Absurdism

"Siempre vertiginosos, siempre implacables en la voluntad de llevar a sus personajes al abismo o dejarlos colgados del borde, los relatos de este volumen (nueve, por cierto, como aquellos muy memorables de Salinger) son pequeñas ratoneras exactas y temibles. Pletórica de referencias pop y también de observaciones agudas sobre la realidad, la prosa de Josué Sánchez traza una serie de tramas crispadas alrededor de un puñado de obsesiones irrenunciables: la comida como escondite, diálogo o lucha, pero también el divorcio, el abandono, la maldita soledad.

No se trata del hambre es un libro memorable que abre el apetito para leer más". Antonio Ortuño

“The Message” (1982), hip-hop’s first anthem, ushered in a political aspect to hip-hop that remains in the genre’s DNA. Responding to the political and social realities that eviscerated black and Latino communities in the Bronx during the 1970s, “The Message” is widely recognized for its searing poetic rendition of ghetto life. Yet, the song renders the ghetto in two distinct ways. The first part is a lyric, which displays a powerful poetic vision of the speaker’s experience “in the ghetto living second-rate”; the second part is the outro, a convention that has been used in many rap songs but rarely with such philosophical force. Dialectically opposed, the lyric presents the ghetto in a theater of sincerity; the outro re-presents it in the theater of the absurd. Taken together, this dialectical representation of the ghetto forges a trenchant ethical response to intractable social absurdities.

Recent times have witnessed a rise in the existential dilemma; where amidst urbanization and cyberism, one recounts the underlying urge to satisfy the 'curioser' and 'curioser' curiosity behind one's own existence. Despite the purposelessness of purpose, we, as rational human beings still wander. In this article, I trace Alice's wanderings starting from Alice's Adventures Underground till Through the Looking Glass in order to elucidate the paradox of Darwinian behaviorisms on an Absurdist backdrop and showcase the character of Alice as an 'absurdist' metaphor and duly present Carroll's works as an absurdist drama in essence. This shall be considered primarily through Albert Camus' notion of the Absurd, as elucidated in his essay, 'The Myth of Sisyphus', along with due analysis of the philosophy as portrayed through Absurdist theatre. The paradox of purpose and purposelessness in this perspective, will be analyzed through an interdisciplinary lens that will combine elements of Absurdist philosophy along with evolutionary psychology, as proposed by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides.

John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces challenges its potential readers with one of the zanier experiences of literary canon. No straightforward plot exists; scenes develop with the guidance of particularly chaotic random chance; every character exists at least two planes removed from “conventional persons.” Even when the most central character is not spewing half-digested medieval philosophy, the novel spends much of its time with an elderly woman turned plaything for her wealthy employers. The sheer diversity of mind-boggling experiences Toole presents force the reader to question his world’s internal reality.
      Which may of course have been the whole point. Written in the 1960s, A Confederacy of Dunces shares a similarity with a contemporary European tradition just known as the theater of the absurd, one expressed in the United States. In this essay I hope to examine absurdity, offer background on the theater of the absurd, and argue for A Confederacy of Dunces’ position within that canon.

To step into the world of James Douglas Morrison (Jim Morrison), and attempt a psychoanalytical study of his poetry would mean diving into a dimension defined by lucid images, mostly lewd and obscene but also rich in allusions and description. They provide a visual treat, sometimes psychedelic, sometimes existential and largely absurd. His poetry appears absurd and surreal owing to the images he painted under the influence of drugs such as LSD (Acid), Heroin, and Marijuana. The result is an array of images, feelings and emotions usually vague and ambiguous and barely coherent. This adds to the beauty of the writing rather than hampering it since it is a slice of the writer's genius mind. Morrison's writings serve as study material for psychologists and students of literature alike. This essay will critically analyse the poem The Ghost Song by Jim Morrison in the light of the surrealist movement, counterculture, existentialism and a few theories of Sigmund Freud. It would be ineffectual to study Morrison's poetry without understanding the era he lived in and his influences. He was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Arthur Rimbaud and William Blake. He was also inspired by Native American culture. He considered himself to be a shaman. William Cook in his article Jim Morrison: A Serious Poet? calls Morrison's poetry "surreal" and "symbolic" (Cook). He says that "…there is a pervading sense of the irrational, chaotic and the violent; an effect produced by startling juxtapositions of images and words." (Cook). Cook elaborates on the "ambiguity of meaning" which he claims, expresses "subconscious thought and feeling." This statement will be studied later, with reference to Sigmund Freud and psychology. Cook analyses Morrison's poetry with reference to the various schools of philosophy and thought that the poet has touched upon. Morrison's era housed the counterculture which spread across the United States in the 1960s. It was a movement of rebellion and flouting societal customs. It saw the rise of college students protesting against the Vietnam War and violence. Students also began trying to spread the message of peace and love, which simultaneously included the use of drugs and

Análisis filosófico-cinematográfico de la película 'El espíritu de la colmena' (1973) en el que el existencialismo español se desvela a través de los recursos cinematográfico que Erice utiliza, los cuales contribuyen a una representación borrosa de la frontera entre lo real y ficticio.

Philosophical-cinematographic analysis of the film 'The Spirit of the Beehive' (1973) by Víctor Erice. In this paper I make a case for the representation of Spanish existentialism through the director's cinematic choices that contribute to a blurred limit of reality and fiction.

Publisher: One World Publication (US)
Winner of the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman
Winner of the Prix des Cinq Continents
Winner of the Prix Francois Mauriac
Longlisted for the FT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices Award
Published: 2013
ISBN-10: 1590517512
ISBN-13: 978-1590517512
pp 160; Price: $9.90
Reviewed by: Olatoun Williams

http://bordersliteratureonline.net/books/The-Meursault-Investigation

Alexander Ness, in his paper, “Transcription and Multimedia: New Interpretations,” argues that music video transcription explores “unusual musical relationships” and allows for experimentation with “unusual formats,” which essentially “challenges musicians […] to think more carefully about the visual representation of music, and to explore the analytical potential of moving images.”  Within the context of music video narratives, Carol Vernallis argues that:
Music, image, and lyrics each possess their own language with regard to time, space, narrativity, activity, and affect. Even when these three media combine seamlessly into a new whole, in the background some aspect of each medium will remain, where it lingers in an almost palpable way. 

Echoing on Ness’ and Vernallis’ analytical models, along with my interests in bizarre and absurdist audio-visual works, this paper aims to provide an absurdist narrative reading through a multimedia transcription of The Beatles’ music video, “I Am The Walrus” (originally premiered in 1967 on a television film Magical Mystery Tour).
The song’s music video features absurdist visual elements, while the lyrics were purposely written to be nonsensical.  Just as Lewis Carroll’s poem, “Jabberwocky,” features nonsensical words, The Beatles wrote lyrics from random separate events and combined some lyrics from other unfinished songs.  However, while the song’s lyrics were intentionally written to be nonsensical, its combination with its music video seems to provide a multimedia translation, despite its absurdist features. Thus, an absurdist, silly, or quirky narrative seems to arise from the combination of its text, visuals, and music. Therefore, from a multimedia transcription analysis of “I Am The Walrus,” this paper will discuss its resulting absurdist narrative, and that such resulting narrative will be framed within an opportunity space for absurdity.

In his well-known essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus asserts that life, as we know it, is absurd. He also provides several reasons for thinking this is so-or rather several examples of absurdities within our lives-the most obvious of which, he suggests, is the fact that we are mortal (1942, p.58). Is there genuinely something absurd about mortal life because it is mortal, however? Does the fact that we die truly render our existences absurd on the whole? In section 1, I will attempt to provide a general characterisation of absurdity. Next, in section 2, I will consider four aspects of mortality which might be seen as absurd from certain standpoints. Nevertheless, in section 3, I will outline the availability of alternative, equally legitimate standpoints from which these features of mortality would not appear absurd. Finally, in section 4, I will move on to discuss a further sort of mortality-related absurdity which might not be so easily dismissed (the fact that, allegedly, we live as if we do not really believe we will die), and demonstrate how, despite some objections, we can eliminate this absurdity by developing a more authentic attitude towards our deaths. In short, I will conclude that whether any particular thing counts as absurd is something which can only be stated relative to particular perspectives, but that there are coherent perspectives reasonably available to us for which it would not be the case that death necessarily renders life absurd.

Dariusz Piotr Klimczak
"The Mystic of Blue. The Eugenio Ionesco’s Dramatic Eschatology of The Absurd"

In the last scene of the play Exit the King by Eugenio Ionesco the hero Bérenger called „Blue, blue!”. It' s the primary experience of the Buddhist way to the border of life and death. At the final hour of the human life the soul vanishes in the blue-grey light. This poetical scene helped the author of Exit the King in formulating on the original mysticism. The starting point of the book by Dariusz Piotr Klimczak is the qualification of the eschatology of the absurd. This problem ties in with the anthropological aspects of eschatology, that is the sphere of final things of the human. In the Misterium Mortis of the Absurd in Ionesco's plays, the eschatology of the absurd characterizes the kind of the deconstruction of immortality, but this problem coexists with the construction of mortality in relation to the creation of the space of drama, the form, the dramatic situation and in dialogues, also with the philosophy and archetypes. The dramatic eschatology in Ionesco’s plays Klimczak explain in the way of the analysis and interpretation of the chosen plays: Chairs; Exit the King; Amadee or How to Get Rid of...The Mystical space of the theatre by Ionesco changes into the swelling corpse of Amadee... and growing mushrooms in the room of dying King (Exit the King). The whole intellectual message of the eschatological code of The Theatre of The Absurd can be imported in the following statement: „No society has ever been successful in getting rid of unhappiness; no political system can free our lives from grief and the fear of death” (Ionesco).
The analysis of the thanatical motives in the drama and The Theatre of The Absurdi is the kind of a test, helping us to exit from the prison of words to the mysticism and poetry. In spite of numerous elements of farces, grotesques, „the tragedy of used language” the plays by Ionesco return to mythical and religious function of the theatre.The revelation of the Ionesco’s attitude in confrontation with the face of Death is, after the first, originally and consistently unroll the existentialism philosophy, after the second, define the drama technique. This is not only the naked truth about life, but the post-Baudelair obsession of ugliness, anti-aesthetic of the vapours of the rot all around old men and heros of Chairs, strengthened additionally of „the song about rotting together”, whether the shoking metaphor „the hen's shit in jelly to take a sip of the horse’s urine” (The Bald soprano). It will explode into the turpism, which with whole power in Amadee... and it will become softened the Buddhist experience „The Blue of Death” in the play Exit the King. This is the incessant dialectics of Memento, which Klimczak every time calls, wants to „hit”, to shake us and awake from „the nap” in the mass consumption of hypnotic mechanized vulgarity.

This paper actively deals with the notion of silence as an element of absurdity in Harold Pinter’s play “The Dumb Waiter” (1960). In order to discuss this with greater detail, it is important to understand what absurdity is and how it is linked to the theatre of the absurd as well as its
connection to the disenfranchised condition of human existence that ails modern man’s psyche obstructing his route to communication and purpose. Moreover, this paper elaborates on how silence is an element of absurdism diligently offering up a list of five main critics and their
critiques and assessment over the language of silence employed by Pinter as an element of absurdity, and they include: “Poetics of Silence” (1970) by James R. Hollis, “Harold Pinter and The New British Theatre” (1997) by D. Keith Peacock, “Harold Pinter’s Politics: A Silence Beyond Echo” (2005), “Language and Silence” (1987) by Martin Esslin, and “A Question of
Timing” (1995) by Martin S. Regal. Taking all of this into consideration, an analysis of Harold Pinter’s script will be implemented on the basis of silence as an active partaker in this play of
absurdism posing a number of five main quotations that best represent Pinter’s formation of silence as not only a dramatic device, but a much more intense entity with its own voice and motives.

Albert Camus réfléchit à l'absurdité du monde sans Dieu. La question du meurtre et les atrocités du XXe siècle l'obligent à trouver un autre fondement que l'absurde. Il choisit celui de la révolte de l'être humain face à ce qui le déshumanise. Mais cette valeur est elle-même signe du Dieu auquel Camus n'a pu se résoudre à croire.

wo sich Primär-und Sekundärliteratur wahrlich gute Nacht sagen (mit einem postumen Nachwort von Henri Bergson).

pour ceux qui aiment la littérature indépendante, expérimentale, exubérante, aberrante, déroutante, décalée et d’un auteur atteint de schizophrénie littéraire, voilà une œuvre dont Henri Bergson n’aurait dit que c’est la pièce de résistance de la littérature humoriste.

This paper aims to unmask the sharp vestiges of Absurdity as an offshoot of Existentialism both through the form and content of the play, for which, a skull-like room devoid of any sign of life and hope has been designed. As a matter of fact, this research focuses on the imbroglio after the Second World War from which no exit door could be found and this overwhelming bog is mostly represented through the two characters who are called Hamm and Clov. In addition to that, the co-dependency between the Modern Men as an absurdist notion is represented through the bonding between Hamm and Clov; although Clov every now and then gets exhausted by giving services to Hamm, he supposes that if the bonding between them is torn, their existence will be at stake. It is worth mentioning that the cyclical pattern of the play as an embodiment of the cyclical stasis of human existence alongside the unconscionable repetitions in characters' dialogues which stands for the emptiness and meaninglessness of modern life will be discussed in detail. Apart from the absurdist features of Endgame which have been succinctly referred to, another underlying trait of this literary movement, namely the failure of language to help the characters communicate well and its pivotal role as a propeller towards their isolation and alienation will be scrutinized. Finally, an important question, which has made Endgame's attentive readers overly curious is to be answered in this research; the question is that 'are characters' actions in this play a representation of Existentialist philosophy or Absurdism?'

Camus' Absurd can be summarized as man's persistent need for objective meaning in a universe that offers only indifference. Camus begins his treatise on Absurdity by suggesting that "there is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide" (Camus 4). Specifically, in a world without center or any objective anchor why does the individual persist onwards? Ranging from the nihilistic Meursault to the toiling Sisyphus, Camus’ characters all deal with condemned individuals, a thematic move that represents death’s Absurd condemnation. Life is a “permanent revolution” against an Absurd realization that results in either stoic revolt, physical suicide, or philosophical suicide, the latter involving the adoption of an objective anchor of Truth within God or the metaphysical that allows one to erect a hopeful illusion as buffer for the purposelessness encountered (36). Camus’ Absurd universal human condition, a realization that all individuals must encounter. As such, while The Myth of Sisyphus was penned twenty-three years after the publication of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Camus’ philosophical framework and seminal discussion of suicide lends itself to the discussion of Quentin’s suicidal impulse in the face of the Absurd. Quentin’s life is forged by paternal instruction similar to the beginning quote, the miscommunication of his father’s Absurd awakening contributing to his failure. Quentin follows his “logic to the point of death;” he is consumed by the Absurd and cannot bear the burden. This essay will explicate the aspects of Quentin’s character that render him an Absurd failure, in the process illuminating the potential pitfalls that accompany this universal human experience.

Since Friedrich Nietzsche, philosophers have grappled with the question of how to respond to nihilism. Nihilism, often seen as a derogative term for a 'life-denying', destructive and perhaps most of all depressive philosophy is what drove existentialists to write about the right response to a meaningless universe devoid of purpose. This latter diagnosis is what I shall refer to as existential nihilism, the denial of meaning and purpose, a view that not only existentialists but also a long line of philosophers in the empiricist tradition ascribe to. The absurd stems from the fact that though life is without meaning and the universe devoid of purpose, man still longs for meaning, significance and purpose. Inspired by the adult animated series' Rick and Morty and Bojack Horseman, this essay explores and analyses the various alternatives that have been offered in how to respond to the absurd, or as Albert Camus puts it; the only " really serious philosophical problem " and conclude that the problem is compatible with a naturalistic world-view, thereby genuine and transcending existentialism.

The1964 play Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss easily lends itself to a psychoanalytic reading. The lead character called Marat is a paranoiac. The director of the play in this play-within-a-play is Sade, the notorious eighteenth century Marquis after whom is coined the psychological term Sadist. Weiss wrote in the aftermath of the holocaust and his plays represent the theatre of cruelty. The present analysis is a psychoanalytic study of the play, chiefly the character of Marat as a delusional in the lines of the French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. Here the actor that is named Marat is looked at as suffering from paranoia, a madness/psychosis where he cannot be expected to play any roles. He is being himself and still effectively appears to imitate the legendary leader of the French Revolution Jean-Paul Marat.
Keywords: Peter Weiss, French Revolution, Paranoia, Jacques Lacan, Marat/Sade, psychoanalysis, The Theatre of Cruelty, Sadism, play-within-a-play

ÖZET Samuel Beckett'in yazarken hep elinde tuttuğu öz-farkındalık, oyunlarının aynı özelliği barındırmasını sağlar ve Beckett, tiyatrosunda ironi aygıtını kendine işaret etme, içinde bulunulan ortamın farkında oluş ve yazarın ve izleyicinin kastedilmesi gibi teknik seçimlerle işletir. Ionesco için ise ironi daha çok dilin bir fonksiyonu olarak çıkar ortaya;. Genet tiyatrosu ise izleyicinin gündelik hayatının tiyatrodan daha " sahte " olduğu anlayışının sürekli yinelenmesi yoluyla, ironin üzerine kurulacağı " rol " kavramını ironik teatralliğinin merkezi haline getirir. ABSTRACT Samuel Beckett's own self-awarance as a writer's stance, maintains the very same quality of his plays and his irony as a theatrical device operates through three technical choices: self– reflexivity, awareness of the theatrical space and time, adressing the playwright and audience For Ionesco, irony is considered as a function of the language and the theatre of Genet reveals the comparable side of the life with theatre by emphasizing the counterfeit quality of everyday life of its audience. This method makes the concept of " rol " a central argument of his ironic theatricality _______________________________________
* Öğretim Görevlisi, Doktor Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Tiyatro Bölümü

The aim of this paper is to give an existentialist reading to certain themes in Tolstoyan literature. For this purpose three themes have been taken up for discussion: Death, Desires and Faith and Morality.
Each of those three themes has been dealt with in three different segments in this essay.
In each of the three segments an attempt is made at interpreting that particular theme as situated in the works of Tolstoy in the light of Existentialist philosophy. In the first segment that deals with Death, the focus is mainly on the interpretation of Tolstoy’s ideas on Death in the light of Heidegger’s perspective on death. Ideas taken up for consideration in this segment are ‘authenticity’, ‘human finitude’ and ‘death of the own-most self’ as developed by Heidegger and dealt with in works of Tolstoy like The Death of Ivan Illytch, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. The discussion on death which begins and engages with the questions on meaning of life gets intertwined with the role of desires in providing a meaning to life. This leads to the second segment—a discussion on Desires. In the second segment, the focus is mainly on Camus’ idea of absurdity and the endeavour is interalia, to interpret the suicide of Anna Karenina in the light of Camus’ idea of absurdity. This discussion leads to questions such as “Who finally emerges as the moral hero of Anna Karenina?” and “If Tolstoy can be compared with Camus can he be categorised as an absurdist like Camus or he sides more with the existentialists like Kierkegaard and Shestov?” These questions are dealt with in the third segment of the essay on Faith and Morality. This segment concludes that though Tolstoy follows closely with Camus’ idea of absurdity, he does not follow him till the very end to draw identical conclusions as those of Camus. He diverges from Camus at a critical juncture and relates more with existentialist like Kierkegaard.

All these three discussions, though have an independence of their own, are inter-related such that one discussion leads to the other. The endeavour is to bring out a glimpse of the Tolstoyan way of life in its totality through these discussions on Death, Desires and Faith and Morality.

This essay examines one of the major themes in Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett which is Time. Time in this play represents a very much dominating force as well as a tormenting tool to its characters. This study will analyse Beckett's innovative style and writing techniques that he used in his plays in order to highlight that the absence of time does not omit its powerful impact on the characters and the plot. This essay will also depict how Beckett uses absurdity to play around with the concept of time mainly focusing on the routine of the main characters, Estragon and Vladimir. Their behaviour reflects the situation of the human condition and men's hopelessness to find a meaning for his existence. Different illustrations from the play will help to find the tone for the theme which will be discussed in this essay.

This work explores dark humor and absurdity in trauma through the works of Beckett’s Waiting for Godott, Melih Cevdet Anday’s Gizli Emir (Secret Command) and José Saramago’s Blindness to understand the function of black humor. Humor brings the intense suffering, violence and the element of laughter together as a response to atrocity. When one struggles to find meaning in devastation, comedy helps to distance one’s self from the traumatic event. All three of the works deal with life-in-death situation. The first work was published after one of the most destructive conflicts in history - World War II, the second work was published when a military coup was taking place in Turkey (1960) and the last work treats of an ultimate state of emergency in an unexplained mass epidemic. My essay will be divided into two themes: the first one is Absurdity and Grotesque and the second one is The Question of Resolution. In the first section of my essay (Introduction), I will be looking into the theories of trauma, dark humor and grotesque to capture the function of comedy to sustain or complicate the narrative perspective. In traumatic events, everything shatters, time, place, order and action become meaningless which can be observed in all three of the works clearly. In the second part of my essay, I aim to investigate the endings of the literary works which are completely empty of action. The mental and physical state of the characters while ‘waiting’ for a resolution evolves into a pure state of absurdity which questions the concept of resolution in trauma.

The Study deals with two sorts of Vassalage bond supposed to be in Waiting for Godot : One is visible in the nucleus -'plot' of Pozzo, the master and Lucky, the slave, the other invisible, mute and unstaged underlaying peripheral 'plot' of Vadimir and Estragon as two undeclared slaves in relation to Godot . The study is to plumb deep amid layers of illusion that should be pruned off altogether in order to sort out the two vassalages apart. The study proposes a supposition that the process initiated to ruminate the visible will be conducive to trace the invisible through juxtaposing certain staged aspects (three in number) in the former to their hypothetically unstaged counterparts in the latter. As such the study could reveal yet other three hidden knots or conducivenesses' detected only in this way of reading the unseen of the peripheral 'plot' ; such conducivenesses of the invisible vassalage would spot light on the two faces of the coin: Godot's hegemony in relation to Vladimir and Estragon as well as their ultimate servitude . The conducivenesses dealt with are : 1) the prevalence of horror and atrocities precipitated by Godot the master while the slaves are waiting for him a gamut of years in the 'Cacon' Country, 2) the ostensible susceptibility to servitude Vladimir and Estragon show accordingly and 3) the coercive riddance of their human rights in favour of the sole master.

This paper parallels the philosophical development of Albert Camus’s thought on the absurd with an expansive movement of resistance, allegorized as a collective effort against a proliferating plague in his 1947 novel, La Peste. I argue that Camus’s original intent, to allegorically portray the European battle against Nazism, stifles the flexible power of allegory, a literary form that yields multiple interpretations. By drawing from Michel Foucault’s definition of quadrillage, I determine that La Peste allows both subjective and collective interpretations of the spreading disease, not only as a literal plague, but also as a metaphor for l’absurde.

The philosophical stance about the existence of being and the meaning of life has been a widely discussed subject among philosophers and critics. Existentialism says that a man can construct his own meaning of life by making judicious use of his awareness, free wills and personal responsibilities, but absurdism believes that there is no meaning of life out there. The focus of this study is to explore the absurdist and existential aspects in Kafka's fiction The Metamorphosis (1915) and The Trial (1925). This is a qualitative comparative research, and the data which have been collected for this purpose is through purposive sampling techniques. In this study, Camus' theories of absurdism and theory of existentialism have been adopted as a theoretical framework. The study explores in what ways the traces of absurdism and existentialism are present in Kafka's fiction The Metamorphosis and The Trial. The findings show that characteristics of absurdism and existentialism are found in both the works of Kafka and are comparable with each other. For future recommendations, a comparative stylistic analysis of these selected novels can be carried out.

The term " absurdity " is very well known in literature and frequently used by the writers of post 2 nd World War. They use this term in the manner of its meaning or even more than that in their works. The effects of War and human sufferings from that caused absurdism to flourished and also spread Nihilism, meaninglessness, nothingness. The aim and motive of this paper is to prove that the idea of absurdism may be new which is observed by absurd writer on human bizarre situation, but the existence of absurdism was already been used in the writings of Elizabethan writers or before that. In these writers the king of drama, William Shakespeare was also one of the most prominent in whose writings the existence of absurdity can easily be traceable when he is well known for his tragedies and comedies. Although this existence was not noticed by or tagged by the writers or critics of that time as absurdism, there was its presence on the large scale. This paper is going to compare the level of absurdity among the playwrights of absurd and absurdism in the select works of Shakespeare. The idea here is that the writer who is still incomparable also created the levels of absurdity in his plays unintentionally without being aware of the notion of " Absurdism " .

The philosophical stance about the existence of being and the meaning of life has been a widely discussed subject among philosophers and critics. Existentialism says that a man can construct his own meaning of life by making judicious use of his awareness, free wills and personal responsibilities, but absurdism believes that there is no meaning of life out there. The focus of this study is to explore the absurdist and existential aspects in Kafka's fiction The Metamorphosis (1915) and The Trial (1925). This is qualitative comparative research, and the data which have been collected for this purpose is through purposive sampling techniques. In this study, Camus' theory of absurdism and theory of existentialism has been adopted as a theoretical framework. The study explores in what ways the traces of absurdism and existentialism are present in Kafka's fiction The Metamorphosis and The Trial. The findings show that characteristics of absurdism and existentialism are found i...

This writing is my MA dissertation, in all its flawed glory. It did score well, however. Anyway, I believe the title does quite a good job of explaining the theme of the writing. So, please enjoy the journey!

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