The Study of Behtarin Baabaa-ye Donyaa (The Best Dad of the World) by Gholamhosein Saa’edi and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett: A Camusian Absurd Study

The philosophy of absurd was presented by Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre and other philosophers of the 20th century. This philosophy affected the lives of modern man and when entered into the world of literature, shaping the literature of absurd. Absurd literature created a sense of nothingness and waiting for a savior. To understand the idea of absurd in the world of Samuel Becket and Gholamhosein Saa’edi, we chose two works written by these two great writers. This article presents a comparative study of Waiting for Godot by Becket and The Best Dad of the World by Saa’edi. In this research, the characters of these two plays are analyzed based on Albert Camus’ philosophy of absurd. Based on the content of the two works, concepts of waiting, need, pain and death are discussed. Then, the meaning of absurd man is clarified in these two works and the issue of death and its reflection on absurd man’s attitude is discussed based on Camus’ ideas. In addition, we studied the concept of waiting to find hopeless hopes in the lives of the characters in the two plays. The findings of the study showed that the concept of absurdity and nothingness can be seen throughout these plays and the need for finding hope in life is useless. At the same time, all the characters of the play are waiting for a savior to find a way for hope but we realize that this is not fulfilled.