The Devaluation of Language in the select plays of Beckett and Pinter.

Abstract

The rise of ' Absurd Theatre' is one of the most remarkable contributions to contemporary art and literature. The Absurd playwrights have , in common, the profound awareness of the absurdity of existence marked by acute sense of existential anxiety and dilemma. Suffering from these vicissitudes of the existence made them too much thoughtful and philosophical. This shows why these writers have experienced intensely the existential angst and non- entity leading to their distrust of the traditional mode of communication . Both in theme and techniques, the Absurd drama radically departs from the traditional writers' reliance on logicality and fixities of expression. They even take stage as a multidimensional medium undergoing the interplay of visual elements and devices like light, sound, props, settings etc. Thus, the Absurd playwrights communicate this very anxiety of alienation by means of complex elements both verbal and non- verbal. Their experiments with the various nuances of the non- verbal communication and highly descriptive language are the natural corollary. The introduction of a novel theatrical language , therefore, remains a hallmark of the Absurd/ Existentialist writers .