Existentialism Staged: A Comparative Study between Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” and Kanafani’s “The Hat and the Prophet”

Abstract:

In a general sense, existentialism had left its mark on Arabic and Western literature. The different conceptions and applications of the philosophy on literature, particularly in the art of drama, remain luring for more investigation. This paper aims to explore the development of Arabic and Irish literature under the particular influence of existentialism, with a reference to two distinct plays: “Waiting for Godot” (1955) by Samuel Beckett, and “The Hat and the Prophet” (1967) by Ghassan Kanafani.