Waiting For Godot And Dr Strangelove Essay - 1481 Words

â€Å"Significant texts in any period arise from particular ways of thinking and possess an enduring relevance.† Following the dropping of the atomic bombs at the end of World War Two, global consciousness began to slowly change due to the realisation that civilisation could be destroyed at the press of a button. Texts that are able to grasp these changes, depicting their immediate context while also reflecting on universal questions, possess enduring value. Waiting for Godot, the 1952 stage play by Samuel Beckett, challenged the idea of human purpose and also questioned the relevance of scripture and religious institutions. Similarly, Plath, in Ariel, a collection of poems posthumously published in 1965, challenged the same ideas, especially†¦show more content†¦The montage is accompanied by a non-diegetic string arrangement of the song â€Å"Try a Little Tenderness†. Kubrick specifically creates an overt sexual innuendo to make light of great fear. This fores hadows the rest of the movie where frequent sexual themes and comedic tropes are utilised to undermine previously unquestioned figures of authority. Beckett’s opening also foreshadows the rest of the play, as the setting begins the continual challenge of the institutional idea of human purpose, as it accentuates the lack of meaning - an idea also extended by the characters. When Estragon struggles to take off his boot, he mutters â€Å"Nothing to be done†, which Vladimir mistakes for existential discourse and replies with â€Å"I’m beginning to come around to that opinion. All my life I’ve put it from me.† Beckett uses verbal irony to show how the most simple statement could be mistaken as a philosophical pondering on existence, which in-turn is designed to pose the question of whether individuals truly have an essence. Similarly, Kubrick uses absurdist humour to force a questioning of what had been the bedrock of the western world: the political s phere. President Muffley, himself named after pubic hair wigs, attempts to avert atomic bombs being dropped on Russia and desperately calls the Chairman of the USSR. However he proceeds to waste time commenting on the good phone connection,