Магистрант Бекжанова А., к.ф.н. Шингарева М.Ю.

Региональный социально-инновационный университет

The Absurd: Problems of Definition

Linguistic absurd is a special type of language deviation that has quite deep social and gnoseological roots. It can be defined briefly as nonconventional nominative creation of language constructions, that consist of meaningful units of reality conceptualization.

Though there is a number of works dedicated to the analysis of the absurd, we will rely mainly on the definition presented by the essay The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (originally published in 1942), as this “fundamental treatise” [1,pp.3, 114) is treated as the main authority of the absurd by Esslin, and is surely, if not the most, at least among the most influential texts on the absurd. The essay centres on the figure of Sisyphus from ancient Greek mythology: he displeased the gods, and as punishment in the afterlife must roll a large boulder up a hill, only for the boulder to roll back down, thus renewing his labour indefinitely. Camus argues that instead of being tortured by his punishment, Sisyphus is the happiest of all men: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” [2, p. 123] Sisyphus lives his (after)life freed of disappointments and uncertainty, and Beckett’s works have been read as just such an infinite ceaseless task—indeed, Beckett is recorded to view writing as such a task [3, p. 197; 1, p. 241; 4, p.988-991). We will see how these ideas have been interpreted in the works of the Theatre of the Absurd, for like Manuel Grossman argues, the meaning is specialised [5, p. 473-474].

The word absurd, according to Camus, denotes something impossible, and more importantly, something that is contradictory. The absurd is not a single entity, but a relation between two extremes; it, as Camus lyrically puts it, “bursts from the comparison between a bare fact and a certain reality, between an action and the world that transcends it.” [2, p. 30] The absurd is a clash, an unceasing struggle, in the experience of an individual when faced with the familiar world made strange, a world void of reason and explanation, in short, world without meaning. [2, p. 29] The absurd, therefore, is an experience rather than a physical phenomenon. Camus argues that the absurd is felt when the human need for coherence and unity is encountered by the incoherence and strangeness of the world. As the only bond between the mind and the world the absurd it is a “divine equivalence which springs from anarchy” [2, p. 51], it is restless and oppositional. The absurd can only be denied or accepted completely, as the clash that creates the absurd cannot be reconciled [2, p. 48]. A relationship can only exist between two distinct components, not their indistinct fusion.

Camus describes the denial of the absurd as being asleep, the similarities between being wilfully ignorant and unconscious being somewhat obvious and as the denial of the absurd is, necessarily, the denial of a part of the human mind as well. The acceptance of the absurd situation is, conversely, described as awakening, consciousness, and lucidity, and the encounter with the absurd is a moment of lucidity. [2, p.13] Owing to its nature as consciousness (also literally understood), and since the absurd is delimited on both sides by the extremes by whose clash it is created, it is “lucid reason noting its limits” . In terms of the night/day duality which is derivative of asleep/awake, Camus describes the absurd as “light without effulgence” [2, p.5], and committing suicide because one cannot bear the absurd is the flight from light.

In a world of perpetual struggle, devoid of meaning and explanation, Camus asks: “Does the Absurd dictate death?” We are strangers in a hostile world, exiles without memory or hope of a homeland, divorced from our very lives. Should we commit suicide as nothing has meaning any more? [2, p.6] As the metaphors of light and awakening imply, the experience of the absurd is by no means negative in nature for Camus, as Neil Cornwell and Clyde Manschreck note [1, p.115]. Accepting the absurd, or living in reconciliation to it, is empowering. The world is suddenly given a “poetry of forms and colours” [2, p. 52]. The void where meaning disappears becomes suddenly eloquent, and indeed the absurd is a progression towards this void. [2, p.12; 1, p.115.] Furthermore, even though the absurd teaches that all experience is meaningless, it also dictates that life should be lived to the fullest and the longest, as human life is the only necessary good in the meaningless world [2, p. 62-63]. The will to live in the present moment, the will to experience the world, is the consequence of accepting the absurd for nothing matters more than being conscious, “the purest of joys” [ibid. 63]. “By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was invitation to death—and I refuse suicide.” [ibid. 64] The acceptance of the absurd has other consequences, deeply personal, which we shall discuss more in depth later: revolt, freedom, and passion [ibid 60].

The notion of absurd is still not definite though it has interdisciplinary character and long history of study. As in the linguistics the problem of language absurd is still in the stage of formation the definitions of lexicographic vocabularies don’t reflect the specifics of this phenomenon.

Bibliography:

1. Cornwell, Camus, Albert. 1991. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Trans. Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage Books.

2. Camus, Albert. 1991. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Trans. Justin O’Brien. New York: Vintage Books.

3. Brater, Enoch. 1975. “The ’Absurd’ Actor in the Theatre of Samuel Beckett” in Educational Theatre Journal 27:2. 197-297.

4. Krieger, Elliot. 1977. “Samuel Beckett’s Texts for Nothing: Explication and Exposition.” in Comparative Literature 92:5. 987-1000.

5. Grossman, Manuel L. 1967. “Alfred Jarry and the Theatre of the Absurd” in Educational Theatre Journal 19:4. 473-477.