Theater

Theater

An Analysis of the Collapse of Cartesian Time in Modern Drama: From Hamlet’s Doubt to Godot’s Decay

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Majid Kianian 1
Seyed Abolqasem Hosseini (Zharfa) 2
1 PhD Candidate in The Wisdom of Religious Arts, Faculty of Religion and Art, University of Religions and Denominations, Qom, Iran.
2 Associate Professor, Institute of Higher Education in Islamic Art and Thought, Qom, Iran.
10.22034/theater.2026.575098.1162
Abstract
Time has always functioned as one of the concealed yet decisive foundations of dramatic structure. From classical Greek drama through Renaissance tragedy, time was not merely the neutral container of events but a constitutive principle shaping plot, causality, and dramatic necessity. The coherence of dramatic action depended on a temporal order in which “before” and “after” were meaningfully connected, enabling movement from an initial situation through crisis toward resolution. In modern drama, however, this temporal foundation gradually destabilizes. The result is not only a transformation of themes or characters but also a profound disturbance in the formal logic of dramatic progression itself. Modern drama frequently exhibits fractured temporal continuity, suspended action, disrupted causality, and, in extreme cases, the impossibility of plot formation. These features are often interpreted under broad categories such as the ‘crisis of meaning,’ the ‘crisis of the subject,’ or existential absurdity. Yet such interpretations tend to overlook a more fundamental question: to what extent is the collapse of plot in modern drama rooted in a philosophical transformation of the concept of time itself? Rather than viewing dramatic stagnation solely as a historical or aesthetic development, this article argues that it must be understood in relation to a deeper reconfiguration of time, continuity, and necessity within modern philosophy. From this perspective, Cartesian philosophy occupies a crucial position. René Descartes introduces a radically new understanding of time by detaching it from objective continuity and reinterpreting it as a mental, discontinuous, and secondary construct. Although Descartes does not formulate an explicit aesthetic theory, his conception of time-developed within a broader metaphysical, theological, and epistemological framework—has far‑reaching implications for how action, causality, and continuity can be conceived. This article does not claim a direct historical influence of Cartesian philosophy on modern drama; rather, it treats Cartesian time as a conceptual horizon that helps illuminate structural tensions within dramatic form. The central question guiding this study is how a shift in the philosophical foundations of time affects the possibility of dramatic progression, causal continuity, and plot construction. To address this question, the article adopts a qualitative, descriptive‑analytical approach and examines two canonical dramatic texts situated at different historical moments: William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. These works are analyzed not as thematic reflections of philosophical ideas but as formal structures in which temporal logic either falters or collapses entirely. The first part reconstructs Descartes’ conception of time based on key texts such as Meditations on First Philosophy (1641) and Principles of Philosophy (1644). In Cartesian thought, time is not an objective feature of reality comparable to extension or motion. What truly exists is the duration (durée) of things insofar as they persist in being; ‘time’, by contrast, is a mode of thought—an intellectual measure imposed upon duration through comparison and calculation. Moreover, Cartesian time is fundamentally discontinuous: individual moments do not entail one another, and the existence of a substance at one instant provides no guarantee of its existence in the next. This discontinuity underlies Descartes’ doctrine of continuous creation, according to which the persistence of beings at each moment requires the same divine act as their initial creation. As a result, temporal continuity is not an intrinsic property of reality but an imposed, mental construct. Time has no internal necessity, no inherent directionality, and no immanent force binding moments together. From a dramatic standpoint, this undermines the traditional linkage between knowledge, decision, and action: knowing no longer necessarily leads to doing, because the temporal bridge that once connected insight to consequence has lost its ontological grounding. The second part of the article analyzes Hamlet as a threshold text in which this temporal instability first becomes visible within dramatic form. Shakespeare’s tragedy still operates within the remnants of classical plot structure, yet the temporal order that sustains dramatic necessity is profoundly unsettled. Drawing on theoretical formulations by A. Hübler and Herder (via Manfred Pfister), the article emphasizes that classical dramatic action presupposes a time capable of sustaining continuity, direction, and causality. In Hamlet, however, this temporal framework begins to fail. The appearance of the Ghost initiates the crisis. Traditionally, the ghost in revenge tragedy functions as a guarantor of truth and a catalyst for action. In Hamlet, by contrast, the ghost destabilizes certainty rather than securing it. It returns from the past without being able to anchor the present or compel the future. Knowledge gained through revelation does not generate immediate action; instead, it produces hesitation, reflection, and delay. Hamlet’s soliloquies mark moments in which time ceases to function as a vehicle of progression and becomes an object of thought. The famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy is read not merely as an existential meditation, but as a condensation of temporal crisis: past, present, and future converge into an indecisive ‘now’ that suspends action rather than propelling it forward. Even when all causal prerequisites for action are present—most notably in the prayer scene-Hamlet’s intervention of future consequences disrupts the immediate logic of action. Time no longer guarantees necessity. Yet Hamlet does not represent the complete collapse of time. Events still occur, actions eventually unfold, and death ultimately brings closure. What emerges instead is a drama of temporal doubt: time has become unreliable, but it has not yet disappeared as a structuring principle. For this reason, Hamlet is interpreted as an “anatomy of crisis,” a liminal work in which time is problematized but not annihilated. The final part turns to Waiting for Godot as the point at which this crisis reaches its terminal stage. Here, the minimal conditions of dramatic temporality—succession, anticipation, and consequence—no longer operate. Drawing on Peter Pütz’s formulation of dramatic sequence, the article argues that Beckett’s play begins precisely where this logic fails. Nothing meaningfully precedes or follows anything else; repetition replaces progression, and expectation replaces action. In Godot, time is neither linear nor cyclical, nor even truly static. Days repeat without differentiation, memory fails to stabilize experience, and the future never arrives. The characters’ attempts to think, remember, or interpret their situation repeatedly collapse, revealing the exhaustion of the Cartesian subject itself. If, in Hamlet, thinking suspends action, in Godot, thinking becomes a threat—something to be avoided rather than pursued. Language, which in Cartesian philosophy serves as an instrument of clear and distinct thought, disintegrates into nonsense, most notably in Lucky’s monologue. With the collapse of thought comes the collapse of mental time. There is no longer even a subjective framework capable of organizing duration. As A. Alvarez observes, the play ultimately concerns not what happens, but how time is passed. Habit, boredom, and repetition replace causality and development. The article concludes that the transition from Hamlet to Waiting for Godot can be understood as a movement from doubt about time to the complete collapse of temporality as a dramatic foundation. In this trajectory, Cartesian time-initially conceived as a mental, discontinuous construct-loses even its organizing function within consciousness. Without objective continuity or a divine guarantor, time disintegrates into empty succession, and plot becomes structurally impossible. Modern drama, from this perspective, is not merely the site of existential despair or thematic nihilism but the formal manifestation of a deeper philosophical rupture. The collapse of plot is not imposed from outside but emerges from within the very conditions of temporal experience. Drama continues to exist, but it does so in the absence of time as a meaningful horizon-forced to survive, paradoxically, in a world where time itself has lost the power to sustain action, meaning, and necessity.
Keywords
Cartesian Time
Modern Drama
Hamlet
Waiting for Godot
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  • Receive Date 17 February 2026
  • Revise Date 09 May 2026
  • Accept Date 14 May 2026