Martin Esslin invented the term for that form of writing which in 1950 projected the pervasive sense of purposelessness in an existence that had lost harmony with its surroundings. During the Second World War, faith of man in civilization was shaken and the main concern of the intellectuals was the futility of life. During this period, not only life looked absurd but all devices used by man to make life meaningful made it only purposeless.
Playwrights such as Ionesco, Beckett used new techniques to depict the incongruities of life, existential anguish and the sense of futility in their plays. It was also because of the reason that the life in incoherence could not be presented through coherent and logical scenes. It required a technique which could make the plays disjointed showing the irony of the contemporary world.
Theatre of the Absurd is nihilistic and the main effort is to present the inner realities of life. It focused on the chaos of life which covered the world after the Second World War. Feelings and thoughts are expressed through gesticulations which are shown to the maximum in absurd plays with a view of reducing the language to the minimum. It focuses more on parody and exploits some inferior scenes to show the absurdity. All dramatists who write these plays try to understand why man is self centered, alienated and unable to communicate with others.
These plays do not have ay heroes or heroines. Playwrights expect the spectators to use their imagination to give an order to the absurd happenings. Theatre of Absurd does not have logically contrived plots. It exposes problems through flashes but do not give any solutions. The success of these plays depends on farce, satire, allegory and poetry.
Now days, Theater of Absurd has lost its importance but its significance in depicting the bitterness of life after the end of the Second World War.
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