| Abstract |
Waiting for Godot (1949), Samuel Beckett’s most famous play is based on two acts of similar but different plot about awaiting. He is used to create his later plays with the same style of repetitive plot. Influenced by Beckett’s work, Ma Sen’s Entering City (1982) and Gao Xing-Jian’s Bus Stop (1983) are dealing with the condition of anxiety and perplexity while waiting, based on their repetitive actions and dialogues. There are similarities among the three plays in term of style, however, there are very different respects of theme on the other hand. The both theories of “beyond the pleasure principle” by Sigmund Freud, and “difference and repetition” by Gilles Deleuze, concern with the main topic of repetition. The former analyzes the motivation of human’s behavior and the latter researches on western philosophy and aesthetics (literature, painting, music, film and drama). This essay probes into the significance and social issues of repetition in the three plays. In addition, it studies the comparison of themes among the three plays, based on the theories of Freud and Deleuze.
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