Alright, I’d like a show of hands please: who out there gets tired of reading happily-ever-after stories? The hero always is a brave fellow who sets out with the courage of a man who knows that he is defending the honor of king and country. He is usually insufferably good, with no devious bone in his body. When confronted with a moral dilemma, there is never any doubt which path our hero will choose.
But don’t you agree that these unfailing paragons, lovely though they are, get boring?! Well, any of you who did agree, you are in luck. There is another sort of hero that has been portrayed between the pages of many a book: he is the existential hero… the antihero. The antihero is a character who is engulfed with all the qualities missing from the generic cookie-cutter hero. He is not normally a brave and courageous soul. He has no moral compass or conscious, or if he does have one, he will probably choose not to listen to it. He allows himself to be selfish and greedy and conniving. His one saving grace is that when his plans backfire or he regrets his choices, he blames no one but himself.
He also is a character of utter absurdity. Samuel Beckett’s theater production Waiting for Godot is a perfect example of the existential mindset, with seemingly random ideas spouted off at the actors’ whims…truth be told, I loved it! As I read this excerpt, I was nearly rolling on the floor, picturing two completely serious actors discussing if they could hang themselves with a belt and wondering how, if one hung onto the other’s legs, who would hang on to the other’s?
The illogicality that the existentialist portrayed is a wonderful contrast to the sappy romance of the other movements that came before. Let me end with this:
“Well? Shall we go?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
(They do not move.)
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