Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow and Samuel Beckett Essay -- Brendan B

Brendan Behan’s The Quare Fellow and Samuel Beckett Existential works are difficult to describe because the definition of existentialism covers a wide range of ideas and influences almost to the point of ambiguity. An easy, if not basic, approach to existentialism is to view it as a culmination of attitudes from the oppressed people of industrialization, writers and philosophers during the modern literary period, and people who were personally involved as civilians, soldiers, or rebels during WWII and witnessed the worst aspects of life and war. These attitudes combined the aspects of loss of identity and autonomy, the uselessness of pain, a sense of alienation, and the meaninglessness of a harsh life where death is the only way out; all of these things helped give birth to a new philosophy that for the first time dealt with the cold reality of life after WWII. The canon of existential literature almost singularly deals with native authors from France, Germany, Russia, and the former Czechoslovakia; however, there has yet to be a u niversally accepted Irish writer to belong to this category. Some argue that this segregation of Irish writers has to do with Ireland’s geographical location and its neutrality during WWII; however, if existentialism is purely an amalgamation of attitudes, then a country’s location and direct political policy play a meager role in the classification of a work as existential. Moreover, those arguments pay no attention to expatriates, or the simultaneously related socio-political condition of other countries; thus, a reevaluation of the canon, or at least a reconsideration of Irish works as existential is appropriate. Two Irish playwrights who epitomize the attitudes of existentialism a... ...which criticism and interpretation of modern society are available. Behan and Beckett are trying to open society’s eyes in order for them to question their lives and the world in which they live. When the representations are understood, the audience can begin to question the establishments of society, the rationality of blind or complete faith in a soulless and seemingly meaningless world, and the real purpose and meaning of their own lives. Behan and Beckett heighten expectations of existential writing and thought through their unforgiving and callous treatment of society, which reflects the abominable demeanor and absurdities of modern society and life. Works Cited Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. New York: Grove Press, 1954. Behan, Brendan. The Quare Fellow. Modern Irish Drama. Ed. John P. Harrington. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, Inc, 1991. 255-310.