Abstract
Man is adrift in a chaotic universe. He proceeds from no base of divine law, and he moves toward no destination, physical, moral, or spiritual. Each individual, his personality and his being the product of a series of accidents, spends a brief solitary time in the emptiness of life, hermetically sealed, with no possibility of communication with anyone else. In this view life, existence, is meaningless-absurd. As a way of making meaningless existence tolerable, man has invented a network of myths concerning his origins and destiny as well as relationships among men. The entire network is a fabrication with no basis other than the fear motivated imaginings of men. This, in capsule form, is the absurdist point of view. It stands in contrast to what may be called the traditionalist view which, essentially, holds that the universe is orderly, that man has purpose and meaning, and that life, far from being pointless, constitutes significant progress toward an ultimate and desirable destiny.
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Speech
Volume
1
Issue
1
First Page
28
Last Page
30
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Thorne, Edward J.
(1969)
"Pinter: Absurdist cum Traditionalist,"
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 1:
No.
1, Article 8.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol1/iss1/8
Copyright
©1969 Iowa Journal of Speech
