Absurdism

The short story “Whoever Is There, Come on Through” effectively conveys the importance of human connections both in real life and in good literature. I believe that being able to connect with a character is an important facet of the story to a reader, which makes it more relatable and enjoyable. This story was written recently, in January of 2018, which means that the author should fall in more with the most recent authors that we have read, trying to portray the people around him, like Bobbie…

Literary Analysis of The Metamorphosis and Axolotl Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis and Julio Cortazar’s short story Axolotl are not only based off of the writers themselves; they also exhibit a plethora of similar themes and concepts, including absurdism, alienation, Marxism, and magic realism. Oftentimes in fictional literature, traces of emotions exhibited by characters and events that occur within the fictional work are heavily influenced by the writer’s own dilemmas. This parallel…

Science fiction is a genre that has persisted for perhaps longer than what one might think. When classifying the genre, there are elements of technology and they are typically set in the future. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy implements such elements, but takes the issues of life, the universe, and everything and puts a funnier spin to them. This allows the author to take serious issues in society and point out the ridiculousness of situations. Absurdity is perhaps the main theme of the…

Othello: An Empiricist ABSTRACT: Shakespeare, the king of English literature, reached the summit of his power over English. In the art of characterization, Shakespeare has no rival. The beauty of the art lies in its characters. We come across many characters that portray nobility, ire, jealousy, conspiracy, etc. in his plays. One of the fascinating characters is Othello- the portrayal of jealousy and suspicion, an icon of empiricism who digs his own grave. This paper focuses on…

Arriving to the modernist age, feminism has become predominantly popular among individuals in search for equality amongst the genders. Although a majority of critics give the movement a negative connotation, feminism is not obnoxious, male hate, or merely female empowerment. In actuality, feminism reflects the desire to recognized equally regarding success, the strive for equality, as well as identifying, not over-exaggerating, the issues that exist in society today. The modern shift towards…

Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros is an absurdist French play that delves further and further into chaos as the show progresses. Throughout, the scenic elements work to create an unrealistic, chaotic, but unified atmosphere that serves to contribute to the absurd nature of a show where humans are turning into rhinoceros. The set itself is relatively minimalistic throughout- almost entirely rectilinear in form, while the only contrasting curved lines in set were various clothes lines featured in act 3…

road to recovery. Hayden: Yeah well said, on the topic of themes, I found a pretty unique one in Flirting, it’s the theme of Absurdism, which is basically when people seem to act bizarrely because they accept and believe that humans are unable to find meaning in life. Thandiwe and Danny reference Albert Camus a fair bit, he was a French philosopher and pioneer of Absurdism (*bunny ears*), and they put his philosophies into practice in the film. Will: Yeah, they seem to go against what…

In his novel Thinks… David Lodge addresses topics of religion, faith and death by examining the main characters’, Helen and Ralph’s, differing views on the subjects. Helen, though having had a Catholic upbringing, is not a firm believer in Christianity, yet she still wants to hold onto her beliefs in afterlife and dualism between soul and body. In contrast, Ralph sees such beliefs simply as a way to cope with the fear of death and he scorns Helen’s faith in ”immortal souls”, arguing that human…

idea that a character has no underlying objectives, text has no purpose, and a performance has no goals is fascinating to me, as it is a complete departure from the super-objectives that are an integral part of Stanislavksi’s philosophy of theatre. Absurdism promotes the idea that life has no meaning, except the one that we create for ourselves. This is translated into performances such as Waiting for Godot, in which contradictory speech and actions, minimal context, and ambiguous setting are…

My work in Critical Inquiry has given me a broader sense of exploring more concepts and theories that I have not particular been involved in until now. My job includes detailed descriptions of all of the work I have completed in my Critical Inquiry class including but not limited to 6 one-pagers, three essays, and three visual pieces. I would like to start off with the work I have done in my Critical Inquiry class that included the visual pieces I had to create for my response to class…