Arts and Humanities Commons^™

One Way Pendulum (The Absurd In The World And The Theatre), Ace Pilkington

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This paper is about human relation with and reaction to the Absurd. The Absurd seen in terms of the theatre, and the Absurd in relation to human images. The "Absurd" is not easy to define; it is more a condition than a concept--understood more easily by reference to an extensive body of metaphor. Ionesco calls it "... that which is devoid of purpose... . Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost... ." Which is not so much a definition as an evocation of a mood, a mood that comes from living in a world or …