions and ideas are presented through exaggerated actions and visual images
  • the story often pits an individual or a duo against the social order of the word
  • the duo are usually strong friends but nevertheless they constantly argue and seem exhausted with each other
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12
Q

characteristics of the theatre of the absurd as defined by Martin Esslin in the theatre of the absurd (6)

A

1) depicts a world that is alien and strange
2) presents a world of dreams and nightmares, with characters who often seem irrational and disturbed
3) characters lack consistency and may lack a coherent inner life
4) no plot or story to speak of- sometimes no clear ending or beginning
5) dialogue seems like incoherent ramblings
]6) the theme may not be fully worked through

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13
Q

Camus myth of sisyphus- defining what exactly the absurd is

A

‘the world in itself is not reasonable… but what is absurd is the confrontation of the irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moments it is their only link. It binds them one to another as only hatred cen weld two creates together

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14
Q

physical courage

A

courage in the face of physical pain, hardship, death or threat of death

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15
Q

moral courage

A

the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame scandal, discouragement or personal loss

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16
Q

what is stoicism

A

a philosophical tradition which values courage as a virtue and a form of life

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17
Q

Marcus Aurelius on Stoicism (meditations)

A

the first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are

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18
Q

Seneca on stoicism/ courage (letters to lucilius)

A

sometime seven to live is an act of courage

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19
Q

What does Nietzsche assert in his book the gay science and how does this link to WFG?

A

God is dead but rather than being in despair because of this, it gives us a reason to affirm our own human potential for creating our own meaning and value system in the world
link to WFG as due to V and somewhat Es inability to accept that ‘godot’ is dead (non existent etc) they are unable to redefine their own meaning and therefore live in constant disappointment

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20
Q

quote from Nietzsche’s gay science on the absurd

A

one could imagine a delight and a power of self-determining, and a freedom of will, whereby a spirit could bid farewell to every belief, to every wish for certainty, accustomed as it would be to support itself on slender cords and possibilities, and to dance even on the verge of abysse

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21
Q

ending from ……. by Beckett echos the end of act 1 and 2 of WFG

A

The Unnameable
‘I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any…, perhaps it’s done already… perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know,’

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22
Q

Definition of Subjection (4)

A

1) The action, state, or process of being submissive or subject to another
2) The action of making subject or bringing under domination or control
3) The act or fact of being subjected, as under a monarch (ti be under the domination of another)
4) the condition of being subject, exposed, or liable to somethng

23
Q

abjection definition (2)

A
  • the state or condition of being cast down or brought low

- that which is cast off or away as being vile or unworthy

24
Q

explain Heidegger’s theory of throwness

A
  • we are cast into the world having no control over the fact that we are born or the time and place of our birth.
  • We dont know why we exist or why we are subject to natural force such as aging illness our bodies and death. this is part of our existential experience of the world, in which the world can see arbitrary and alienating to us
25
Q

According to Heidegger how can one overcome ones throwness

A

the human being is not just a being defined by being thrown into the world. Humans can also throw off or transcend their given conditions when they seize hold of their full possibilities and act upon these. Heidegger calls this “projection” or, more simply “freedom”. Freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept. It is the experience of a human being demonstrating its potential through acting in the world. To act in such a way is to be “authentic

26
Q

what does traditional drama tend to follow structurally?

A

three act pattern of exposition, action climax, denouement
‘The tension of a story is the pressure of the mood. The tension is always increasing by different plots in a story. In the three act structure, act one has the least tension, since it is only establishing the characters and the settings. After that, the tension will increase in act two by the confrontation or the conflict, and finally the climax in act three has the highest tension in the whole story

27
Q

Chris Sandford theatre before and after the war (quote)

A

‘theatre before the war.. and theatre after the war.. are almost two completely different art forms, nearly as antithetical as the novel and ballet’

28
Q

Becketts reply to ‘who or what does godot mean’

A

if i knew i would have said in the play

29
Q

Beckett’s reply to the theory that did and gogo inhabit a modern version of Dante’s purgatory

A

‘quiet alien to be, but you’re welcome’

30
Q

what is the key word in WFG according to beckett?

A

‘the key word in my play is perhaps’

31
Q

who is suzanne deschevaux dumesnil

A

Beckett’s partner who he married in 1961. Beckett himself drew parallels between his relationship with Descheveaux Dumesnil and did and gogo as whilst they found it difficult to be together they found it impossible to be apart

32
Q

Best kind of play according to Beckett

A

‘the bets kind of play is one in which there are no actors only the text’

33
Q

According to Beckett what was the early success of Godot based upon?

A

a fundamental misunderstanding, critics and public alike insisted on interpreting in allegorical or symbolic terms a play which was striving all the time to avoid definition’

34
Q

how does Beckett use language in waiting for godot

A

the major problem in wfg is what language cant do- language is no longer presented as a vehicle for directcommunication or as a screen through which we can see the pyschic moevemnets of a character but it is used in all its gramatical, snytactic and intertextual force to show how much we depend on language

35
Q

why did beckett turn to theatre

A

’ when i was working on Watt, i felt the need to create for a smaller space, one in which i had some control of where people stood or moved, above all of a certain light. i wrote waiting for godot’

36
Q

why did Beckett chose to write WFG in French?

A

in order to avoid the temptation of lyriscm

37
Q

French symbolist theories of theatre which impacted Beckett

and two precise examples of french symbolists and their direct influence upon Beckett

A

-French symbolist theories of theatre contest both French classical notions of determinsm and the possibilities of the theatre as a bourgeois art-form
Mallarme: vision of de-theatricalization
Maeterlinck’s dream of a thetare of statues, reflections and silence

38
Q

WFG in relation to modernism and post modernism

A

wfg marks the transition from modernism to post modernism
Modernist due to its preoccupations with self reflection
post modernist: insistance on pastiche, pardoyt and fragmentation

39
Q

symmetry in Becketts plays

A

many critics have insisted that beckkets early plays are constructred on a series of symmetries- pointing to the fact that characters are often organized in pairs

40
Q

what are intertextual references

A

references to other texts

41
Q

what are intratextual references

A

references within the play

42
Q

Death as an event vs death as a process

A

-death as an event is presented as desired but ultimately impossible wheareas dying as a process is shown to be our only sure reality.

43
Q

expand on the absence of death in WFG

A

-Death as a final ending, as a final silence is absent from the plays. The characters must go on waiting for what will never come, decline into old age and the senility which will make of the helpless depended children again (link to the lullably scene pg62)

44
Q

Philospohers who commented on the cyclic nature of life

A

-pre-Socratic philosophers (such as Heraclitus and Empedocles) whom Beckett admired

45
Q

difference between pre-socratic philosophers and Beckett’s view on the circularity of existence

A

-Beckett believed that the return to childhood is merely part of the diminishing spiral that will go on and on to infinity

46
Q

How does Beckett use the genre of paradox

A

-as a means of reminding us that in metaphysical terms we can never arrive at our chosen destination (death)

47
Q

Beckett and maths

A

-Beckett was fascinated by maths and especiually paradoxes that can be made using mathematical principles. In mathematical theory the passage from 0 ton 1 marks a major and real change of state, and tyhat from 1 to 2 implies the possibility of infinity- this means that 2 acts are enough to suggest that V and E and P and L and the boy will continue meeting but will never not meet again

48
Q

Godot’s (functiuon/ meaning)

A

-Godot is simulataeosly whatever we think he is and mot what we think he is; he is absence who can be interpreted at moments as god, death, a benefactor or even pozzo. Godot has a function rather than a meaning- he stands for what keeps us chained to and in existance… hope where there is no hope

49
Q

who was Bishop Berkley?

A

an irish philosopher who contended ‘esse est percipi’ (to be is to be percived)
the role of the parteners (gogo and didi, pozzo and lucky) is to provide proof that they really exist because they respond to each other- However one could contest that when considering the floutation of grices maxims of comnversation between trhe characters

50
Q

How did beckett inteprete proust view of friendship

A
  • ‘friendship is a function of a mans cowardice’

- ‘proust situates friendship somewhere between fatigue and ennui’

51
Q

what id the Fort/Da game?

A
  • a game described by freud in ‘Beyond the pleasure principal’ it descibes an infant throwing a reel of cotton and saying ‘fort (german word for gone)’ when it is gone before drawing it back and gleefully saying ‘da (there)’.
  • By doing this the child compemnsates for the fact thatbhis mother left him agaisnt his will (although she will also go back)
  • by mimicing the disappearanbce and return of an object the child moves from a purely passive situation, to a situation in which he could actively take part in and at least attempt to master reality
52
Q

time for beckettian characters

A

time indubitably exists as a force of which the characters are aware in that they have become increasingly decrepit but they have no sense of continuity. If each day is like all the others how can thye then know that time is really passing… if there is no past the there can be no present or future. so in order to be able to project onto an unlocateable future the characters need to invent a past for themselves- by inventing stories/ nostalgia (maybe they never went garpe harvesting in the macon country)

53
Q

language in absurd theatre

A

Language in an Absurdist play is often dislocated, full of cliches, puns, repetitions, and non sequiturs

54
Q

an absurdist play in which the characters sit and talk repeating the obvious until it sounds like nonsense

A

The bald soprano by Eugene Inesco

waiting for godot (2 decks)

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