After the war, Introduction The first world war threw society into a state of disillusionment, and a fracturing of the staunch belief in morals became prominent, sparking literary advancements that challenged romantic ideals, advocating for a new perception of stability and sensibilities. In the poem Gerontion by T.S. Elliot, the modernist stance of fragmentation and the pursuit of purpose lies in man’s actualization of himself. Meanwhile, Samuel Beckett’s waiting for Godot written in the post-war environment of World War II can be viewed as an attack on modernism, rejecting its ideological claims to legitimise purposeful meaning that interprets the world of Estragon and Vladimir with a Grand Existential Narrative . Nonetheless, both these arguments provide a post-war lens that views life without inherent importance nor singular purpose/essence, resulting in the rise of ‘absurdism’— a search for answers in a world that offers no true answer . In this essay, the aforementioned conc...
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