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    Concepts Needed For WFG

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    Patricia Baldonedo
    The document discusses several concepts relevant to understanding Waiting for Godot: Existentialism focuses on existence preceding essence and humans creating their own meaning in an indifferent universe. Nihilism sees the world and human existence as without inherent meaning or value. Postmodernism rejects rigid genres and embraces diversity, irony and playfulness over searching for fundamental truths. Abstract expressionism uses nonrepresentational paintings to evoke emotion through color and shapes alone. The theater of the absurd explores the absurdity of human existence through unconventional plays with nonlinear plots and dialogue about a meaningless universe.

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    Concepts Needed For WFG

    Uploaded by

    Patricia Baldonedo
    124 views1 page
    The document discusses several concepts relevant to understanding Waiting for Godot: Existentialism focuses on existence preceding essence and humans creating their own meaning in an indifferent universe. Nihilism sees the world and human existence as without inherent meaning or value. Postmodernism rejects rigid genres and embraces diversity, irony and playfulness over searching for fundamental truths. Abstract expressionism uses nonrepresentational paintings to evoke emotion through color and shapes alone. The theater of the absurd explores the absurdity of human existence through unconventional plays with nonlinear plots and dialogue about a meaningless universe.

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    Waiting for Godot background for analysis

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    Concepts Needed for WfG

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    The document discusses several concepts relevant to understanding Waiting for Godot: Existentialism focuses on existence preceding essence and humans creating their own meaning in an indifferent universe. Nihilism sees the world and human existence as without inherent meaning or value. Postmodernism rejects rigid genres and embraces diversity, irony and playfulness over searching for fundamental truths. Abstract expressionism uses nonrepresentational paintings to evoke emotion through color and shapes alone. The theater of the absurd explores the absurdity of human existence through unconventional plays with nonlinear plots and dialogue about a meaningless universe.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    124 views1 page

    Concepts Needed For WFG

    Uploaded by

    Patricia Baldonedo
    The document discusses several concepts relevant to understanding Waiting for Godot: Existentialism focuses on existence preceding essence and humans creating their own meaning in an indifferent universe. Nihilism sees the world and human existence as without inherent meaning or value. Postmodernism rejects rigid genres and embraces diversity, irony and playfulness over searching for fundamental truths. Abstract expressionism uses nonrepresentational paintings to evoke emotion through color and shapes alone. The theater of the absurd explores the absurdity of human existence through unconventional plays with nonlinear plots and dialogue about a meaningless universe.

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    CONCEPTS YOU CAN APPLY TO WAITING FOR GODOT

    EXISTENTIALISM: “Existence precedes essence” is Sartre’s infamous dictum. Nothing “out


    there” defines or determines us; instead it is our own actions and free will, our own choices,
    that are most “fundamental to human existence.” The universe and we human beings in it
    aren’t primarily meaningful, orderly, or rational; instead we exist in a primarily “indifferent,
    objective, often ambiguous, and “absurd” universe.” Although meaning is not “out there” we
    can create in “in here,” within ourselves.

    NIHILISM: the world and human existence are “without meaning, purpose, comprehensible
    truth, or essential value.” It’s ideas, movements, or historical periods rather than people that
    are more likely to be described as nihilistic.

    POSTMODERNISM: the follow-up to modernism, which was a period of rebellion, progressive


    innovation and change, a time when many cultural conventions and traditions were
    abandoned for new modes of expression. “Where modernists hoped to unearth universals or
    the fundamentals of art, postmodernism aims to unseat them, to embrace diversity and
    contradiction. A postmodern approach to art thus rejects the distinction between low and high
    art forms. It rejects rigid genre boundaries and favors eclecticism, the mixing of ideas and
    forms. Partly due to this rejection, it promotes parody, irony, and playfulness, commonly
    referred to as jouissance by postmodern theorists. Unlike modern art, postmodern art does
    not approach this fragmentation as somehow faulty or undesirable, but rather celebrates it. As
    the gravity of the search for underlying truth is relieved, it is replaced with 'play'.”

    ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM: a 20th century artistic movement that emphasized spontaneous


    personal expression in large paintings that are abstract or nonrepresentational, meaning
    “there’s no recognizable relationship to anything in nature. The style reflects the innermost
    feeling of the artist and usually results as an emotional release of the artist’s anger, fear or
    frustration. ...” (artinsider.com) The idea is that the artist needed no realistic or even
    surrealistic figures in order to evoke emotion. Feeling could be aroused using just lines, shapes,
    and colors alone. “Additionally, [this movement] has an image of being rebellious, anarchic,
    highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, rather nihilistic.” (wikipedia.org)

    THEATER OF THE ABSURD: this is a term first used by critic Martin Esslin to describe the kinds
    of plays that explored the absurdity of the human condition. These plays are often
    characterized by their striking imagistic tableaus, their highly unconventional style of
    characterization, their nonlinear plots, spare or surreal sets, and seemingly irrational or
    nonsensical dialogue; they tend to explore the implications of a meaningless universe in which
    human values seem irrelevant. Existentialist themes prevail.

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