The Avant-Garde Characteristics of Samuel Becketts Play

A Discussion of the Avant-Garde Characteristics of Samuel Becketts Play The term avant-garde means literally in French the fore guard, the part of the military that goes before the main force. (Calinescu, 1987) In this going before, the avant-garde of a military force not only exposes itself to greater risks from enemy positions (which may or may not be known), but it also can avail itself of greater strategic and tactical opportunities if it finds the enemy unprepared. As a term of art to describe what Calinescu calls a self-consciously advanced position in politics, literature and art, religion, etc., (p. 97) the avant-garde is both analogous to its military sense and contrary – while the avant-garde of literature and art may†¦show more content†¦133) Applied to Becketts Play, one can see this deconstruction of individuality clearly. The voices of each of the characters are only activated when the light falls on their urn – they possess no self-determination. Similarly, their narratives are fragmented and jumbled out of order, wi th the suggestion that any narrative consistency that the characters might have had in life has evaporated after death. The way the characters talk reminds one of how a machine that was resurrected from the junkyard might operate – glitchy and stuttering, yet basically functional. This kind of characterization is meant to reflect modern understandings of the person, i.e. that there is no soul that becomes disembodied at death, but rather than the description of a person is exhausted in the description of embodiment itself. The women and man in Play cannot avoid their post-mortem embodiment, and yet also they are deprived of the illusory autonomy they appeared to possess in life. A third characteristically avant-garde dimension of Play is its style of speech. Stream of consciousness is the name of the writing style that Beckett employs for each of the characters. Rather than addressing either each other or the audience, the characters in Play appear to be addressing either themselves or (more likely) no one at all. Their talk is mereShow MoreRelatedRhetorical Analysis Of Harold Pinter s The Room 9709 Words   |  39 PagesINTRODUCTION I’m convinced that what happens in my plays could happen anywhere, at any time, in any place, although the events may seem unfamiliar at first glance. If you press me for a definition, I’d say that what goes in my plays is realistic, but what I’m doing is not realism† (Pinter, Harold Pinter: Plays, 2 ix) Widely acknowledged as one of the great post-war generation dramatists, Harold Pinter’s fame rests on not only his popular dramas but also on his political activism which is rooted inRead MorePostmodernism in Literature5514 Words   |  23 PagesModernist literature. Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is difficult to define and there is little agreement on the exact characteristics, scope, and importance of postmodern literature. However, unifying features often coincide with Jean-Franà §ois Lyotards concept of the meta-narrative and little narrative, Jacques Derridas concept of play, and Jean Baudrillards simulacra. For example, instead of the modernist quest for meaning in a chaotic world, the postmodern author eschews