Three Comically-Absurd Female Characters in Dickens: Mrs. Nickleby, Flora Finching, and Mrs. Wilfer

Abstract

An absurd character is a character that behaves in a fantastic or unusual manner and as such becomes comical. The word “absurd” has acquired a special meaning through the influence of the Theater of the Absurd and the playwrights of the absurd such as Beckett, Ionesco, Adamov, and Pinter, among others. The character in an absurd play is one that behaves in a funny, ridiculous, or mechanical way; is placed in a situation that makes no sense to him; or finds that his world has all of a sudden gone crazy and become totally incomprehensible to him. As a result, the character becomes motivated by a feeling of angst or anguish because he believes that the universe is devoid of meaning, purpose, or pattern and that man is alone in this universe. His absurd actions are, therefore, an expression of what the critics have called his “metaphysical anguish.”1 Moreover, in such a meaningless world, a character’s actions and words are not subject to conventional morality, objective verification, or logical assessment.