Samuel Beckett: Voice in the Middle of Crisis

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The work of Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) is dealing with one of the aesthetic and political attitudes in French literature in the mid-XX century. After World War II, French artists and intellectuals recovered fear and nightmares in ways never imagined. The barbarity of the war gave rise to traumas. The superpowers with greed and greed use nuclear and all the latest technology for the ambition of world domination.

The ratio, in the end, transforms a monstrous monster. At this point, humanity is tested. As an effort to save a sense of humanity, a group of French playwrights distance from reality to reflect on reality itself.

****From Absurdism to Nouveau Théâtre****

Post-World War II, Samuel Beckett is not alone. He was present with several other artists and intellectuals who voiced their anxiety over the changing times. One great consciousness ties them; that the world is more elusive and human existence is questionable again. When development and science drag people to destruction, then what else can we hold on to?

Absurdism became a bitter artistic choice and relevant to the actual situation of society at that time. The idea appeared in French literature and received an adequate medium in drama and prose. Developed between 1945-1955, the absurd theater was led by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Through their ideas, the public is reintroduced to the concept of "absurdity", "néant", and "engagement", an aspect which refers to the position and responsibility of the intellectual artist in relation to social conditions).

Prof. Dr. Apsanti Djokosujatno, Professor of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, University of Indonesia, noted: "When the Stranger (L'Étranger) appeared in 1942 and the Sisifus Mite shortly thereafter, France, like many other European countries, was in despair and apathy. "Strangers and Myths Sisyphus are two major works in the history of European literature of the twentieth century. Through these two prose, Albert Camus offers the idea of ​​absurdism.

The French people in particular and Europe generally experience "severe stress from prolonged suffering: too often see death, barbarism, too long to lose and uncertainty, too long in suffering. There was no rousing welcome when the end of the war was announced, unlike the end of World War I which was greeted with an outburst of excitement and party. "(Apsanti Djokosujatno," Camus: Position & Interpretation ", People in Montage, Kalam Foundation: 2002 ).

Absurdism, as a great flow in philosophy and literature, has encouraged many developments in the artistic approach in the realm of performing arts. The absurd theater then found a sharper and more radical form of articulation in the nouveau théâtre (new theater) in the 1950s. This genre violates and breaks all the rules of drama performances.

A logical and logical way of speech, symmetrical bifurcation, judged to be no longer adequate. The method of voicing reality becomes so complex. The dramaturge of this wave are Arthur Adamov, Eugène Ionesco, and of course Samuel Beckett. They do not reject realism. Their goal is only one: finding the right method of understanding reality and approaching it in a different way than before.

****Beckett, Crisis, and Labyrinth****

In the world of Samuel Beckett, quoting Ida Sundari Husen in the book of French Authors from the Ages to the Ages, "men wait for something and live in poverty". From here we see Beckett's attention to the themes of human decline. The global disaster of the two World Wars constituted a bitter pessimism. This fact makes the European community aware of the limitations, kesementaraan, even fragility in him.

Crisis returns the most essential awareness; that man, absolutely, will live in a series of failures and failures. Beckett's reflection on this situation drags us to zero. Here, Beckett's characters are in a vacuum system of space and time. One wasted round. No way out. The groove is circular without beginning and end. New questions are also worth submitting: then what to read Samuel Beckett in 2013 this?

In the midst of an increasingly fragile and unstable world, the global community lives in the shadow of crisis. Shaky economic infrastructure, global political and security situations that stand on terror and fear, and increasingly steep social inequality, force us to rescue our humanity more humbly.

In the context of Indonesia, the 15-year journey of the Reformation marked by the end of President Suharto's (1998-2013) leadership brought the country to an elaborate labyrinth. Social and political conversations move without direction, such as Vladimir and Estragon's dialogue in En Attendant Godot (1953). Both are back and forth trapped in reps, lost in unfinished conversation spots.

In this situation, secretly we often crave an end. As pronounced by one of the characters in ENDGAME (Fin de Partie, 1957): Fini, c'est fini, ça va finir, ça va peut-être finir. "Done. This has been completed. It will finish. It might be over. "