Hope in Hopelessness: Appreciating “Waiting” as an Essential Device in Selected Plays of Beckett and Ahmad

Abstract

This paper aims to explore and appreciate “waiting” as an essential device in selected plays of Beckett and Ahmad. They defy traditions and conventions of plays by inventing their own innovative and individualistic manner of manipulating structural patterns to shape the Absurd dramas. This paper focuses on the incessant incidence of the “waiting” in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and Ahmad’s The Thing, and analyzes how important this waiting matters to the characters. The essential device of ‘waiting for’ and the open possibility of a change is what keeps hope alive. Through the journey of the characters, the playwrights focus on how man can confront and survive against the hostility of surroundings through ‘waiting.’ This is narrative research that follows descriptive-cum analytical method, and the textual references are given as evidence to support the argument of this study. It is found that the reality of the situation in which the absurd character appears is a psychological reality expressed in images that are the outward projection of states of their mind. That is why the Theatre of the Absurd can be considered an image of the human being’s inner world. It presents a truer picture of reality itself, reality as grasped by an individual that helps the characters as well as the audience to comprehend the harsh reality that life is full of qualms through their absurd conditions.