THEATRE AND ANTI-THEATRE: CORROSION OF SELF IN THE SELECT PLAYS OF SAMUEL BECKETT, TENNESSEE WILLIAMS, EDWARD ALBEE, TOM STOPPARD AND JACK GELBER A Thesis Submitted to For the award of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Ph.D) in ENGLISH By Varinder Kaur Regd. No. 41200403 Supervised By Dr. Jit Pal Aggarwal Assistant Professor Id 20487 LOVELY FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND APPLIED ARTS LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY PUNJAB 2017 i Declaration I hereby declare that the thesis titled “Theatre and Anti-Theatre: Corrosion of Self in the Select Plays of Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard and Jack Gelber” is an original research work carried out by me for the award of degree of Ph.D in English at Lovely Professional University, Phagwara District Kapurthala. It is further certified that no part of this thesis has been submitted either in part or full for the award of any other degree/ diploma by me to this or any other University. Dated : …………… Signature of candidate Place : Phagwara (Ms. Varinder Kaur) Regd. No. 41200403 ii Certificate of Supervisor This is to certify that the thesis titled “Theatre and Anti-Theatre: Corrosion of Self in the Select Plays of Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard and Jack Gelber” is submitted by Ms. Varinder Kaur Regd. No. 41200403 to Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, District Kapurthala for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English. It is a novel piece of work carried out by the candidate under my supervision. As of my knowledge, the present study has so far not been submitted here and other University, for the award of degree. It is further certified that the candidate has fulfilled all the requisite conditions/requirements laid down by the University. Accordingly, the present thesis is eloquently fit for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Place : Phagwara Supervisor: Date : ……………… Dr. Jit Pal Aggarwal Assistant Professor, LPU ID 20487 iii Acknowledgement I wish to acknowledge here the help, guidance, inspiration and encouragement that I received from my husband, Mr. Jatinder Pal Singh, Advocate. I am extremely thankful to my father, Mr. Harbhajan Singh, who had been a true ideal for me and my mother, Mrs. Swaran Kaur, who gave full support for the completion of this research project. My darling son, Apaar, supported me in all respects and I put on record his positive contribution. At the outset, I express my deep sense of gratitude to my supervisor Dr. J. P. Aggarwal, Assistant Professor Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab who gave me unsparing encouragement and inspiration, his original ideas and critical suggestions helped me to complete the thesis. Indeed, words can‘t express my thanks and gratitude to Dr. J.P. Aggarwal whose generous guidance, cooperation, valuable suggestions, kind help and expert advice helped me to achieve my aim. I visited many libraries to collect the research material and I will be failing in my duty if I don‘t express my thanks to the Incharge of the VTR section of Indo American Research Centre Hyderabad. I am thankful to the librarians of Punjab University, Chandigarh and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar who extended their cooperation to me. My special thanks to Dr. Ajoy Batta, Associate Professor and Head of the English Department Lovely Professional University Phagwara for his co-operation and valuable guidance. (Ms. Varinder Kaur) iv Contents S. NO TOPIC PAGE NO. 1. Introduction 1-14 2. Chapter 1: Brief Candle 15-44 3. Chapter 2: The Anti-Theatrical Devices to Dramatize the 45-95 Corrosion of Self in Beckett‘s Waiting for Godot and Endgame 4. Chapter 3: Stages of Gradual Corrosion of Self of 96-131 Beckett‘s Protagonists: A Case Study of Lucky 5. Chapter 4: The Broken, Disintegrated Universe of 132-161 Tennessee Williams: Drama of Corrosion of Self 6. Chapter 5: Albee and the Theatre of Loss: Suicide as a 162-191 Tool for Survival of the Protagonists of Edward Albee and Beckett 7. Chapter 6: Psychoanalytical Analysis of George-Martha 192-222 Relationship: Neurotic Games of Fun and Corrosion of Self in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 8. Chapter 7: Pirandellian Theatre of Sanity and Insanity: 223-261 Corrosion of Self in Tom Stoppard‘s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead 9. Chapter 8: The Junkies and Neurotics of Jack Gelber: 262-274 Disintegration of Self in The Connection 10. Conclusion 275-290 11. Bibliography 291-321 v Abstract The thesis ―Theatre and Anti-Theatre: Corrosion of Self in the Select Plays of Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard and Jack Gelber” is focused on the growth of the emergence of corrosion of self of the protagonists of avant-garde playwrights of Europe and America. The two World Wars, the Great Depression and the pervasive vogue of the skepticism and nihilism propagated by Schopenhauer and Fredrick Nietzsche‘s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1833) inspired Beckett and Ionesco to evolve new ant-theatrical techniques to depict the existential realities of life. Kierkegaard published his thought provoking book The Sickness unto Death (1946) and revolutionized art and philosophy by giving his philosophy of nihilism. The present study has examined and investigated the cause and issue of corrosion of self of the protagonists of Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard and Jack Gelber. The conspicuous feature of the British and American plays is the loss of self. R. D. Laing and Sypher Wylie have discussed in detail the deflation of self. It is averred that the Greeks were in harmony with Nature and God; they enjoyed harmony and integrity of life as their life was free from the anxieties and tensions of life. The Greeks and the Elizabethans believed that man is the creation of God as there are divine elements in his soul and mind. The modern philosophers contended that all these religious ideas were illusive and meaningless. Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Karl Jaspers propounded the Existential philosophy and brought revolution in arts and literature. The Existentialists argued that failure is an inevitable fate of man. Albert Camus and Sartre propounded the theory of Existentialism as Sartre contended that ―Existence precedes Essence‖ and he turned down the Platonic vi theory of ideas. But in all the major plays of Ionesco, Beckett, Pinter and Albee one finds the pervasive corrosion of self. Ionesco, Beckett and Albee took the challenge and made drastic changes in the themes and plot structure of the plays. Albert Camus wrote The Myth of Sisyphus highlighting the adsurdity of human existence. A The tide of the Theatre of Absurd revolutionized drama. No wonder, modern British and American playwrights depicted the existential absurdity. After World War II the playwrights were confronted with the bewildering problem of the corrosion of self since reality became fluid. War and the Depression of 1930 had brought out skepticism in the world and the wave of antagonism spread everywhere. The Holocaust and the mass killings of the Jews in the concentration camps of Auschwitz led to the decadence of faith. Darwin‘s Origin of Species, Spengler‘s The Decline of the West and the laws of Kepler brought out the concept of the machine- man. The contemporary playwrights were influenced by the image of the mechanical self. Sigmond Freud was a German thinker; his explorations of the unconscious gave a new impetus to thinking. The philosophers projected new ideas and contended that man is but an infinitesimal fraction of the energy that flows through the universe. Freud and Einstein propagated the scientific and rational view of the evolution of man. Religion, rituals and traditions were scrapped and no wonder in all the plays of Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard and Jack Gelber the protagonists suffer the corrosion of self and they emerge too fragile to confront the existential reality of the modern World. The present thesis is an explication of the forces that bulldoze modern man‘s personality and dehumanize him. Varinder 1 Introduction The thesis ―Theatre and Anti-Theatre: Corrosion of Self in the Select Plays of Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Tom Stoppard and Jack Gelber” depicts the growth of the emergence of corrosion of self. Eric Bentley in Search of Theatre (1953) traces the history of American Drama from Ibsen to the modern times. His approach is historical. Brooks Atkinson is a prominent drama critic who published Broadway Scrapbook (1947). Atkinson traces the evolution of American drama through the different phases of American history. His approach is epistemological as he depicts the growth of various movements. Bermel, the great drama critic of New York Times (1973) discussed seriously about the characters who are misfits, sick and decadent because they are against themselves and against environment. The modern protagonists are too fragile to cope with the harsh and hostile environment. Burstein was a famous drama critic of New York Times. He published a collection of critical essays (1962) tracing the history of drama from Genet to Albee. He discussed the elements of ―The Theatre of Revolt‖. He observes that modern drama thrives on the dark fury of Nietzsche. Ihab Hassan published the books Radical Innocence (1961) and The Modern Self in Recoil (1967) to resolve the issues of cruelty, violence and radicalism in the contemporary fiction and drama. In these books, Hassan theorizes a vision of the postmodern fiction and drama. He stresses that the main features of drama are discontinuity, cruelty, violence and radicalism. Madden‘s American Dreams, American Nightmares (1971) is another very significant collection of 19 important critical essays. David Madden traces various social, cultural and religious forces that result into the death of the American Varinder 2 Dream.