Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot And Act Without Words II?

Novels and plays are two different forms of literature that are both capable of delivering similar messages. A novel is a type of literature that is meant to be read and excite the imagination as is shown in the novel “The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse.” On the other hand, a play is another form of literature that is meant to be acted and is based on conversations as is displayed in the play “fareWel.” Although both of these forms are uniquely different, they both are connected by the fact that they each are capable of telling a story and include a sequence of events. Therefore, a novel and a play may seem like total opposites yet they have the capability to produce similar messages to the readers.

​In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout Finch, and her brother Jem, learn the importance of seeing things through other people's eyes. At the beginning of the story, the people living in Maycomb County, can be considered "mockingbirds" because they are innocent. Their father, Atticus, leads as a strong example while defending Tom Robinson, a black man convicted for rape. The residents of Maycomb (besides the Finches) fail to see situations through other people's eyes. For example, when the trial takes place, most people do not have empathy toward Tom Robinson, resulting in some of those "mockingbirds" becoming killed. Trying to see situations through other people's eyes can keep someone from hurting somebody who is innocent.

In “Act 5” the listener get to seen into the growing theatre program in a prison. These prison inmates were putting on an intimate production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a story of a man arguing with the idea of murdering his uncle and avenging his father. While this story itself is not something the inmates related to directly, they related to that struggle and those ideas in a way many, if not most, actors could not. The purpose of “Act 5” was to show the heavy influence of an actor on a character and as a result the effects of specific characters and stories on us on humans. Experiences shape how we see the characters and the story but, not just our personal experiences this includes the experiences of the creatives working on the

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a work of art so prolific that many consider it as one of the best tragedies ever written in the history of literature, in which ideas and motifs of sickness and decay embed the entire plot of the story. Each unique character then conveys these ideas by the way they converse with other characters, their actions, and their use of figurative language. These create a unominous tone that is carried throughout the story, which helps the audience in fully grasping Hamlet’s truest emotions. These also help the reader know each character as well as to understand the how the figurative elements of the play translate to real life circumstances. From the start of the play, Shakespeare establishes a tone of uncertainty and

The 1952 and 1986 interpretations of Oscar Wilde’s play were more elegant than the 2001 film. My reaction to this version was much different from my initial perspective. This interpretation of the play seems to be presented in a more serious and dramatic manner.

Hamlet is outraged that he is not able to shed tears, and when he says `fiction' he is disappointed to see that a man can make himself cry through a second-hand play, whereas he cannot. Hamlet's outrage here demonstrates his dilemma as the `man of thought' forced to

There are many similarities and difference when discussing the life of Chinese and Egyptian peasants. Egyptian peasants were made up with the lowest social class of ancient Egypt. Most peasants consisted of farmers, unskilled laborers, and craftsman. Majority of Egyptian peasants lived with an extremely low standard of living. For instance, most peasants resided in small mud-brick houses.

This essay will discuss several literary criticisms of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. After skimming through several articles, I ended up with four peer-reviewed journal articles, each a different critical perspectives of the play: feminist, psychoanalytical/freudian, moral, and new historicism. My previous studies of Hamlet, as well as my rereading of the play this semester, has collectively given me a general knowledge of the text. My familiarity of the play made it easier for me to decipher the academic journals and see the connections each critic made with the play.

After reading the plays written by Shakespeare, I have a newfound appreciation for both the writer and the plays. Prior to this course, I had only read Shakespeare in High School, and I failed to follow much of the intended themes within the play. Additionally, the Old English language created difficulty in my comprehension of the plays. Throughout this course, I have learned to read into the play in an effort to find the meaning behind the words and the actions of the characters. While the language is still difficult to decipher, I find myself dissecting the intentions behind the carefully placed words, and looking for the imagery, symbolism and other figurative literary elements within the plays, and I now see why Shakespeare’s plays have

A real event described at the beginning of the drama has exercised a profound influence upon the whole imagery of the play. What is later metaphor is here still reality. The picture of the leprous skin disease, which is here – in the first act –

Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett's existential masterpiece, for some odd reason has captured the minds of millions of readers, artists, and critics worldwide, joining them all in an attempt to interpret the play. Beckett has told them not to read anything into his work, yet he does not stop them. Perhaps he recognizes the human quality of bringing personal experiences and such to the piece of art, and interpreting it through such colored lenses. Hundreds of theories are expounded, all of them right and none of them wrong. A play is only what you bring to it, in a subconscious connection between you and the playwright.

The two works are written in very different styles, but each has its own unique quality that adds to the overall success of the works themselves. Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is a play, and is thus written with stage directions and dialogue instructions, as it is meant to be both a piece of literary mastery and a wonderful stage experience. It is this traditional play structure that counterbalances the more modern thematic

Theatre is a complex art that attempts to weave stories of varying degrees of intricacies with the hope that feelings will be elicited from the audience. Samuel Beckett’s most famous work in the theatre world, however, is Waiting for Godot, the play in which, according to well-known Irish critic Vivian Mercier, “nothing happens, twice.” Beckett pioneered many different levels of groundbreaking and avant-garde theatre and had a large influence on the section of the modern idea of presentational theatre as opposed to the representational. His career seemingly marks the end of modernism in theatre and the creation of what is known as the “Theatre of the Absurd.”

In Waiting for Godot, Beckett often focused on the idea of "the suffering of being." Most of the play deals with the fact that Estragon and Vladimir are waiting for something to relieve them from their boredom. Godot can be understood as one of the many things in life that people wait for. Waiting for Godot is part of the ‘Theater of the Absurd’. This implies that it is meant to be irrational and meaningless. Absurd theater does not have the concepts of drama, chronological plot, logical language, themes, and recognizable settings. There is also a split between the intellect and the body within the work. Vladimir represents the intellect and Estragon the body, both cannot exist without the other.

If hope does not exist, Vladimir and Estragon will never fulfill their desires. Throughout the boy’s appearance, Vladimir continues to interrogate him, asking him several questions about the mysterious figure that is Godot. Asking the boy about Godot, Vladimir asks, “What does he do, Mr. Godot? Do you hear me?” (106), to which the boy merely replies as “He does nothing, Sir” (106). Thus, the futile nature of hope is depicted through Beckett’s use of symbolism. As Godot symbolizes hope, and the boy stated that “He (Godot) does nothing...” (106), this hints the redundant existence of hope. Rather, it is merely something individuals rely on to keep living, as for the case of Vladimir and Estragon, who continuously wait for Godot. While they contemplate suicide many times throughout the book, it is their motivation and continuous strive to wait for Godot that keeps them living to the next day. While “Godot” has failed Vladimir and Estragon many times, failing to show up to the exact spot that they believed they would meet him, they keep on waiting. Their strive and motivation is depicted as Vladimir says, “Tell him... Tell him you saw me and that... That you saw me. You’re sure you saw me, you won’t come and tell me to-morrow that you never saw me!”