Seeking Meaning in the Nihility and Absurdity: The Exploration of Existentialism in Hamlet and Waiting for Godot
Journal: Arts Studies and Criticism DOI: 10.32629/asc.v5i6.3256
Abstract
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, though created in different eras, share a common theme of existentialism in their own unique ways. This paper analyses both works that depict the inner struggle of human being and their questioning of existence when confronting the absurdity of the world and the nihility of life.
Keywords
existentialism, Hamlet, Waiting for the Godot, absurdity, nihility
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[3] Chang Gao, Yanhua Xia. Waiting for Godot: Beyond Absurd Existentialist Redemption. Hunan: Qiu Suo, 2012.
[4] Yanhui, Zhao. The Continuity of Absurdity: Existentialist Reading of Hamlet, Waiting for Godot, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Shanghai: Fudan University, 2014.
[5] Beckett, Sameul. Waiting for Godot. London: Faber and Faber, 1956.
[6] Wenjun Li, A Life Struggling in Despair — Starting from the Existentialist Thought in Waiting for Godot. Inner Mongolia: Journal of Inner Mongolia Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 1994.
[7] Satre , L'.être et le néant. Paris: Gallimard, 1943.
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