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I believe that the concept of the absurd, as described in philosophy and reflected in works of drama and literature, provides an unusual and helpful perspective from which to view the emerging field of digital media. In my opinion, absurd principles can help us understand the mixed feelings we may have when engaging with digital media: joy and frustration, play and despair, significance and nonsense. I intend to explore the concept of the absurd through a handful of authors and works, including the philosophy of Camus and the literature and drama of Pinter, Beckett, Roussel, and the Oulipo. I will use these works to analyze characteristics of absurdist works and then extend this analysis to characteristics and theory of digital media. I believe an absurdist analysis may bring a new vantage point to the study of digital media, from which we can see not only the advantages and liberation it offers but also the ever-present threat of nonsense it entails.

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Through the use of the texts published from 1893 to 1903 by Alphonse Allais, we analyse what we call the mystifying discourse, in other words the power of fiction. We show how the author succeeds to deceive the reader. We emphasize the artificial aspects of the language and the style used by Allais to make fun of his readers. This technical study of the writing of Allais allows us to compare with other kinds of works, notably the dreamlike images and the vaudeville. / We study therefore the tricks and the traps of the language employed by Allais with the aim of laughing at our expectations. From this point, we will demonstrate that, most of the time, a rupture between the conclusion and the beliefs of the readers exists regarding the fiction which is presented in the tales. Emphasizing the absurd in the texts, we accentuate the various literary techniques. As a result, we illustrate how the humour of Alphonse Allais turns out to be a technical work.

Thesis (MA (English))-University of Pretoria, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed September 22, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 47-48)

Thesis (M.A.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

[From Introduction]. L'oeuvre dramatique d'Arthur Adamov (1908-1970) s'lténd sur une trentaine d'années et révèle une grande variété d'influences et d'intérêts. Depuis son point de départ "absurde" des années quarante en passant par une période oú s'imposent des préoccupations d'ordre social et politique pour aboutir á une fusion des sujets métaphysiques et des sujets engagés dans un théâtre qui est de nouveau non-réaliste et onirique, nous pouvons tracer des influences aussi diverses que celle provenant de Flaubert et des premiers surréalistes, de Strindberg et de Kafka, de Dostoîevsky et des expressionnistes russes et allemands, de Buchner, d'Antonin Artaud, de Brecht et de Karl Marx.

Text in French with an abstract in English / The loss of a life for natural causes has always been, always is and always will be something tragic for human beings, even if it was foreseen. It is all the more tragic when the loss of human life is caused by violent circumstances such as murder or an accident, as in the case of the untimely death of Albert Camus in a car accident. The worst, however, is when a miscarriage of justice in court, due to an error on the part of the judge, results in the loss of a valuable life by the death penalty. This value must be assessed in existential terms, in terms of the human being contextualized in a life worth living despite its absurdity, as described by Camus. It must be realized that this brutal death is imposed by a few words pronounced by a fallible judge, imposing the death penalty on another fallible human being, and that the sentence is then carried out by another fallible human being – all of whom are fundamentally subject to human imperfection and who regularly make mistakes in life. By emphasizing the fallibility of the human being in various ways in his literary works, Camus convincingly demonstrated that, in our already absurd existence, the death penalty is the ultimate scandal, making this punishment truly exponentially absurd – the absurdity of absurdity. How the author demonstrated that fallibility, the eternal imperfection of human beings, is the main reason why the death penalty exceeds absurdity. Using L'Étranger as a starting point, a novel in which the death penalty is mentioned only at trial, on death row, and in the very last part of the novel, and which is strategically supported by other works by Camus, this essay explores how Camus may have used his characters to subtly illustrate the relationship between the everyday imperfections of human beings and the possible death penalty. The essential principle is that there is a precise operational link between the essence and structure of everyday conflicts and the structure of a trial. Parallels are drawn between conflict and trial, particularly with regard to the fallible human beings participating in both, in various judicial capacities, confirming Camus' conviction that the death penalty is the absurdity of absurdity. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (French)

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