Existentialism and absurdism in contemporary British Theatre: An analysis of Kane’s selected plays

Abstract

This dissertation is an opportunity to explore Sarah Kane’s selected plays that unveil violence and absurd scenes which were never shown before in the British theatres. The paper aims to connect Kane’s selected contemporary plays with Absurdim and Existentialism highlighting how a modern man can behave under an excruciating situation and suffers from existential crisis. It will majorly focus on Kane’s Blasted, Cleansed and 4.48 Psychosis to examine the notions of violence that exhibit existential and absurd mannerisms. The purpose is to show that these violent and absurd characters are in fact the depictions of the modern man fighting with his own dejection. Of many aspects, the thesis majorly analyzes that even though in the Kane’s selected plays, the characters encounter unrestrained violence, these characters do not lose hope to survive and continue their lives under any utmost situation experiencing the meaninglessness of human lives. The connection between Kane’s plays and existentialism and absurdism as philosophies will illustrate the representation of the purposeless modern man’s despair in the twentieth century. The thesis will also focus on how Kane's plays are influenced by her psychological issues and how she represents her convictions on anguishes by the characters of the plays who use violence to express their internal disillusionments.