As a part of Academic Activity, a task was assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir, where students have tried to picturise Beckett's play according to their understanding and how they interpret the things which are used to create video. In response to that here is my blog and along with that video is also attached below.
You can also visit Teacher's Blog on 'Breath'
(https://blog.dilipbarad.com/2014/09/interpretation-challenge-breath.html)
Theatre of Absurd is a new emerging genre of drama developed tremendously after World War II. Psychological effects of World War II on people's minds are very deep and painful. People started seeing life as meaningless or pointless, where there is no passion to live it joyfully. In between these consequences we see the rise of literature where Absurdity is at center.
In Absurd plays the conventional or traditional structure of writing is totally replaced by New ways of writing where Absurdity of Human existence in a Meaningless Universe is represented in a very vague and symbolic manner. And the Interpretation is left on Viewers or Readers according to their understanding. As Martin Esslin says….
"Absurdist drama asks its viewer to
draw his own conclusions,
make his own errors"
Breath is one of the shortest play by Samuel Beckett, which runs only for 30 Seconds. It is one of the shortest absurd play which covers the Birth-Death cycle of human life within which continuous breath keeps a being alive.
As an Experiment 'Breath' by Samuel Beckett is very creative and thought provoking play which raises the many questions in our mind. Nothingness, Chaos, Meaninglessness or absurdity are the major themes of the play.
There are many adaptations of the play and all seem very creative and worthy to watch on different parallels. You can watch some of the videos which are attached in Teacher's blog. (Click Here)
Picturization of 'Breath' play
To begin with the above picturization revolves around the journey of Human beings from Birth to Death and in between these two polls the activities which are done, And raise the question Whether these activities are significant or meaningless?
Well, To answer this question we can take help of different philosophies about life. If we apply Nihilism then it seems that all the things which we do in between these two ends is pointless just like the meaningless universe. Life has no purpose, goal or meaning. Life is absurd.
But if we answer the same question from an Absurdist point of view then it accepts the reality of incoherency of Human life and within that absurdities it seeks to find the ways to live within the meaningless universe.
The video begins with the blowing of a bulb with some light, dark and scary music while crying shows the birth of a person. Generally, A birth of a person is seen as an arrival of happiness in other people's life while here it sounds like that Birth is so cheerful. Because now we are alone in this purposeless universe. According to Existentialism "We are thrown into the Meaningless Universe."
At the end of the video again there is Candle which blows down and again a faint cry which symbolizes a death of a person. So, It is a journey of human life from birth to death and in between what is the purpose of human life.
In between beginning and end the collection of rubbish connotes the different phases of development of life. And continuous slow effects of breath in and breathe out music denotes the Inspiration and Expiration process which breathes life to the body.
Clock symbolizes Time. Between the birth and death we have some allocated time within which we have to live our life. And there is a time which binds every human action. In the words of Albert Camus….
Likewise and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us. But a moment always comes when we have to carry it. We live on the future: “tomorrow,” “later on,” “when you have made your way,” “you will understand when you are old enough.” Such irrelevancies are wonderful, for, after all, it’s a matter of dying. Yet a day comes when a man notices or says that he is thirty. Thus he asserts his youth. But simultaneously he situates himself in relation to time. He takes his place in it. He admits that he stands at a certain point on a curve that he acknowledges having to travel to its end. He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy. Tomorrow, he was longing for tomorrow, whereas everything in him ought to reject it. That revolt of the flesh is absurd.
Another significant symbol used in the rubbish stuff is calculator. Now the Calculator symbolizes the materialistic nature of a Human. Who used to count everything. From his bad to good deeds to Money. Humans invest their whole life to earn a good salary and get money to live life. Within that one cannot survive. But at the end if we count then it seems like we have wasted our whole life doing nothing except running behind money. Albert Camus states rightly that...
A man wants to earn money in order to be happy, and his whole effort and the best of a life are devoted to the earning of that money. Happiness is forgotten; the means are taken for the end.
There are many rubbish things which used in video like Cricket Ball symbolize our childhood where we used to play, there is another phase of learning life lessons and getting knowledge which is reflected through the shattered pens in video. Then one most important thing which highlighted through use of different colors of Reels which we used to stitch clothes. In the same way through life we spend our days and nights in making our relationship stronger with people. And also time and again we motivate ourselves by making patchwork to do something new creative in life. So, these are some of the things which are used in video which denotes various phases in Human Life.
Now, The central question is What is the meaning of Life? Why are we here? Why are we doing all these things? And perhaps the answer is nothing. If one day we are going to die then what is the point of doing these useless things. This is the core idea which came out from the video that "Life is Absurd."
But another opposite Conclusion can also be made through the above video is that We need to accept the things as they are because Life is Absurd. But as human beings we need to live our life in fullest capacities within these absurdities and meaningless universes. We must have some purposes and goals which force us to do work passionately. And at last I would like to conclude by the Conclusion made by Martin Esslin in his article "The search for self."
"nothing
changed in Mr nott's establishment, because nothing remained,
and nothing came or went, because all was a coming and a going. "
In watching Waiting for Godot, we feel like Watt contemplating the
organization of Mr Knott's world: "But he had hardly felt the ab-
surdity of those things, on the one hand, and the necessity of those
others, on the other, (for it is rare that the feeling of absurdity is not
followed by the feeling of necessity), when he felt the absurdity of
t ose t mgs of which he had just felt the necessity (for it is rare that
the feeling of necessity is not followed by the feeling of absurdity).
References
- Esslin, Martin. The theatre of the absurd. London: Pelican, 1980.
- Samuel & nbsp;Beckett – Breath. (n.d.). Retrieved November 21, 2020, from https://genius.com/Samuel-beckett-breath-annotated
- Esslin, Martin. The Search for the Self.
Best work
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