As the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, Samuel Beckett’s finally reached recognition from the literary world for his skillful writing style. Beckett achieved critical acclaim for many of his works. In Both the French and English language, Beckett was an accomplished author, critic, and playwright. Beckett grew up in Dublin, Ireland but eventually settled down in Paris, France where he continued his work while in the unoccupied zones During World War Two. While Beckett was in France, he was influenced by the work of well established Irish novelist James Joyce and French novelist Marcel Proust. Beckett developed his major works Watt, Waiting for Godot, and Molloy during the time while he was in hiding in unoccupied zones of France.
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Enoch Brater notes that the play was received with a lot of criticism from the press. The day after the premier of Waiting for Godot Brater said that The Miami Herald headlined a article titled: “Mink Claud Audience Disappointed in Godot” (113). Brater also notes that a popular critic of the time Michael Meyerberg issued a statement saying “I respectfully suggests that those who come to the theater for casual entertainment do not buy a ticket to this attraction” (113). Like Meyerberg, Brater also noted that Hume Cronyn had a similar negative response to Waiting for Godot. Cronyn said “It was so alien that I didn 't quite recognize its quality” (113). Beckett’s background in Avante-Garde literature is evident in Waiting for Godot and because americans were not particularly keen to this artistic style it was easy to understand their confusion and dissatisfaction with the play in the beginning of its American lifespan. The core of American dissatisfaction came from the style that mixes tragedy and comedy. Beckett was trying to get his audiences to react differently to the way they saw on stage. Normally the audiences would laugh at comedy and cry because of a tragedy (114). Instead Beckett created a style that attempted to reject the traditional reaction of the crowd he. “Tragedy meant self-discovery and rebirth, a second chance, a last chance; it involved an underlying possibility that things must be different from the way things were; it was entirely too optimistic” (115). In a similar way Beckett uses comedy to bring about a converse concept “For Beckett these boundaries no longer apply: for his is a ‘black’ humor which lies in extreme distortion and in face… is simply set this counter tradition of comedy in sharper relief”
Enoch Brater notes that the play was received with a lot of criticism from the press. The day after the premier of Waiting for Godot Brater said that The Miami Herald headlined a article titled: “Mink Claud Audience Disappointed in Godot” (113). Brater also notes that a popular critic of the time Michael Meyerberg issued a statement saying “I respectfully suggests that those who come to the theater for casual entertainment do not buy a ticket to this attraction” (113). Like Meyerberg, Brater also noted that Hume Cronyn had a similar negative response to Waiting for Godot. Cronyn said “It was so alien that I didn 't quite recognize its quality” (113). Beckett’s background in Avante-Garde literature is evident in Waiting for Godot and because americans were not particularly keen to this artistic style it was easy to understand their confusion and dissatisfaction with the play in the beginning of its American lifespan. The core of American dissatisfaction came from the style that mixes tragedy and comedy. Beckett was trying to get his audiences to react differently to the way they saw on stage. Normally the audiences would laugh at comedy and cry because of a tragedy (114). Instead Beckett created a style that attempted to reject the traditional reaction of the crowd he. “Tragedy meant self-discovery and rebirth, a second chance, a last chance; it involved an underlying possibility that things must be different from the way things were; it was entirely too optimistic” (115). In a similar way Beckett uses comedy to bring about a converse concept “For Beckett these boundaries no longer apply: for his is a ‘black’ humor which lies in extreme distortion and in face… is simply set this counter tradition of comedy in sharper relief”