• BASAVARAJ TALLUR

In this article I have tried to present Tom Stoppard’s plays as Absurd plays. The Theatre of the Absurd has its roots in such 20th century literary movements as expressionism and surrealism. Martin Esslin coined the term "The Theatre of the Absurd" in 1960. Esslin grouped these plays around the broad theme of the Absurd related to the way Albert Camus uses the term in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942). The human beings are responsible for their own actions despite the prevailing uncertainty about right or wrong. Many have examined the plays such as Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Pirandello's Six Characters in Search for an Author and Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead through an existential lens. Main quality of an existential work includes the existence of anti-heroes, unstable understanding of the past and unstable identities. The movement of absurd drama rose in Paris, France now that it was seen as the centre of art of the world at that time. Theatre of absurd resists the traditional forms of conservative drama which has a tradition based on strong roots and in it the inharmoniousness between the human being and the world is portrayed. The Theatre of absurd minimizes all the ocular and responsive elements on stage. Some scholars argues that the Absurd term have to be used only to refer to the cultural group in Europe in the 1950s - 1960s connected with the works of the Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Jean Genet, Frank Kafka, Harold Pinter, and Tom Stoppard. Former scholars expand the term to Albert Camus and yet others extend it as far back as Socrates.

Absurd Theatre, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Existentialism, Tom Stoppard, meaningless, nothingness, Sartre

"Tom Stoppard's Plays: A Study", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 7, page no.e300-e304, July-2021, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2107544.pdf

"Tom Stoppard's Plays: A Study", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 7, page no. ppe300-e304, July-2021, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2107544.pdf