The Same Waiting, Different Results

Theater of the absurd is a kind of new drama emerged in European stage after World Warâ…¡.It was first appeared in French stage in 1950s,and soon transmitted to England and American.As one of the most influential types of drama after World Warâ…¡,it is completely different from traditional dramas.Influenced by existentialism, theatre of the absurd is a reflection of absurd and meaningless of human being's existence.Theater of the absurd insists on the coherence of content and form of the drama,which means to use absurd means to show absurd content.In that case,theater of the absurd usually has ridiculous plot and incoherent dialogues.Samuel Beckett is the representative of theater of the absurd.He finished his great work Waiting for Godot in 1948,in which two tramps named Vladimir and Estragon wait for Godot, who never arrives.The play shocked the drama world and made Beckett one of the most famous play writers around the world.Theater of the absurd as well as Waiting for Godot was introduced to China soon via translation and critics.Till 1980s,the scholars in China started to criticize objectively on Waiting for Godot.Play writers as Gao Xingjian who is well trained in literature and is a good master of a foreign language became to know and absorb from this kind of drama.They introduced this kind of drama by translation,performance, and etc.Soon,theater of the absurd was known by China and had a great influence on Chinese drama.A new kind of drama that was named Avant-garde Theater appeared in China.Gao Xingjian is the representative of Avant-garde Theater.His ideal of Total Theater expanded the performance space and enriched the variety of Chinese drama.Gao Xingjian wrote Bus Stop in 1981.It is a story of a verity of people waiting for a bus in suburb to go to downtown.Several buses pass by without stopping.Time files,they've been waiting for ten years.Besides sharing the same theme of whiting, Waiting for Godot and Bus Stop have a lot of similarities,such as narrating in a circular structure,the deconstructed concept of time and the lost of language function of significant,etc.Because of these similarities,it was criticized that Bus Stop was not a great work for its imitating to Waiting for God.While some researchers think it as recreation in literature.In this thesis,the two literature works will be compared via media study in comparative literature.Through the study of the Beckett's Waiting for Godot as the sender and Gao Xingjian's Bus Stop as the Receiver in comparative study,Gao Xingjian's function on transmit theater of the absurd to China is presented.Through the comparison,it is concluded that since a kind of literary trend is created,instead of staying in one place all along,it will be transmitted to the other places.Bus Stop isn't a simple imitation of Waiting for Godot,but a kind of recreation after absorbing the absurd elements from western.Bus Stop not only helps to interpret what is absurd to Chinese audience,but also plays an important role to enrich the verity of Chinese Drama...