Postmodern Elements in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Abstract

Postmodernism is considered a break with 19th-century realism and before that, the project of Enlightenment dealt with the issue of transformation of outer phenomenal reality to an internal consciousness of the human mind. As a result, the using postmodernism subconsciously reveals and manifests their inner consciousness through what they do. It rejects the concept of absolute reality. Mostly, postmodernist writers support the premise that ‘irrational is real’. Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1948) is considered to be the leading playwright amongst many others. This play derives its inspiration from European existentialism which was one of the foremost philosophical schools within continental tradition. In Waiting for Godot, there are no pre-determined rules or any unity in time, place or action. The ending of it can be interpreted in many different ways. The author of this paper has tried to put the play in the European context and highlighted the features which are considered to be the hallmark of postmodernism.