The Relationship Between Absurdism and Existentialism in Luigi Pirandello'S, Samuel Beckett'S and Tom Stoppard'S: Selected Plays

This paper is a humble attempt to study the existential anguish in men which is absurd. The absurd refers to the dilemma between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any, absurd does not mean “logically impossible” but rather “humanly impossible” (Kierkegaard). Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the two characters from the play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” are simultaneously live in a world which is utterly beyond their comprehension like Estragon and Vladimir in “Waiting for Godot”. Two men often misunderstand each other and engage in long nonsensical dialogues. Astonishing appearance of the six characters on stage in search of an author in the play “Six Characters in Search of an Author” absolutely bewilder the audience at first which is apparently absurd. But in the absurd world, there is no meaning or absolutes. Men are suffering from loss of identity. In this illusory world man is nothing else but that which he makes of himself. That is the first principle of existentialism. My objective is to find out the interplay of existentialism and absurdism in three plays and use of language.