The Theatre of the Absurd as Illustrated in Plays by Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, and Jean Genet

Abstract

Although all three playwrights write in French and for the most part are based in Paris, all are aliens; two by birth, the third by condition. Samuel Beckett is Irish and Eugene Ionesco is Rumanian; Jean Genet feels alienated by the fact that he has spent a good part of his life in prison. Each was outraged by the society in which he lived and, by extension, by the human condition itself; and each came to the theatre in anger. In the following chapters of this project, I will discuss several plays by each of the three authors and make some conclusions concerning the way in which each of them views the human condition. These in turn will be related to the idea of absurdity in general.