Written assignment 1, part 1: Waiting for Godot
Instructions
Please choose one of the following two questions.
You may use 750 words maximum (excluding the list of Works Cited), 1.5 spacing, Times New Roman 12.
A list of Works Cited must be included at the end of each essay, in accordance with the APA style guidelines available on Virtual Campus (under “Basic course information and materials”).
You should give your essay a title and include a word count at the end.
Plagiarism is unacceptable and will lead to automatic failure.
Submission deadline: 29 April 2024, 12:30.
Essays must be submitted both via Virtual Campus (.pdf) and in print (at the start of the sit-in exam).
On the same date and at the start of the sit-in exam, you will be asked to submit the first part of the course glossary (typed, 1.5 spacing, Times New Roman 12), both via the Virtual Campus and in print.
E-mail submissions will not be accepted.
No exceptions will be made to the deadline.
Essay topics
1- “In Waiting for Godot Beckett offers a cyclical mirroring, a structural parallelism which does not advance dramatic conflict and which works to undermine our expectations of dramatic form”. (Elaine Aston and George Savona)
Comment on the above quotation in detail. What is/are the effect(s) of the “structural parallelism” the play is built upon? Why are the reader’s/spectator’s “expectations of dramatic form” disrupted, and in what ways may this invite them to re-think the world? Your arguments should be clear and precise, and they should be substantiated by close reference to the play, the context in which it was written and first staged and at least one of the secondary readings included in the Beckett dossier.
2- “All good art is subversive, either in form or content. And the best art is subversive in form and content.” (Sarah Kane)
In what way(s) are Kane’s words relevant to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot? Your arguments should be clear and precise, and they should be substantiated by close reference to the play, the context in which it was written and first staged and at least one of the secondary readings included in the Beckett dossier.
