Raino Parvat and Oedipus Rex: Parallel Paths, Divergent Destinies

 

Hello Readers, 

Here, I'm not just reviewing a single book—I’m uncovering a fascinating thread that connects two dramatic masterpieces written over two millennia apart. One is Oedipus Rex, penned by Sophocles in 5th century BCE Greece; the other, Raino Parvat, crafted by Ramanbhai Neelkanth in early 20th-century India.

To be honest, I haven’t read Oedipus Rex in its entirety—but the story stayed with me through vivid discussions and key scenes shared by my professor, Dr. Dilip Barad, during a lecture. It was enough to leave an impression: a tale of fate, prophecy, and the haunting irony of a son unknowingly becoming his mother’s husband.

At first glance, these plays seem worlds apart in language, culture, and time. Yet, beneath the surface lies a startling similarity: both stories revolve around a son who is fated—or nearly fated—to become his mother's husband after a king’s death. But where Sophocles leads us into the depths of tragic destiny, Neelkanth offers a modern reimagining steeped in social reform, moral choice, and personal integrity.

It’s as if Neelkanth takes the classical Oedipal trope and turns it on its head—not to repeat it, but to reimagine it. In his hands, the tale becomes not one of doom, but of moral victory. Here, truth defeats deception, and ethical will prevails over inherited fate. This is not just a literary coincidence; it’s a dialogue between civilizations on what it means to be human, to rule, and to choose rightly.

Similar Plot Motif: Son as Husband to His Mother

 

1. Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)

Oedipus unknowingly kills his father, Laius, and marries his mother, Jocasta, thus fulfilling a prophecy he tried to avoid. The marriage is consummated unknowingly and results in children, making the tragedy irreversible. Once the truth is revealed, Jocasta dies by suicide and Oedipus blinds and exiles himself.

2. Raino Parvat (Ramanbhai Neelkanth)

Rai, the son of Jalaka (Amritdevi) and the dethroned King Parvatrai, is persuaded to impersonate the rejuvenated King Parvatrai after Parvatrai’s death, as part of Jalaka’s plot. Because he closely resembles Parvatrai, the people unknowingly accept him as the king. However, this deception would also mean becoming Lilavati’s husband—the widow of Parvatrai and, in a political sense, Rai’s “mother.” When he fully realizes the moral implications of this act, Rai refuses to continue the impersonation and later respectfully addresses Lilavati as "queen mother," choosing truth and integrity over ambition and deceit.

"While Oedipus Rex reveals how fate and ignorance lead a son to unknowingly become his mother's husband—ending in horror, guilt, and exile—Raino Parvat reimagines this tragic motif through conscious choice, where truth prevails and moral integrity restores order."

Book Review: Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat

Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat – Love, Ambition & a Pinch of Corruption

Let’s be honest—when you pick up a Chetan Bhagat novel, you’re not expecting Shakespeare. You’re expecting drama, romance, a bit of masala, and a whole lot of relatability. And Revolution 2020 delivers just that.

Set in Varanasi, the book follows the lives of three childhood friends—Gopal, Raghav, and Aarti. Gopal is the underdog, desperate to make it big and escape poverty. Raghav is the idealist, who wants to change the world through journalism. And Aarti? Well, she’s the girl both boys are in love with. Classic love triangle. But Bhagat adds a twist: the backdrop is a corrupt education system that crushes dreams just as easily as it sells them.

What makes the book click is its pace and simplicity. Bhagat’s writing is casual, almost like your friend ranting to you over WhatsApp. And while some might find that “too basic,” it’s exactly what makes the story so accessible.

Is the plot predictable? A bit. Are the characters slightly filmy? Definitely. But somewhere between Gopal’s compromises, Raghav’s rebellion, and Aarti’s confusion, the book throws shade at the Indian system—how money talks louder than merit, and how sometimes, doing the “right” thing doesn’t get you the girl or the glory.

Final Verdict:

If you’re looking for a light read that mirrors the messy love stories and moral dilemmas of real life (with a dramatic twist), Revolution 2020 is worth a weekend binge. It’s not revolutionary literature—but it definitely sparks a few thoughts about love, power, and the price of ambition.

Assignment 106: Re-Dressing Feminist Identities: Tensions Between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf's Orlando

 

This blog is part of an assignment for the paper 106 - The Twentieth Century Literature: 1900 to World War II. (Assignment Details)

Personal Information:-

Name:- Krishna Vala

Batch:- M.A. Sem 2 (2024-2026)

Enrollment Number:- 5108240037

E-mail Address:-krishnavala2005@gmail.com

Roll Number:- 12

Assignment Details:-

Topic:- Re-Dressing Feminist Identities: Tensions Between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf's Orlando

Paper & subject code:-Paper 106: The Twentieth Century Literature: 1900 to World War II

Submitted to:- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar. 

Date of Submission:-  17 April,2025

Words : 2173

Table of contents:-

• Abstract

• Introduction

• About Woolf

• Woolf’s Critique of Victorian Historiography

• Reclaiming the Renaissance and Feminist Historiography

• Woolf's Parodic Biography and the Deconstruction  of  Identity

• Clothing as a Metaphor for Gender and Identity

• The Tension Between Essentialism and Constructivism

• Feminist Debates and Woolf's Ambivalence

•  Historical and Philosophical Contexts

Re-Dressing Feminist Identities: Tensions Between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf's Orlando

 Abstract

Virginia Woolf explores two central ideas: the interplay of history and identity, and the tension between an individual's essential character and the influence of societal and historical forces. The novel traces Orlando's life from 1500 to 1928, with a transformative shift in sex along the way. Woolf suggests that an individual's character evolves across time, influenced by different centuries, but also hints at a deeper, continuous spirit that persists before and after life.

This notion evolves throughout the novel, where Woolf parodies the idea of an essential, unchanging self, ultimately moving toward a more complex understanding of identity. Orlando’s life exemplifies how identity is not merely a fixed essence but is shaped by both historical context and personal self-construction. Woolf doesn’t present a deterministic view; rather, she emphasizes the possibility for social and self-directed transformation. The novel ultimately raises questions about subjectivity, considering how historical forces and personal experiences interact in the formation of identity.

  

About Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf (Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941) was an English writer. She is considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors. She pioneered the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.

Woolf was born into an affluent household in South Kensington, London. She was the seventh child of Julia Prinsep Jackson and Leslie Stephen in a blended family of eight that included the modernist painter Vanessa Bell. She was home-schooled in English classics and Victorian literature from a young age. From 1897 to 1901, she attended the Ladies' Department of King's College London. There, she studied classics and history, coming into contact with early reformers of women's higher education and the women's rights movement.

After her father's death in 1904, the Stephen family moved from Kensington to the more bohemian Bloomsbury, where, in conjunction with the brothers' intellectual friends, they formed the artistic and literary Bloomsbury Group. In 1912, she married Leonard Woolf, and in 1917, the couple founded the Hogarth Press, which published much of her work. They rented a home in Sussex and permanently settled there in 1940.

Major Works 

     

Mrs. Dalloway (1925) To the Lighthouse (1927)

Orlando (1928), 

The Waves (1931)

A Room of One's Own (1929) 

Re-Dressing Feminist Identities: Tensions Between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf's ‘Orlando’

Introduction

Christy L. Burns' article, "Re-Dressing Feminist Identities: Tensions Between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf's ‘Orlando’," explores the complexities of identity, gender, and subjectivity in Woolf's 1928 novel Orlando: A Biography. The novel, a parodic biography of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West, challenges traditional notions of fixed identity by presenting a protagonist who lives for over three centuries and undergoes a dramatic sex change. Burns examines how Woolf uses clothing, parody, and historical context to deconstruct essentialist views of the self, while simultaneously engaging with contemporary feminist debates about the nature of gender and identity. The article situates ‘Orlando’ within broader discussions of feminist theory, post-structuralism, and the tension between essentialist and constructivist perspectives on identity.

Woolf’s Critique of Victorian Historiography

De Gay highlights Woolf’s ambivalence toward Victorian models of history, particularly the rigid periodization and "great man" approach championed by her father, Leslie Stephen. Stephen’s English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century (1904) framed literary history as a series of reactive shifts led by influential male writers, neglecting women’s contributions. Woolf parodies this method in Orlando by exaggerating the deterministic link between historical context and literary style. For example, the narrator absurdly claims that Orlando’s writing during the Restoration period became more restrained because "the streets were better drained and the houses better lit" (63). This satire exposes the reductive nature of sociological literary history and its exclusion of women.

Woolf also targets the Victorian concept of the "spirit of the age," which Stephen used to valorize male writers who embodied dominant ideologies. In Orlando, this idea is mocked as an oppressive force, particularly in the Victorian era, where it censors Orlando’s writing, enforces marriage, and stifles creativity. By contrast, Woolf’s protagonist resists conformity, illustrating how women writers historically struggled against such constraints.

Reclaiming the Renaissance and Feminist Historiography

A significant portion of the article explores Woolf’s engagement with Victorian debates about the Renaissance. De Gay contrasts John Ruskin’s moralistic condemnation of the Renaissance as a period of decline with Walter Pater’s celebration of its liberating spirit. Woolf aligns with Pater, Symonds, and Vernon Lee, who viewed the Renaissance as a rebirth of intellectual and sensual freedom that extended into modernity. In Orlando, the Renaissance is portrayed as a vibrant, ongoing influence rather than a closed historical epoch. The protagonist’s early experiences in the Elizabethan era—such as his passionate affair with Sasha—embody Pater’s idea of the Renaissance as a time of awakening.

Woolf’s feminist historiography is further evident in her imaginative reconstruction of the past. Unlike traditional historians, she uses fiction to revive marginalized voices and create continuity between past and present. The novel’s setting, inspired by Vita Sackville-West’s ancestral home Knole, symbolizes this connection, with Orlando’s longevity allowing Woolf to traverse centuries and reclaim a female literary heritage. This approach mirrors Woolf’s call in A Room of One’s Own to "rewrite history" by recovering forgotten women writers.

De Gay concludes that Orlando represents Woolf’s most sustained effort to redefine historiography through fiction. By rejecting patriarchal models and embracing imaginative, subjective approaches inspired by Pater and Lee, Woolf creates a feminist historiography that privileges marginalized perspectives and challenges the authority of traditional narratives. The novel’s fantastical elements—its gender-fluid protagonist, anachronisms, and parody—serve not just as literary devices but as tools for historical reclamation. In Orlando, Woolf demonstrates that history, when freed from rigid frameworks, can be a dynamic, inclusive, and liberating discourse.

Woolf's Parodic Biography and the Deconstruction  of  Identity

Burns begins by framing ‘Orlando’ as a parodic biography that subverts traditional biographical conventions. Unlike conventional biographies, which aim to present a coherent and stable identity, Woolf's novel deliberately destabilizes the notion of a fixed self. The protagonist, Orlando, begins as a young nobleman in Elizabethan England and, over the course of the narrative, transforms into a woman, lives through multiple historical periods, and remains ambiguously gendered. This fluidity serves as a critique of Victorian biographical practices, particularly those associated with Woolf's father, Leslie Stephen, who edited the Dictionary of National Biography. Stephen's approach emphasized the "great man" theory of history, where individuals were seen as exemplary figures embodying the spirit of their age. Woolf's parody undermines this by presenting a protagonist whose identity is fragmented, mutable, and deeply influenced by external forces.

The novel's playful tone and unreliable narrator further destabilize the idea of a singular, essential self. Burns highlights how the narrator's insistence on finding a "single thread" to tie together Orlando's identity is comically undermined by the protagonist's constant transformations. This narrative strategy reflects Woolf's broader skepticism toward fixed identities and her interest in the ways subjectivity is shaped by historical, social, and linguistic forces.

Clothing as a Metaphor for Gender and Identity

A central motif in Orlando is clothing, which Burns analyzes as a metaphor for the performative nature of gender. The novel repeatedly blurs the line between inner essence and external appearance, suggesting that identity is not innate but constructed through social conventions. For instance, when Orlando awakens as a woman after a seven-day trance, the narrator humorously declares that "he was a woman" only after Orlando is seen naked—implying that the "truth" of gender is both revealed and destabilized in this moment. However, Orlando's gender identity is not fully realized until she adopts the clothing of an Englishwoman, which forces her to conform to societal expectations of femininity. This moment underscores Woolf's argument that gender is not a biological given but a social performance shaped by external trappings like clothing.

Burns also discusses how cross-dressing in the novel allows Orlando to explore different gender roles and social positions. As a man, Orlando disguises himself as a lower-class individual to escape aristocratic constraints; as a woman, she occasionally dons male attire to reclaim the freedom denied to her by feminine norms. These instances illustrate Woolf's interest in the fluidity of identity and the ways in which clothing can both constrain and liberate the self. The novel thus anticipates Judith Butler's later theories of gender performativity, which argue that gender is not an inherent trait but a repeated performance shaped by cultural norms.

The Tension Between Essentialism and Constructivism

Burns identifies a key tension in Orlando between essentialist and constructivist views of identity. Essentialism posits that the self has a core, unchanging essence, while constructivism argues that identity is shaped by historical and social forces. Woolf's novel engages with this tension by presenting Orlando as a character who seems to retain a consistent core despite dramatic external changes, while simultaneously showing how societal expectations shape her/his behavior and self-perception.

For example, after Orlando's sex change, the narrator claims that "Orlando remained precisely as he had been," suggesting an essential continuity of self. Yet, the novel also demonstrates how Orlando's experiences as a woman are profoundly shaped by the constraints of femininity, such as the inability to swim or stride freely while wearing skirts. This duality reflects Woolf's ambivalence toward both essentialist and constructivist perspectives—a tension that Burns argues is central to feminist debates in Woolf's time and ours.

Feminist Debates and Woolf's Ambivalence

Burns situates ‘Orlando’ within contemporary feminist discussions about the nature of female identity and authorship. She notes that Woolf has been variously interpreted as an essentialist (emphasizing an innate female creativity) and as a constructivist (highlighting the social barriers women face). These debates are mirrored in the novel's treatment of Orlando's writing. As a man, Orlando composes poetry with relative ease, but as a woman, she struggles to write under the weight of Victorian gender norms. The "spirit of the age" literally possesses her pen, forcing her to produce insipid verse that parodies conventional femininity. This moment critiques the ways in which societal expectations stifle women's creativity, echoing Woolf's arguments in A Room of One's Own (1929) about the need for financial and intellectual independence for women writers.

However, Burns also emphasizes Woolf's resistance to being co-opted by any single feminist position. Woolf's playful, parodic style ensures that her work remains open to multiple interpretations, refusing to settle on a definitive stance. This ambiguity is exemplified in Orlando's eventual marriage to Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, which simultaneously conforms to and subverts Victorian norms. While the marriage appears to be a capitulation to societal pressure, it is also a non-traditional union that allows Orlando to maintain her independence and continue writing. Burns argues that this duality reflects Woolf's broader strategy of working within existing systems while subtly undermining them.

 Historical and Philosophical Contexts

Burns contextualizes Woolf's exploration of identity within philosophical and historical frameworks. She highlights Woolf's engagement with John Locke's theories of personal identity, particularly his analogy of the oak tree, which suggests that external changes do not alter the essential self. Woolf parodies this idea in Orlando by having the protagonist's autobiographical poem titled "The Oak Tree," only to show how Orlando's identity is anything but fixed. Similarly, Locke's dismissal of clothing as irrelevant to personal identity is humorously contradicted by the novel's emphasis on how attire shapes gender roles.

The article also discusses Woolf's response to Freudian psychoanalysis, which was gaining prominence in the 1920s. While Woolf was influenced by Freud's ideas about the constructed nature of subjectivity, she also resisted deterministic interpretations that would reduce identity to purely social or psychological forces. Instead, *Orlando* presents identity as a dynamic interplay between internal continuity and external change.

Conclusion: Woolf's Legacy for Feminist Theory

Burns concludes by reflecting on Orlando's relevance for contemporary feminist theory. The novel's exploration of gender fluidity, performativity, and the tension between essentialism and constructivism anticipates later feminist and queer theories, particularly Judith Butler's work on gender as a performative act. Woolf's refusal to pin down a single "truth" about identity mirrors post-structuralist critiques of fixed categories, while her playful use of parody allows her to critique societal norms without falling into didacticism.

Ultimately, Orlando challenges readers to rethink the boundaries of identity, gender, and authorship. By dressing and undressing her protagonist in various roles, Woolf exposes the artificiality of social constructs while leaving open the possibility of a self that transcends them. Burns' analysis underscores the novel's enduring significance as a text that both reflects and resists the tensions within feminist thought, inviting ongoing dialogue about the nature of the self in a changing world.

Reference :

Burns, Christy L. “Re-Dressing Feminist Identities: Tensions between Essential and Constructed Selves in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.” Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 40, no. 3, 1994, pp. 342–64. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/441560. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

DE GAY, JANE. “Virginia Woolf’s Feminist Historiography in ‘Orlando.’” Critical Survey, vol. 19, no. 1, 2007, pp. 62–72. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41556201. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

Woolf, Virginia. Project Gutenberg Australia, gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200331.txt. Accessed 11 Apr. 2025.

Assignment 107: The Twentieth Century Literature: From World War II to the End of the Century

 

This blog is part of an assignment for the paper 107 - The Twentieth Century Literature: From World War II to the End of the Century (Assignment Details)

Personal Information:-

Name:- Krishna Vala

Batch:- M.A. Sem 2 (2024-2026)

Enrollment Number:- 5108240037

E-mail Address:-krishnavala2005@gmail.com

Roll Number:- 12

Assignment Details:-

Topic:- Theatre’s New Threshold: A Critical Review of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd

Paper:- 107 -The Twentieth Century Literature: From World War II to the End of the Century

Submitted to:- Smt. Sujata Binoy Gardi, Department of English, MKBU, Bhavnagar. 

Date of Submission:-  17 April,2025

Words : 1759

Table of contents:-

1.Abstract

2.Introduction

3.Absurd Theatre

4.Bennett’s Reassessment of Absurdist Theatre

5.Case Studies: Absurdist Plays Reinterpreted

Waiting for Godot

The Blacks

The Birthday Party

6.Criticisms: Where Bennett Falls Short

7.The Problem of "Female Absurd"

Theatre’s New Threshold: A Critical Review of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd

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Theatre’s New Threshold: Reassessing the Absurd

Abstract 

This paper critically examines Michael Y. Bennett's Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd (2011) through the lens of Gina Masucci MacKenzie's review. Challenging Martin Esslin's seminal 1961 definition, Bennett proposes three radical revisions: first, correcting existentialist misreadings of Camus and Sartre; second, recasting Absurdist plays as parabolic rather than nihilistic; third, introducing Victor Turner's anthropological concept of liminality as a new interpretive framework. Through close analysis of Waiting for Godot, The Blacks, and The Birthday Party, I demonstrate how Bennett's theory transforms our understanding of these works from expressions of despair to rituals of communal transition. While acknowledging the groundbreaking nature of Bennett's work, I also engage with MacKenzie's critiques regarding modernist undertones and problematic gender analysis. Ultimately, this paper argues that Bennett's reassessment offers theatre scholars a vital new vocabulary for understanding Absurdism's enduring relevance in times of social crisis, concluding with suggestions for future research directions.

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Introduction: 

"We're not saints, but we've kept our appointment." - Vladimir in Waiting for Godot

When Martin Esslin coined the term "Theatre of the Absurd" in 1961, he crystallized a generation's interpretation of plays like Beckett's Godot as mirrors of postwar existential crisis. Six decades later, Michael Y. Bennett's Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd (2011) invites us to reconsider: what if these works weren't about meaninglessness at all?

Bennett's intervention comes at a crucial moment. As MacKenzie observes in her review, contemporary productions like Paul Chan's 2007 post-Katrina Godot demonstrate how these plays continue to resonate during societal upheaval. This paper explores Bennett's threefold argument:

1. Philosophical Correction: Esslin misapplied Camus' philosophical "absurd" to plays that were never purely existentialist

2. Parabolic Shift: These works function as modern parables, using disruption to provoke meaning

3. Liminal Turn: Victor Turner's ritual theory reveals how Absurdist theatre creates transformative communal spaces

Through original analysis of key texts and imagined dialogues between theorists, I demonstrate how Bennett's framework liberates Absurdism from its existential shackles. As one hypothetical exchange illustrates:

Esslin: "The dialogue in these plays shows communication breaking down!"
Bennett: "No - it shows communication being rebuilt in new forms. When Pozzo and Lucky collapse in Act II, isn't their physical entanglement a kind of brutal communion?"

This paper's structure mirrors Bennett's liminal theory: we begin in the threshold space between Esslin and Bennett's interpretations, analyze three case studies as ritual performances, and emerge with new understanding.

Absurd Theatre

Theatre of the Absurd, dramatic works of certain European and American dramatists of the 1950s and early ’60s who agreed with the Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus’s assessment, in his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” (1942), that the human situation is essentially absurd, devoid of purpose. The term is also loosely applied to those dramatists and the production of those works. Though no formal Absurdist movement existed as such, dramatists as diverse as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov, Harold Pinter, and a few others shared a pessimistic vision of humanity struggling vainly to find a purpose and to control its fate. Humankind in this view is left feeling hopeless, bewildered, and anxious.

The ideas that inform the plays also dictate their structure. Absurdist playwrights, therefore, did away with most of the logical structures of traditional theatre. There is little dramatic action as conventionally understood; however frantically the characters perform, their busyness serves to underscore the fact that nothing happens to change their existence. In Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1952), plot is eliminated, and a timeless, circular quality emerges as two lost creatures, usually played as tramps, spend their days waiting—but without any certainty of whom they are waiting for or of whether he, or it, will ever come.

Language in an Absurdist play is often dislocated, full of cliches, puns, repetitions, and non sequiturs. The characters in Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano (1950) sit and talk, repeating the obvious until it sounds like nonsense, thus revealing the inadequacies of verbal communication. The ridiculous, purposeless behaviour and talk give the plays a sometimes dazzling comic surface, but there is an underlying serious message of metaphysical distress. This reflects the influence of comic tradition drawn from such sources as commedia dell’arte, vaudeville, and music hall combined with such theatre arts as mime and acrobatics. At the same time, the impact of ideas as expressed by the Surrealist, Existentialist, and Expressionist schools and the writings of Franz Kafka is evident.

Originally shocking in its flouting of theatrical convention while popular for its apt expression of the preoccupations of the mid-20th century, the Theatre of the Absurd declined somewhat by the mid-1960s; some of its innovations had been absorbed into the mainstream of theatre even while serving to inspire further experiments. Some of the chief authors of the Absurd have sought new directions in their art, while others continue to work in the same vein.

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Bennett’s Reassessment of Absurdist Theatre

1 Challenging Esslin’s Absurdism

Martin Esslin’s The Theatre of the Absurd (1961) categorized playwrights like Beckett, Ionesco, and Genet under a unified aesthetic of existential despair. For Esslin, their works depicted:

• The collapse of meaningful communication.

• The futility of human action.

• A world devoid of divine or logical order.

Bennett argues that Esslin’s reading is reductive, particularly in its reliance on Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus. While Camus’s "absurd" describes humanity’s struggle to find meaning in an indifferent universe, Bennett contends that Absurdist plays do not merely reflect meaninglessness—they actively engage audiences in constructing meaning.

2 The Parabolic Nature of Absurdist Plays

Instead of "absurd," Bennett proposes these plays operate as parables—narratives that use ambiguity, repetition, and ritual to provoke deeper reflection. For example:

• Waiting for Godot is not just about endless waiting but about human perseverance and companionship.

• Genet’s The Blacks uses ritualistic performance to force audiences to confront racial prejudices.

This shift from "absurd" to "parabolic" reframes the plays as intentionally meaningful rather than nihilistic.

3 Liminality: Theatre as a Ritual of Transition

Bennett’s most significant contribution is his application of Victor Turner’s liminality theory. In anthropology, liminality refers to:

• A transitional phase in rituals (e.g., rites of passage).

• A space where normal rules are suspended, enabling transformation.

Bennett argues that Absurdist plays function as modern liminal rituals:

• They disrupt conventional storytelling to create a threshold experience.

• They guide audiences through communal catharsis (e.g., post-Katrina Godot performances in New Orleans).

• Unlike Esslin’s static despair, Bennett’s liminality suggests movement and potential renewal.

Case Studies: Absurdist Plays Reinterpreted

1 Waiting for Godot: The Ritual of Waiting

"Let's go." "We can't." "Why not?" "We're waiting for Godot."

Traditional readings see this exchange as the epitome of futility. Bennett, however, identifies four ritual elements:

1. Cyclical Structure as ceremonial repetition

2. Vaudeville Routines as performative bonding

3. Tree/Waiting as liminal symbols

4. Didactic Elements ("We're waiting for Godot") as parabolic

Imagine Beckett's characters not as lost souls, but as participants in what Turner called communitas - the intense fellowship of ritual participants. Their waiting becomes sacred time, their jokes survival mechanisms.

2 The Blacks: Ritual as Confrontation

Genet's play-within-a-play structure creates what Bennett terms "meta-liminality." In one hypothetical rehearsal:

Director: "Why must the white audience members wear masks?"
Genet: "To make them experience the limbo of being seen without seeing."

The play's courtroom ritual forces what Turner called "reflexivity" - society examining its own prejudices. Bennett brilliantly shows how the performers' exaggerated stereotypes become a grotesque mirror.

3 The Birthday Party: The Rite of Disappearance 

Pinter's enigmatic play becomes clearer through Bennett's lens:

Stanley: "They're coming today."
Meg: "Who?"
Stanley: "They."

This exchange exemplifies what Bennett calls "liminal language" - words in transition between meaning and mystery. Goldberg and McCann aren't just tormentors but ritual officiants guiding Stanley through a harrowing initiation.

Criticisms: Where Bennett Falls Short

Bennett's reinterpretation of Absurdist theatre as parabolic and liminal inadvertently reveals modernist tendencies. While challenging Esslin's existential despair narrative, Bennett emphasizes hope and meaning-making - qualities more aligned with modernist theatre (e.g., Brecht's structured narratives) than postmodern fragmentation (e.g., later Beckett). His reading of Waiting for Godot as showing "growth through struggle" reflects modernist resilience rather than postmodern nihilism.

This oversight creates tension:

• Fails to reconcile how Absurdism bridges modernist/postmodernist elements

• Doesn't address why postmodern productions (like Robert Wilson's Godot) maintain bleak interpretations

The Problem of "Female Absurd"

A Flawed Category
Bennett attempts to expand Absurdist theory by proposing a "female absurd" in his final chapter, using Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart (1981) as his primary example. However, this move is problematic for two reasons:

1. Misclassification of Henley’s Play

• Crimes of the Heart is a Southern Gothic tragicomedy, grounded in psychological realism and family drama.

• Unlike Absurdist works (e.g., The Bald Soprano), it does not:

• Break linguistic logic

• Reject linear narrative

• Embrace existential ambiguity

2. Example: The Magrath sisters’ struggles are emotionally coherent—far from the deliberate incoherence of Pinter’s The Birthday Party.

3. Lack of Theoretical Grounding

• Bennett does not establish what makes "female absurd" distinct from male-authored Absurdism.

• He overlooks actual female Absurdist playwrights (e.g., Ntozake Shange, Caryl Churchill) who do experiments with fragmentation and ritual.

Why This Fails
By choosing an ill-fitting example, Bennett:

• Undermines his own argument about Absurdism’s formal qualities.

• Misses a chance to explore how gender influences liminality (e.g., Churchill’s Top Girls as a feminist ritual).

Conclusion

Michael Y. Bennett’s Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd successfully dismantles Esslin’s pessimistic framing, replacing it with a dynamic model of liminality and parabolic meaning. By viewing these plays as rituals of transition, Bennett restores their cultural urgency—whether in post-war Europe, post-Katrina New Orleans, or contemporary crises.

While his work has gaps (modernist undertones, gender analysis), its greatest contribution is reclaiming Absurdist theatre as a space of communal reflection and potential renewal. Future scholarship could expand on:

• Gender and Absurdism: How do female playwrights engage with liminality?

• Global Absurdism: How do non-Western theatres fit this framework?

Ultimately, Bennett’s reassessment invites us to see Absurdist theatre not as a dead end, but as a threshold—a space where audiences, like ritual participants, emerge transformed.

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References :

Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts. Faber & Faber, 2012.

Genet, Jean. The Blacks: A Clown Show. Grove Press, 2008.

MacKenzie, Gina Masucci. “Theatre’s New Threshold: A Review of Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd: Camus, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet and Pinter.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 36, no. 1, 2012, pp. 174–76. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2979/jmodelite.36.1.174. Accessed 26 Mar. 2025.

  

Pinter, Harold. The Birthday Party. Bloomsbury, 2013.

“Theatre of the Absurd.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 20 Mar. 2025, www.britannica.com/art/Theatre-of-the-Absurd.