Close
About
FAQ
Home
Collections
Login
USC Login
Register
0
Selected
Invert selection
Deselect all
Deselect all
Click here to refresh results
Click here to refresh results
USC
/
Digital Library
/
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
/
Thematic Change In The Stage Plays Of Harold Pinter, 1957-1967
(USC Thesis Other)
Thematic Change In The Stage Plays Of Harold Pinter, 1957-1967
PDF
Download
Share
Open document
Flip pages
Contact Us
Contact Us
Copy asset link
Request this asset
Transcript (if available)
Content
THEMATIC CHANGE IN THE STAGE PLAYS OP
HAROLD PINTER, 1957-1967
by
Steven Hershal Gale
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OP THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OP SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OP PHILOSOPHY
(English)
June 1970
71-2523
GALE, Steven Hershal, 1940-
THEMATIC CHANGE IN THE STAGE PLAYS OF
HAROLD PINTER, 1957-1967.
University of Southern California, Ph.D.,
1970
Language and Literature, modern
University Microfilms, A X E R O X Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan
^ Copyright by
STEVEN HERSHAL GALE
11971'
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 0 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
StevenHershal __Gale............
under the direction of h.tS... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Gradu
ate School, in partial fulfillment of require
ments of the degree of
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
Date J^e..l?70
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
11
TABLE OP CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION . . ................................. 1
Chapter
I. THE COMEDIES OP MENACE.................... 9
II. A NEW DIRECTION .......................... 76
III. A PATTERN OP NEED............... 118
IV. CONCLUSION .............................. 188
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY........................... 190
ill
INTRODUCTION
The plays of British dramatist Harold Pinter are
complex collections of several Interrelated themes. 1 When
Pinter began his career as a playwright In 1957> however,
one idea was foremost in his mind: fear as a major theme.
As a young Jew living through the early days of World War
II, he had gone to bed afraid that he might be awakened in
the night by a knock at the door and that he and his par
ents would be taken forcibly from their home by unknown
assailants, a picture vividly impressed on his mind by
2
tales of Hitler's Germany. Translated into dramatic terms
in The Room, his fear becomes a mysterious and undefined
Bernard Dukore in the Tulane Drama Review, VI
(Spring, 1966), pp. 43-54 sees Pinter's theatre as "a pic
ture of contemporary man beaten down by the social forces
around him" (p. 54), partially based on "man's failure to
communicate with other men." In the same Issue, pp. 55-68,
Ruby Cohn claims that "Man vs. the System" (p. 5 6) with a
"central vietim-villaln conflict" is Pinter's primary
theme. Both critics similarly insist that there are reli
gious overtones present. Lois Gordon in Strategems to Un
cover Nakedness (Columbia, Missouri, 1 9 6 9) has commented
on sex and role-playing as themes in the plays. And Pinter
himself has admitted that "the question of dominance and
subservience.. .is possibly a repeated theme in my plays"
in an interview with Lawrence Bensky, in the Paris Review,
X, 39 (Fall 1 9 6 6), pp. 12-37.
p
Lawrence Bpnsky, "Harold Pinter: An Interview,"
Paris Review, X, 39 (Fall 1 9 6 6), p. 3 1. Even following the
war he could not escape fear, as he suffered actual beats,
lngs at the hands of neighborhood Fascists.
1
! something which snuffles about outside the door, trying to
get In. Those Inside the room realize that there Is some
thing on the other side of the door, and that they are In
I danger from its Intrusion. The constant threat of inva
sion produces an atmosphere of menace, menace being the
threat of disruption of the status quo, though it is more j
I
significant than mere change because the inhabitants of
the room will be exposed to expulsion and further unknown j
dangers, with a suggestion of physical ham. Ten years
; ' I
later Pinter's dramas still are concerned with menace, but j
the emphasis is changed. A plot based on the threat of
actual physical ham being visited on the individual by an
outside source is replaced by a consideration of emotional
i
i
need as the origin of menace. The author has focused not j
merely on the existence of menace and the actions of people
trying to avoid a confrontation with their personal neme- !
sis, but on the derivation of menace and the attempts of
characters to remedy the causal situation. Menace is no j
longer an indeterminate threat derived from a vague source; |
it grows out of what the writer has called ?love and the j
lack of love," something he has equated with "need" else- i
where.^
3
Pinter in an interview in Henry Hewes',' "Probing
Pinter's Play," Saturday Review, L (April 8, 1967), p. 5 7.
See Chapter Two.
Pinter has expressly declared that at least two of
5
his plays are "about love," but nowhere has he defined the
j
term. Since his plays make it clear that he is not speak
ing of conventional love, unselfish devotion and "affection
6 I
based on admiration or benevolence," it is necessary to j
examine his works to see if they provide a definition in
order to determine how much thematic change actually takes
place between the writing of The Room and The Homecoming.
What Pinter calls "love" really amounts to individual psy- j
chological needs which must be fulfilled for the emotional j
7 !
well-being of the organism.' There is a clue in the play- j
i
wright's actual linking of the words love and need. His
|
characters require certain things from one another for !
their psychological welfare, and as will be demonstrated
I
in Chapters Two and Three, the author considers the rela
tionship between individuals stemming from this need as
love. Traditionally love is a relationship between
5
He says this about The Caretaker in Charles Moro-
witz' "Theatre Abroad," The Village Voice, September 1,
I960 and about The Homecoming in the Hewes article.
Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (Chi
cago, 1965), P. 501'.------- --- --------------
7
In psychological jargon this kind of need is cate
gorized as a primary appetite (something which is necessary
for homeostatic balance) and a drive is that state within
an organism that directs, behavior toward a goal. See Chap
man, Harold Martin, Aaron Quinn Sartais, Alvin John North,
and Jack Roy Strange, Psychology: Understanding Human Be
havior (New York, 1958), Chapter Three.
individuals sustained because of an emotional attachment
in which the other is intrinsically important— Pinter's I
lovers have an emotional dependence on one another which
is based on fulfilling their psychological requirements.
The motivation for his characters' actions is selfish, for j
when he later equates love and need he indicates that com
pulsion is involved. The actions of his characters are
predicated on a necessity to find emotional fulfillment and
everything that they do in the plays is aimed at satisfying j
their personal requirements. Indeed, there is a definite
question whether Pinter's characters are even capable of
feeling love in the customary sense. Most of the later
characters share a primary appetite (a gregarious instinct
according to Chapman, et al., for acceptance, affection,
8
and emotional attachment)— elements similar to those in
conventional love, but the motivation is different since
it is essentially a selfish drive. Where Pinter's early
plays express the existence of menace, then, his later
dramas -are psychological portrayals of Individuals trying
to create viable relationships with one another in attempts
to fulfill the emotional needs which produce a threat to ■ >
their welfare.
Pinter has insisted that his writing deals with "the
^Chapman, et al., pp. 54-56.
5
g
terror of the loneliness of the human situation," and this
statement fits the thematic development indicated above.
There is a concurrent need for and absence of psychological
stability, and this discrepancy is the source of the terror.
10
That is to say, people require emotional relationships,
but often such ties do not exist and the resulting situa
tion is unbearable, or if bonds do exist, there is the fear!
that they will be broken and the original lack of ties will!
recur. Pinter's later dramas demonstrate the desperate
lengths to which individuals will go to acquire or preserve!
relationships. Instead of running from something, there is
an active seeking for something. There is, thus, a themat-l
ic change involved in Pinter's writing, a search for psy
chological well-being through mutual dependence replacing
confrontations with menace as an abstract force as his
prime concern. The purpose of this study is to examine
Pinter's works to demonstrate both the meaning and develop
ment of this theme in terms of the movement from the simple
presentation of general menace to an examination of the
particularized form of menace resulting from specific human
psychological needs.
In tracing the thematic evolution from generalized
to particularized menace in Pinter's plays, three distinct
^James T. Boulton, "Harold Pinter: The Caretaker and
Other Plays," Modern Drama VI (September, 1963), p. 132.
10See Chapman, et al., Chapter Three.
6
|
periods in his writing are distinguishable: the early plays;
or "comedies of menace"11 which are more concerned with the|
idea of fear than the origin of fear; a time of transition
during which Pinter consciously begins exploring the cause
of menace; and, finally, the later plays in which attention
is centered on the lack of emotional fulfillment as a
source of menace.
Pinter's first three plays, the "comedies of menace,"
The Room, The Dumb Walter, and The Birthday Party introduce
his basic ideas about menace, verification, and communica-
12
tion. In the world pictured in his plays there is the
underlying terror of loneliness. There is also a need for
verification. A circular effect is created as verification
is required because of the menace, yet is impossible be
cause of the presence of the menace and uncertain communi
cation. In turn the menace is intensified and communica
tion is destroyed because of the absence of verification.
- -- In terms of Pinter's development as a writer it is
significant that the threat in The Room remains undefined.
In the next two plays he develops a pattern from the base
established by The Room, though with variation. The Birth
day Party hints that the menace which threatens, and
^See Arnold Hinchcliffe, Harold Pinter (New York,
1 9 6 7), Chapter Two.
12
Definition and discussion of Pinter's use of these
terms will be found in Chapter One.
eventually destroys, the individual originates in society. ;
I
The suggestion that society is the destructive force is !
brought out much more clearly in The Dumb Waiter, though
the source is still vague with no specific facets of
society singled out as being responsible for the threat.
While these two plays develop the idea of menace and de
fine Pinter's related notions about communication and veri
fication, they are really extensions of elements introduced
in The Room. All in all, the first three plays pivot
around a menace of general origin.
The following group of plays marks a transition.
A Slight Ache representing the next step in Pinter's thema
tic development. Most of the fundamental themes are the
same as in the previous works, but for the first time
Pinter uses the subject of emotional needs as the hub
around which he displays his ideas (verification, and so
forth) and menace obviously develops from these needs.
Henceforth need is an increasingly important subject of
study, emerging as the main subject in the author's more
recent plays. In A Slight Ache the failure to fulfill his
wife's psychological demands is the element which causes a
husband's downfall. The Caretaker explores three charac
ters' attempts to form or confirm attachments. It was in
connection with this play that Pinter admitted using need
as a theme when he said that the play is about love and
then equated love with need. His dramas hereafter deal
with the situations which arise when people strive to
achieve the emotional satisfaction they need.
Fulfillment of psychological needs is firmly en
trenched as the primary thematic element in the later
dramas. The Collection displays the actions of people
fighting to preserve their relationships with one another.
The Lover probes the difficulties a husband and wife have
in reconciling sex with their idea of marriage. The Home-
coming shows to what desperate lengths people will go in
order to establish relationships.
Starting with A Slight Ache the characters in
Pinter's plays are menaced, but not by something outside
themselves. Instead, they are trying to fill a need within
themselves, their mental well-being is threatened by a psy
chological deficiency— it is no longer a matter of an in
dividual's relationship with the abstract concept of
society,1^ but his relationships with other people as
individuals. What this amounts to is simply a narrowing
of the author's focus. The early plays deal with menace
14
to expose its existence by provoking a mood of terror.
■^See chapter One for discussion of menace as a pos
sible result of social fallings.
^Pinter notes that by the time he wrote The Care
taker he had advanced beyond this stage in his writing and
he no longer depends on "cabaret turns and blackouts and
screams in the dark"--quoted in Martin Esslin, The Theatre
of the Absurd (New York, 1 9 6 1), p. 212.
Pinter's notions about the interrelationship of communica- !
i
I
tion and verification are depicted and the plays portray
the menace-creating aspect of these elements, menace being
anything which threatens an individual's security. After
A Slight Ache there is still menace present, but not simply!
as a psychological threat from "things that go bump in the
night." In part this is because it has been reduced to an
understandable personal level. When psychological inade
quacies become a central concern as a source from which
menace derives, Pinter moves from discussing the symptom
to discussing the disease.
CHAPTER ONE
COMEDIES OP MENACE
Pinter's characteristic mode of expression Is comedic
and his first three plays, The Room, The Birthday Party,
and The Dumb Walter, generally have been called "comedies
of menace" because they present a mood of terror In humor
ous terms. Collectively this group of plays defines the
themes and establishes the techniques which will be basic
in all of his works, yet they also form a distinct set. 1
2
Pinter's earliest play, The Room, introduces the
creative pattern, the idea of menace with the related con
cepts which are explored in the drama, and the techniques
which he will utilize for several years. The author's con
ception of the play and its subsequent evolution in his
mind are typical:
I went into a room one day and saw a couple of
people in it. This stuck with me for some time
afterwards, and I felt that the only way I could
give it expression and get it off my mind was
dramatically. I started off with this picture o
of two people and let them carry on from there.
•*-See Hinchcliffe, Chapter Two, for instance.
2
Originally performed at Bristol University in May,
1957 and in January, 1958 at the festival of university
drama, it was presented professionally for the first time
at the Hampstead Theatre Club beginning January 21, i9 6 0.
^Harold Pinter, "Writing for Myself, " The Twentieth
Century j CLXIX (February, 1 9 6 1), p. 173.
10
11
In Interviews first with Kenneth Tynan, and then with
Hallam Tennyson, Pinter further explains:
Two people in a room— I am dealing a great deal of
the time with this image of two people in a room.
The curtain goes up on stage, and I see it as a
very potent question: what is going to happen to
these two people in the room? Is someone going
to open the door and come in? . . . Obviously they
are scared of what is outside the room. Outside
the room there is a world bearing upon them which
is frightening. I am sure it is frightening, to.;, ,
you and me as well:; 7 U- > . ' . c . , - e ss ‘ c.';..;./'1
As Pinter has claimed many times, given a situation, he
develops it within its own framework:
I've never started a play from any kind of abstract
idea or theory . . . You arrange and you listen,
following the clues you leave for yourself, through
the charactersP
Elsewhere he says:
Finding the characters and letting them speak for
themselves is the greatest excitement of writing.
I would never distort the consistency of a charac
ter by a kind of hoarding in which I say, "by the
way, these characters are doing this because of
such and such. " I find out what they are doing,
allow them to do it, and keep out of it.°
He further explains:
I don't know what kind of characters my plays
will have until they . . . well, until they are.
Until they indicate to me what they are, I don't
h .
Interview with Kenneth Tynan, BBC General Overseas
Service, August J, i9 6 0, quoted in Esslin Theatre of the
Absurd, p. 199.
^Kathleen Halton, "Pinter," Vogue (October 1, 1967),
P. 195.
c
Henry Hewes, "Probing Pinter's Play," Saturday
Review (April 8, 1 9 6 7), P- 58.
12
conceptualize In any way. Once I've got the clues i
I follow them— that's my job, really, to follow !
the clues . . . Sometimes I'm going along and I
find myself writing "C. comes In" when I didn't
know that he was going to come in; he had to come
in at that point, that's all.' !
In essence Pinter is saying that each play creates a logic I
of its own which dictates the course of action it is to
follow, given the original assumption of two people in a
room and the idea of some kind of threat on the other side
of the door.
Besides setting the creative method Pinter pursues
from this point on, The Room contains the essentials of his
early works. We are exposed to a small number of people,
in this case two, who are enclosed in a room which serves
to keep them secure from the horrors outside. Inside the
room the inhabitants have created their own versions of
reality which, like the very existence of the room, provide
them with a sense of security and well-being. As the drama
opens, however, the audience realizes that the participants
in the play are not really communicating with one another—
in fact, it often appears that they are consciously avoid
ing understanding. Their realistic speech, the uncertain
and preoccupied pauses, also convey an awareness of some
thing outside the room which threatens them. As the play
progresses, there is a movement from apparent reality
^Lawrence Bensky, "Harold Pinter, An Interview,"
Paris Review (Pall, 1966), pp. 24-25.
13
toward fantastic unreality, a movement emphasized by the
use of realistic dialogue In an Increasingly unrealistic
situation. The menace on \the:other side of the door con
tinues to be suggested until it actually Intrudes as a
physical presence, Riley, and destroys the security of
those within the room. The play, then, deals essentially
with three problems: the unexplained menace from without
which threatens and finally breaks down the security of an
individual; the individual's reactions to the disintegra
ting conditions; and the lack of communication between
people which demands the maintaining of security and at the
same time reflects the impossibility of such a goal.
Pinter continually denies using symbols consciously
in examining these problems:
I have never been conscious of allegorical signifi
cance in my plays, either while writing or after
writing. I have never intended any specific reli
gious reference or been conscious ofousing any
thing as a symbol for anything else.
He explains his position further when he details his ap
proach to writing:
I start off with people, who come into a parti
cular situation. I certainly don't write from
any kind of abstract idea. And I wouldn't know
a symbol if I saw one.9
As an author, Pinter claims to be working on a limited
scope:
Q
Hewes, p. 9 7.
^Pinter, "Writing for Myself," p. 174.
14
All I try to do Is describe some particular thing,
a particular occurrence In a particular context.
The meaning Is there for the particular characters
as they cope with the situation. My plays are
often interpreted symbolically.. Well, you can make
symbolic meat out of anything.iU
It Is evident, however, that there are symbolic details
present which give the play added meaning. Too many refer
ences are repeated too many times, and the consistency of
associations is too great to be summarily dismissed. The
very title of the play, The Room, is too significant to be
ignored, and Rose's comments throughout the play indicate
that she is cognizant of the room's functioning as more
than merely "a living place" in her version of the universe:
Still, the room keeps warm. It's better than the
basement anyway . . . I don't know how they live
down there. It's asking for trouble.11 . . . This
is all right for me. . . .1 mean, you know where
you are.12 . . . I'm quire happy where I am. We're
quiet, we're all right . . . It's not far up either,
when you pome in from outside. And we're not
bothered.13 . . . This is a good room. You've got
a chance in a place like this.1^ . . . I never go
out at night.1- ’ . . .We've got our room. ° . . .
l0"Pinterview," Newsweek (July 23, 1 9 6 2).
11Pinter, The Room (New York, 1 9 6 1), p. 95.
1 2Ibid.,
P. 96.
1 3Ibid.,
P. 97.
l4
Ibid.,
P. 99.
15ibid., p. 107.
l6Ibid., p. 109.
15
I never go out.1?
In view of the events which take place later In the play,
Rose's positive assertions are ironic, and part of the
irony comes from the fact that she considers the room sym
bolically.
While the plot of The Room is simple, the meaning of
the character's words and the significance of their action
are not. The play opens with sixty-year-old Rose serving
her fifty-year-old husband tea prior to his going out for
business, driving his van, on an icy winter's day. As is
typical in Pinter, we know neither the date nor the month
(the day is probably a Monday), whether Bert is working for
himself or someone else, where he is going, or what he is
hauling. Since these are outside the room matters, they
are unimportant, though the characters discuss them as
though the audience is fully aware of all the details.
Rose busies herself about the room, all the while talking
inanely about the minutiae of breakfast-making and the
weather in a motherly way. She reminds Bert that he has
been sick and that it was "good" that they were not in the
basement during his illness, although she would "have
18
pulled /yilm/ through." Of course, as the head of the
household, Rose is responsible for the important family
1?Ibid., p. 119.
l8Ibid., p. 9 7.
decisions. Bert did not really have to worry about whetherj
or not she would have pulled him through, for she made the
right decision in the first place:
I look after you, don't I Bert? Lllp when they
offered us the basement here I said no straight
off. I knew that'd be no good. The ceiling right
on top of you. No, you've got a window here . . .
you can come home at night, if you have to go out
. . . you can come home, you'recall right. And
I'm here. You stand a chance. y
Although unfocused, a note of menace has been introduced
i
1
with Rose's comparison of her room to the dark, dank un- j
known constituted by the mysterious basement. The develop-!
ment of the threat represented by the basement and the
characters' reactions to it will be the theme of the drama.:
Like a good parent, Rose is ready to applaud her
child for his successes and brag of them to her neighbors. ;
And, like an over-anxious mother, when Bert is about to
leave the room she is careful to bundle him up against the
cold-rshe brings him his jersey and muffler and helps him
into them. Although these might be considered wifely ac
tivities, Rose treats her husband as a child and by taking
the role of a mother Rose seems to be able to reassure her
self that everything is indeed "all right." In this role
she has some control over events and can thus create a
certain amount of order in the chaos of life, although that
order is limited to her one room. Things are all right in
1 9Ibid., p. 9 9.
the room— it may be cold outside, but it is warm and com
fortable inside. As a parent speaking to a child, she is
allowed constantly to repeat herself so as to assure her
"son* that things are all right. Because this contention
is repeated over and over, it must be true and the repeti
tion helps convince Rose herself that she is speaking the
truth.
Menace does creep in, though, as in spite of all her
attempts to ignore it she is constantly reminded of its
existence. After Mr. Kidd, who is probably the landlord,
has talked about his sister, for example, Rose states that
she does not believe he even had a sister, and, later, she
acknowledges that the Sands' account of having just come
up the stairs and just come down the stairs contradicts
itself. Menace is created because the contradiction dis
rupts the verification process.
The audience's first clue that there is something
menacing Rose comes with her references to the basement.
Her first mention of it seems to be an incidental comment
in her opening speech when she remarks that, although it is
cold outside, their room "keeps warm"— which is "better
than the basement ... I don't know how they live down
there." The audience is soon aware that there might be
more involved than simple comparison though, as Rose
20
continues that, "It's asking for trouble." Moments later
a mystery is introduced as she notes, "I've never seen who
it is. Who is it? Who lives down there? I'll have to
ask . . .it can't be too cozy." Continuing her discourse
on the basement, she observes that the walls were "running."
During the course of the play, we are informed that the
basement is damp, small, has a low ceiling, no windows, and|
smells. A bit later she returns to the subject of the
walls, when she reminds Bert that they would have "finished
/him7 off" in his recent sickness, had she not "pulled
/hiny7 through," and decides that whoever is living in the
basement is "taking a big chance?— "Maybe they're foreign
ers. "
At this point in the play the theme of contradiction
or verification is also introduced. Even though the intro
duction of the problem of verification is unobtrusive— Rose
states that "There isn't room for two down there," and then
21
submits that "Maybe they've got two now" --it becomes more
consequential as the play progresses. The question of the
landlord's identity, Riley's name, Rose's name, and whether
or not the Sands were ascending or descending the stairs
are all fragments of this problem. In a program note in
serted for the performance of The Room and The Dumb Waiter
at the Royal Court Theatre in London in March, I960,
2 0Ibid., p. 9 5.
2 1Ibid., p. 9 7.
19
Pinter declares:
The desire for verification is understandable but
cannot always be satisfied. There are not hard
distinctions between what is real and what is unreal,
nor between what is true or what is false. The
thing is not necessarily either true or false; it
can be both true and false. The assumption that to
verify what has happened and what is happening
presents few problems I take to be inaccurate. A
character on the stage who can present no convinc
ing argument or information as to his past exper
ience, his present behavior or his aspirations, nor
give a comprehensive analysis of his motives is
as legitimate and as worthy of attention as one who, ;
alarmingly, can do all these things. The more
acute the experience the less articulate its
expression. 22
A concept which appears throughout Pinter’s plays, j
it is one of the most important elements in his theatre.
John Russell Taylor points out that the technique involved :
in presenting this principle consists of "casting doubt "
upon everything by matching each apparently clear and un
equivocal statement with an equally clear and unequivocal
statement of its contrary."2^ He goes on to claim that by
extending the implications involved in the sense of terror
and uncertainty which lurks beneath the surface of the or
dinary surroundings of Pinter’s plays, the world of exter
nal realities is subjected to question. Is there any such
thing as absolute truth and, if so, can it ever be known?
Pinter's answer seems to be that in spite of human desire
22
; Quoteduby Esslin in Theatre of the Absurd, p. 206.
23john Russell Taylor, Anger and After (London, 1 9 6 2),
P. 97.
20 |
i
for unqualified distinctions there is no such thing as
j
knowable absolute truth. !
The arrival of Mr. Kidd reinforces the enigmas of
identity and verifications everything he says is question
able, demonstrating that these concepts are facets of the
menace which underlines all action and dialogue in Pinter, j
He adds the ingredient of humor, too. He seems to be hard j
of hearing--he does not answer Rose's call to come in afterj
he knocks, and then when she says that she heard his knock
Oh
and seconds later asks a question, Mr. Kidd replies, "Eh?"
and characteristically continues his conversation as though!
I
i
never interrupted. It soon becomes apparent that there is j
more than a case of misunderstanding, though— it is a com- j
plete lack or avoidance of understanding or communication, j
In a music hall exchange which is characteristic of Pinter's;
brand of humor expressed in realistic speech, the charac
ters ask and answer unrelated questions, move from topic to
topic in a non-logical progression. The result is a mix
ture of humor and frustration, both of which are derived
from the ridiculous and yet pathetic cancelling out of
thoughts:
MR. KIDD: Best room in the house.
ROSE: It must get a bit damp.
MR. KIDD: Not as bad as upstairs.
ROSE: What about upstairs?
MR. KIDD: Eh?
oh
Pinter, The Room, p. 97.
21
ROSE; What about downstairs?
MR. KIDD: What about it?
ROSE: Must be a bit damp.
MR. KIDD: A bit. Not as bad as upstairs though. 0
• • • •
ROSE: What about your sister, Mr. Kidd?
Mtf. KIDD: What about her?
ROSEl: Did she have -any babies?
MR. KIDD: Yes, she had a resemblance of my old mum,
I think. Taller, of course.
ROSE: When did she die, then, your sister?
MR. KIDD: Yes, that's right, it was after she died
that I must have stopped counting . . .
ROSE: What did she die of?
MR. KIDD: Who?
ROSE: Your sister.
(pause) 26
MR. KIDD: I've made ends meet.
Pinter, speaking of the concepts which underlie his
plays In general, has said that he feels It is senseless to
27
write about political or social issues. He contends that
people neither can nor will communicate with one another ,
because they are afraid of what they might find out about
themselves, and, because people are always changing, they
cannot predict what they are going to do next, let alone
what others are going to do. In The Dwarfs this idea is
graphically dramatized in one of Len's speeches:
The point is, who are you? Not why or how, not even
what . . . It's no use saying you know who you are
just because you tell me you can fit your particu
lar key into a particular slot which will only
receive your particular key because that's not
foolproof and certainly not conclusive. Just be
cause you're inclined to make these statements of
^Pinter, The Room, p. 99*
2 6Ibid., p. 1 0 2.
2^Bensky, pp. 27-28.
faith has nothing to do with me . . . . Occasion
ally I believe I perceive a little of what you are
but that's pure accident. Pure accident on both
our parts, the perceived and the perceiver. It's
nothing like an accident, it's deliberate, it's a
joint pretense. We depend on these accidents
.... What you are, or appear to be to me, or j
appear to be to you, changes so quickly, so horri
fyingly, I certainly can't keep^up with it and i
I'm damn sure you can't either. 20 j
It is for this reason that the concept of verification is
the only one which can really be discussed and why, there- |
fore, it is useless to try to write about abstractions such;
as are involved in political or sociological problems. "I j
feel," Pinter has said, "that instead of any inability to
i
!
communicate there is a deliberate evasion of communication.!
Communication itself between people is so frightening that j
rather than do that there is continual cross-talk, a con- j
tinual talking about other things, rather than what is at
the root of their relationships.!"2^ This talking around
subjects instead of about them is one of the essences of
Pinter's realistic dialogue and at the same time clouds any
attempt at verification because it prohibits a clear-cut
linking of questions and answers. "People fall back on
anything they can lay their hands on verbally to keep away
30
from the danger of knowing, and of being known." If the
questions and answers are not clearly paired, it is
2®Pinter, The Dwarfs in Three Plays (New York, 1962),
p. 103.
2^Bensky, pp. 24-25.
3°pinter to Bensky, p. 27.
23
difficult or impossible to determine the truth. Again, a
key to Pinter's thinking can be found in an example from
The Dwarfs when Mark's "I see that butter's going up," is
answered by Len's "I'm prepared to believe it, but it
0 * 1
doesn't answer my question." Pinter's characters often j
take advantage of the principle of verification, contra
dicting themselves defensively to avoid self-expression.
The problem of verification is thus raised again in
Mr. Kidd's chat with Rose— Mr. Kidd thinks he recognizes
a chair he has never seen before and doesn't recognize one !
which has been there all the time. He tells Rose that the j
upstairs rooms are empty now, only to inform her moments
later that the whole house is full. Then comes the amusing:
and revealing passage concerned with the number of floors
in the house, followed by Mr. Kidd's reflections on his
sister and mother:
How many floors you got in this house?
Floors. (He laughs.) Ah, we had a good
few of them in the old days.
How many you got now?
Well, to tell you the truth, I don't
count now.
Oh.
No, not now.
It must be a bit of a job.
Oh, I used to count them, once. Never
got tired of it. I used to keep a tack
on everything in this house. I had a lot
to keep my eye on, then. I was able for
it too. That was when my sister was
alive. But I lost track a bit, after she
^Pinter, The Dwarfs, p. 89.
ROSE:
MR. KIDD:
ROSE:
MR. KIDD:
ROSE:
MR. KIDD:
ROSE:
MR. KIDD:
24
died. She's been dead some time now; my
sister. It was a good house then. She
was a capable woman. Yes. Pine size of
a woman too. I think my mum was a
Jewess. Yes, I wouldn't be surprised to
learn that she was a Jewess. She didn't ;
have many babies.32
No matter how long one has lived in a house, one must con- I
stantly recount the number of floors, for someone may add
i
or subtract a floor at will, apparently. And counting the
floors is not as simple as it sounds— there must be a con- ;
scious effort involved; one must approach the task as a
serious job, one so serious as to require careful direction:
supplied by a more able person (his sister). Similarly,
befuddled old Mr. Kidd is not even sure of his own mother's!
background.
Before the Sands are discovered on the landing out
side the door, there is a suggestion that outsiders pose a ;
threat when Rose thinks that she sees a stranger from the
window. With the entrance of the young married couple the
threat is much closer to being realized. The Sands provide
a disruptive element with their arguing and add to the ver
ification problem when they refuse to accept Mr. Kidd's
name as that of the landlord. Their contradictory state
ments concerning their course on the stairs further com
pound the question of truth and reality. They bring with
them, moreover, Information from the basement which directly
32Pinter, The Room, p. 103.
affects Rose's security:
ROSE: You won't find any rooms vacant in this
house.
MR. SANDS: Why not?
ROSE: Mr. Kidd told me. He told me.
MT~SANDS: Mr. Kidd?
ROSE: He told me he was full up.
MR. SANDS: The man in the basement said there was
one. Number seven he said.
(pause)
ROSE: That's this room.“>J
The final threat to Rose's security comes in the per
son of Riley, the blind Negro. The audience knows that
nothing good can emerge from the basement--Rose has cer
tainly made this clear throughout. Mrs. Sands' account of
their meeting with the mysterious inhabitant is no more re
assuring:
I didn't like the look of it much, I mean the feel,
we couldn't make much out, it smelt damp to me.
Anyway, we went through a kind of partition, then
there was another partition, and we couldn't see
where we were going, well, it seemed to me it got
darker the more we went, the further we went in
.... And then bit of a fright .... But we
never saw him, I don't know why they never put
a light on.
Mr. Kidd's information that the basement dweller desires a
confrontation is further evidence of impending trouble.
Not only is the manner of the man suspect, but his instruc
tions to wait until Mr. Hudd is gone are ominous:
He's downstairs now. He's been there the whole
weekend. He said that when Mr. Hudd went out I
33Pinter, The Room, p. 112.
3^Ibid., p. 111.
26
was to tell him .... he won't Indulge in any
conversation .... Wouldn't even play a game
of chess . . . It's not good for me. He Just
lies there, that's all, waiting . . . But he knows
you, Mrs. Hudd, he knows you . . . He hasn't given
me any rest. Just lying there. In the dark.
Hour after hour .... You don't think he's going j
to go away without seeing you, after he's come all
this way, do you? You don't think that, do you?35 |
Even though the man Just lies there, his presence is up
setting.
With Riley's entrance comes the destruction of Rose's|
world. There is some shock, because it has not been men
tioned before, when the man from the dark basement turns
out to be a dark man— a Negro, doubly dark because he is
blind. In spite of being blind, the man "looks about the j
room," notes that "This is a large room," answers Rose's
question of what he wants with the reply, "I want to see
you." Rose, anxious to keep control, seizes on each of
these events. When Riley glances about, she demands,
"What are you looking at? You're blind, aren't you?" When:
he comments on the size of the room, she interjects, "Never:
mind about the room." To his statement that he wishes to
see her, she retorts "Well you can't see me, can you?
You're a blind man. An old, poor blind man. Aren't you?
o ZT
Can't see a dickeybird."
Her reaction to the intrusion of this "poor blind
35Ibid., pp. 114-115.
36ibld., pp. 116-117.
27
man" is acutely defensive. He cannot trick her by looking
about the room because she can see that he is blind: "Whatl
do you think you've got here, a little girl? I can keep up|
with you." Rose is trying to prove that she is not a help
less innocent but someone who can take care of herself when!
i
she again refuses to be tricked, this time in connection
with Riley's name: "What? That's not your name. That's
not your name. You've got a grown-up woman in this room,
i
do you hear?"3^ Interestingly, Rose had insisted to Mr.
Kidd that it was not possible for her to know whoever it
was in the basement, and one of the first things she says
when Riley comes in is, "I don't know who you are," yet she;
immediately insists that he is not telling the truth when
he says, "My name is Riley."
More ambiguity is involved as the scene develops.
Riley claims to have a "message" for Rose— "Your father
wants you to come home." Rose replies, "Home? Go now.
Come on. It's late. It's late . . . Stop it. I can't
take it.'° She does not seem especially surprised that
Riley represents her father's interests; it is something
she never questions. Her reaction moments later is much
the same when Riley addresses her as Sal:
37Ibld., p. 116.
38Ibld., p. 118.
28
RILEY:
(pause)
ROSE:
RILEY:
ROSE:
Come home, Sa1
What did you call me?
Come home, Sal.
Don't call me that. ^
She does not deny the name Sal, she merely does not wish
i
to be called Sal. Another element of ambiguity comes in j
unobtrusively when Riley switches to the first person and
it is no longer "Your father," but "I want you to come
home." Rose continues the conversation as though she has
not even noticed the change.
Now that the threat is out in the open, though not
understood by the audience because of the amount of inform-j
ation Pinter withholds, Bert reenters and momentarily
ignores the presence of Rose' s caller. Speaking for the
first time in the play, Mr. Hudd expresses some of his own i
fears as he tells his wife about his drive:
I got back all right .... I had a good bowl
down there . . . I drove her down, hard. They
got it dark out .... They got it very icy
out . . . But I drove her . . . There was no
cars. One there was. He wouldn't.move. I
bumped him. I got back all right.40
Where Rose's terror was based on the idea of some
thing intruding, possibly from the basement, into the securf
ity represented by and created by her room, her husband's
menace lies outside the room in the form of an indefinite
"they" who go so far as to control the weather in an efforts
39Ibld., p. 118.
4oIbld., pp. 119-1 2 0.
29
to destroy him.
All through the speech to his wife, Mr. Hudd seems
unaware of Riley, but when he turns his attention to the
intruder, it is with a vengeance. Because he is not his
personal menace, Mr. Hudd easily nullifies him. Screaming
"Lice," Bert knocks the Negro to the floor and kicks him
until he lies still (there is no evidence that the man is
dead, as is assumed by some critics). The Negro's blind
ness is transferred to Rose, now completely isolated, who
stands repeating, "I can't see” as there is a blackout and
the curtain comes down.
The plot is simple. There is a room. There is a
door in the room--the very existence of which contains men
ace, for it might be opened at any time, and who or what
might enter is unknown. The people in the room have iso
lated themselves from the world ana have attempted to
create a reality of their own, a mother caring for her
child in a safe place, so that they may have an illusion
of security. They are, in Pinter's words, ”at the extreme
edge of their living, where they are living pretty much
alone." Given this background, how does Pinter produce
a play with more than limited private appeal and meaning?
In part the answer lies in the plot itself, since so much
^Pinter, interview with Tynan, quoted in Esslin,
Theatre of the Absurd, p. 216.
is generalized by lack of specifics that the events take on
an allegorical cast. It is here that a more detailed exam-
i
ination of the play's imagery and symbolism 13 needed.
The central image of this drama is the room itself.
Everything in Rose's life takes place in the room and all
her dialogue is in terms of the room. It is, therefore,
through the room that Rose is vulnerable. It is Rose's
place in the room which is threatened when menace upsets
her: the Sands pose a threat when they reveal that the
room is to be let, and Riley tries to get her to leave the ;
room. Through constant allusion to and imagery revolving
around the room, a symbol is evolved. The room becomes
more than a location where the Hudds live, it is a place
where "We don't bother anyone else . . . And nobody bothers^
us."42
The basement becomes a symbol as it is juxtaposed
with the room. Where Rose's abode is a large place of
life, light, warmth, comfort, happiness, and the known (a
world to itself), the basement, with its running walls, is
dark, damp, low-ceilinged with no windows, narrowly parti
tioned, smelly, the unknown (like coffins in the grave).
While the room/basement duality may suggest a conventional
trope for the conscious versus the unconscious, the Freud
ian ego/super ego (room) versus the id (basement), it would!
^2Pinter, The Room, pp. 109 and 97.
be difficult to justify the ending satisfactorily in these
terms. Rose as the ego, protected by the conventionally
safe super-ego, comes into conflict with unidentified sub
conscious desires and urges represented by Riley, who
issues from the subconscious level of the mind, approxima
ted by the basement, to haunt her. Pinter, referring to
psychiatric conjecture about The Homecoming, has called
such speculation "rubbish" and Insists, "I have never read
Preud," though this does not invalidate psychological or
even Freudian interpretations of his work since the con
cepts involved are widespread in society today. Tradion-
ally emotions prevent clarity of vision and, having been
exposed, Rose's awareness of her previously unconscious
desires demands that she lose the protection of innocence
and be initiated into darkness. Resentment of the intru
sion of a disruptive element which momentarily dlsrupfcsbhis
orderly and comfortable existence may motivate Bert's
attack. He is less susceptible to the super-ego's deter
rent influence because he is less imaginative than his
wife, so he simply strikes out at what bothers him in order
to protect his ego, a practical form of sublimation through
force in Freudian terminology.
Riley, too, has become a symbol even before he ap
pears on stage. A mysterious man who patiently lies wait
ing in the basement, offering the Sands information unknown
to anyone else (the vacancy), and commanding Mr. Kidd, the
dark man serves as a personification of death who comes out
of the grave to bring darkness to Rose. As he is blind, '
Riley might also suggest personified justice, although his j
beating by Bert indicates that he is ineffective. This is
something which would be expected in conforming to Pinter's!
i
theory of verification, however, for it absolute truth is
unknowable, justice is meaningless.
There may be 3ome undisclosed guilt in Rose's past
or an event in her childhood with which Riley is acquainted.
The possibility that the sin was prostitution arises from
several allusions made by Rose herself; angrily reacting to;
Mr. Kidd's suggestion that she might have known the visitor;
downstairs in another district, she retorts, "do you think
I go around knowing men in one district after another?
44
What do you think I am?” Speaking of Riley, she says,
"My luck. I get these creeps come in, smelling up my
room .... Oh, these customers. They come in here and
stink the place out.” Continuing, she alludes to the fact
that Mr. Kidd "lets a respectable house" and Riley has
"^[dragged hei*7 name into it." It is not extremely
4q
^Though he will not play chess with Mr. Kidd as
death is often pictured doing, perhaps because the old
man's time has not come yet— it is typical of Pinter to
offer a fairly obvious bit of symbolism and then at least
partially negate it by introducing a contradictory piece of
evidence.
44
Pinter, The Room, p. 115.
33
important, however, to identify the sin in Rose's past
specifically; only to know that there is something, real
or Imagined, is enough— the meaning of the play is general
in terms of communication and verification since everyone
i
has something in his past and The Room is not merely a casej
history of sin and retribution.
While there may be conflicting interpretations of thei
symbolic matter in The Room, there can be no doubt of the
effect achieved through the technical device of imagery.
Just as the actual events and the symbolism in the drama
cumulatively produce the tone and meaning of the work, so
do Pinter's images lead to an overall feeling which re
flects that meaning. The discussion of imagery in relation!
to the basement and its inhabitant adequately conveys the
sense of dark, dank filth and decay Infested with vermin,
which is Pinter's picture of the menace which haunts the
Hudds. For example, Rose wouldn't know Riley "to spit" on ;
him, and Bert's last word to the fallen Negro is the ex
clamation, "Lice."
Likewise, the use of completely ordinary phrasing
and word choice in the dialogue serves by contrast to em
phasize the increasing unreality of the situation in which
it is spoken. Mr. Hudd's description of his drive at the
end of the play is a sample of the effectiveness of this
technique in which each instance compounds what has gone
before and helps build to a final, unmistakable effect, for
the contrast between the ordinary conversation and the
extraordinary events creates shock and horror since one is
not expected within the context of the other. Humor works
i
in much the same way, for the funny things being said in
j
non-humorous situations accentuate the seriousness of what j
is happening. j
The disintegration of Rose’s character under the j
threat of unknown menace is the structure of the play. We ,
see her beaten down to the point where she can no longer bej
i
a mother— from rambling garrulity to a sterile repetition
|
of "Yes" and ultimately to being blinded by exposure to the!
i
outside world in the form of Riley. But there are other j
j
characters and other lines of action in the play, and it is!
in them that small weaknesses are apparent. Riley's part
i
is enigmatic and perhaps inconsistent with the roles played!
by the other characters. Pinter has commented on this fact:
i
Well, it's very peculiar, when I got to that point
in the play the man from the basement had to be
introduced, and he just was a blind negro. I don't
think there's anything radically wrong with the
character in himself, but he behaves too differently
from the other characters: if I were writing the jic
play now I'd have him sit down, have a cup of tea. 5
I do not feel that Riley's part is so ill-conceived, as he
seems perfectly natural in his actions and words. Bert's
sudden attack is far more out of place, especially since a j
major part of the terror in the play is verbally expressed !
^Bensky, p. 36.
35
and more terrifying because It is vague and not concrete.
|
There is no motivation apparent for Bert's outburst except !
i
t
that one realizes that he reacted in a similar manner in |
!
the incident during which his van "bumped" a car. When j
I
faced with a threat, he physically attacks. |
Although there are suggestions that the basement and !
Riley specifically represent death, this is not necessary
to the meaning of Pinter's drama— the basement may simply j
equal fear of the unknown and Riley may be equivalent to
any outside menace— since the play is about problems faced
I
by all people. It is universal and the symbols thus need
not stand for particular incidents and persons. The themes
and techniques displayed in The Room will be developed fur-j
ther in Pinter's other plays as he extends his exploration
of this concept. j
Pinter's second play, the three act The Birthday
Party, was begun immediately upon the completion of The
46
Room in 1957> and many of the elements present in his
first play reappear. In the characters there are numerous ;
echoes, too, though they are presented from different
aspects: Rose's motherliness and play acting show up in j
Meg; Petey is Bert without violence; there is. a song about !
Reilly; and Goldberg and McCann are Riley broken down into
46
His first play to be presented professionally, at
the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, on April 28, 1958.
36
47 i
more identifiable terms. The Dumb Waiter carries on the
idea-complex of menace present in The Room and The Birthday
Party with the menace becoming more specific as an organiza
tion (an allegorical representation of society) becomes the!
source of threat, and Pinter explores many of the same j
I
questions from still another perspective. Instead of fo-
i
cusing on an Intended victim, such as Rose or Stanley,
Pinter considers the fate of the tormentor. Goldberg and
McCann from The Birthday Party become Ben and Gus in The j
Dumb Waiter and it is discovered that the terrors faced by i
the haunted are shared by their pursuers— who eventually
suffer an end which is no different from that experienced i
by those they pursue. Although they have voluntarily ac
cepted a place in the system, unlike Rose who tried to
devise a safe environment of her own and Stan who tried to
flee, their reward is that they become their own execution
ers. The conclusion that not even the menacers can escape 1
menace was foreshadowed by Riley's beating in The Room and i
the momentary breakdown or loss of confidence of both
Goldberg and McCann in The Birthday Party.
In The Birthday Party, the horror becomes more in
tense than in The Room as it derives from an even less
logical background. Whatever set the series of events in
motion is less mysterious than the causes hinted at in the i
^7Pinter, The Birthday Party (New York, 1961), p. 11.
37
first play, in spite of being less specific. The undefined
cause becomes extremely general in nature as a result of
the self-contradictory possibilities suggested by the tor
mentors. Again, it is evident that the terrors undergone
by the participants of The Birthday Party are representa
tive fears rather than the portrayal of a single indivi
dual’s plight. Perhaps because the horror is intensified,
by contrast the characters' dialogue sounds much more real
istic and the horror comes through much more strongly.
Humor becomes more important for the same reason. Also,
the element of irony is more prevalent.
Like The Room, The Birthday Party grew out of an ex
perience Pinter himself had. In a letter sent to a friend
during one of his tours as an actor about three years be
fore the drama was written, Pinter describes his rooming
house:
"I have filthy insane digs, a great bulging scrag
of a woman with breasts rolling at her belly, an
obscene household, cats, dogs, filth, teastrainers,
mess, oh bullocks, talk, chat rubbish shit scratch
dung poison, infantility, deficient order in the
upper fretwork." Now the thing about this is that
was The Birthday Party— I was in thoseidigs, and
this woman was Meg in the play; and there was a
fellow staying there in Eastbourne, on the coast.
The whole thing remalnedftwith me, and three years
later I wrote the play.^°
It was out of this bizarre environment that The Birthday
Party came. Like the conception of The Room, the incidents
^®"HaroIdiPinter> An Interview," Paris Review, Pall,
1966, v. 10, #39, PP. 16-17.
38
behind The Birthday Party had been in Pinter's mind for
some time, and the release of writing his first play trig
gered the quick succession of plays which flowed from the
]
thoughts stored in his mind.
As in The Room, carrying throughout The Birthday j
Party is the theme of the threat to a person's security by j
an unknown outside force and the disintegration of that
Individual's character under the onslaught of the attacking:
force. There is also the generalizing effect which allows :
I
the meaning of the play to be extended to all members of
the audience. This includes the idea of verification which!
has contained within it the problems of identity. The
I
techniques which Pinter employs to express and expand these!
two concepts in The Birthday Party are the same as those he I
used in The Room.
From the outset of the play we are reminded of char- ;
acters, events, themes, and devices found in The Room. The
opening conversation between the Boles, Meg in the kitchen
and Petey in the living-room, is typical in its natural
banality, with no real exchange of information taking
place:
MEG: Is that you, Petey? (Pause) Petey, is
that you?
PETEY: What?
MEG: Is that you?
PETEY: Yes, it's me.
MEG: What? . . . Are you back?
PETEY: Yes.
39
MEG: I've got your cornflakes ready i . .
Here's your cornflakes . . . Are they
nice?
PETEY: Very nice. 49 • I
MEG; I thought they'd be nice. i
i
There are numerous minor elements Involved In -this talk j
which by the very weight of their numbers create a signifi-j
cant comment on life (mutual avoidance and lack of under- j
i
standing lead to banality In serious situations) when com- j
j
blned with similar elements during the course of the play, j
i
The Idiom Is natural and familiar, producing, like that in |
i
The Room, a background against which future events will be j
i
magnified by contrast. Both people are talking, yet j
neither divulges any worthwhile data and each continues
talking In a circular fashion as though the other isn't
answering. Meg becomes characterized by her constant
desire to know If something Is "nice," and her motherly
concern which will become extremely strong when directed
at Stan, recalling Rose's role playing In The Room. Unlike!
Rose, though, Meg is generally oblivious to what Is really j
happening about her. The lack of communication between
husband and wife sets the mood for what Is to follow, Im
plying unsettling conditions.
In The Dumb Walter similar things are implied in the i
j
same way. As the play opens, even before the first words
i
are spoken, a feeling of uneasiness is established by the
^Pinter, The Birthday Party, p. 9*
. 40
: motions of the two men, Gus and Ben, Gus has difficulty J
^ tying his shoelaces, partly because there is a matchbox in
one shoe and a packet of cigarettes in the other. While
determining what the problem is, he wanders about the room.!
Ben, who is trying to read a newspaper, is continually dis-|
turbed by Gus's actions. Gus goes into the bathroom and
i
pulls the chain, but nothing happens--the first of several ;
times this pattern is repeated. When he comes back into
I
the room, Ben slams his paper down, exclaims "Kaw," and
reads an article to Gus about an eighty-seven year old man i
who was run over when he crawled under a lorry because he
could not see to cross the road. The appalled manner with j
|
which the two men react to an incident of violence unrela- i
ted to themselves is humorous, and in light of the subse
quent revelation of their business, morbidly ironic. They !
display little emotion over the murder they are about to
commit, but the accidental death of an unknown old man
seems so unbelievable that they become upset. Their ner
vousness is similar to that shown by McCann in The Birthdayj
Party before a job. The work begun, though, they will
probably settle down and demonstrate their ability as he
did.
Like McCann and Goldberg, Gus and Ben talk about
their unconventional jobs in conventional terms. Gus noti-|
ces that, "He's laid on some very nice crockery, this
time," and confesses that he's "quite taken with the
41
50
crockery." He goes on to note that he "always" manages
!
to bring "a few biscuits" for the tea break and like most !
employees half seriously gripes that he hopes "It won't be
a long job, this one."^ As before there Is humor and
Irony based on the disparity between the words and the con-j
text In which they are spoken.
It Is not long before the seemingly Innocuous opening:
scene of The Birthday Party begins to Involve the dimension!
of terror, too, with Petey's unobtrusive remark to Meg that;
two men had approached him the night before, inquiring
about a room to rent. The next clue which serves to tell
us that things are not as they should be is the sounds com-;
ing from Stan's bedroom when Meg goes to wake him:
MEG: I always take him up his cup of tea. But
that was a long time ago.
PETEY: Did he drink it?
MEG: I made him. I stood there till he did.
I tried to get him up then. But he
wouldn't, the little monkey. I'm going
to call him. (She goes to the door)
Stan.' Stanny.' (She listens. 1 StanJ
I'm coming upJ I'm going to count threeJ
One.' Two] Three.' I'm coming up to get ■
you.' (She exits and goes upstairs.
In a moment, shouts from STANLEY, wild
laughter from MEG. PETEY takes his plate
to the hatch. Shouts. Laughter. PETEY i
sits at the table. SllenceT She
returnsTl He's coming down. (She is
panting and arranges her hair.) I told
him if he didn't hurry up he'd get no
breakfast.
50
Pinter, The Dumb Waiter (New York, 1961), p. 87.
51Ibld., p. 87.
42
PETEY: That did it, eh? ^
MEG: I'll get his cornflakes.
Meg's words and actions are more like those of a combina
tion mother/mistress than landlady, as she calls him a
little monkey and Stanny and counts before going after him,
i
returning with mussed hair. Moreover, Petey hears the
entire exchange as one of the members of the game even to
the extent of saying, "Ta-ta, Stan," as he exits, rather
than objecting to his wife's antics with the younger man
as would be expected.
Meg continues her role playing, switching from mother
to mistress through most of Act I, She tells Petey that !
i
Stan does not deserve any breakfast because he came down
stairs late, and then cajoles Stan to eat his cornflakes
"Like a good boy."3 When Stan does not agree that the
cornflakes are lovely and refreshing, she calls him a
"little liar. To Stan's answer to her question about
whether the fried bread was nice, she responds like a play
ful mistress:
MEG: Was it nice?
STANLEY: What?
MEG: The fried bread.
STANLEY: Succulent.
MEG: You shouldn't say that word.
52Pinter, The Birthday Party, p. 14.
53ibld., p. 1 6.
5^ibid., p. 15.
55ibid., p. 15.
43
STANLEY: What word?
MEG: The word you said.
STANLEY: What, succulent— ?
MEG: Don't say It!
STANLEY: What's the matter with it? j
MEG: You shouldn't say that word to a married j
woman. f - c . i
STANLEY: Is that a fact?1 3 j
Meg's misunderstanding of the word succulent is symbolic j
j
both as a summary of her character and as a statement about!
life. It is not that she just does not understand this j
i
particular word, she has no true grasp of the meaning of
most words and so, although she talks and listens, she says
and hears nothing which bears on life as a meaningful ex-
t
perience. Again, by extension, life is meaningless, or at
least gives a reflection of meaninglessness. The absurdity-:
!
of life is humorous when expressed in terms of an elderly
woman being shocked by the use of a harmless word, but the |
tragedy of such a situation is also pathetically evident.
For Pinter, "Everything is funny; the greatest earnestness
is funny. Even tragedy is funny. And I think what I try
to do in my plays is to get to this recognizable reality
of the absurdity of what we do and how we behave and how
we speak. The point about tragedy is that it is no longer ;
funny. It is funny, and then it becomes no longer
57
funny."
56
Ibid.. pp. 17-18.
57pinter interview with Tennyson, Esslin Theatre of
the Absurd, pp. 205-206.
Later, humor will also be used by Pinter to intensify
the horror contained in The Birthday Party just as he did
in The Room. The good humor with which Goldberg and McCann
plan the party enhances the terror of the inquisition whichi
I
precedes the festivities. Lulu's exchange with Goldberg
after spending the night with him is amusing. The corre- !
lation between the event and the language used in discuss
ing the event is a fine example of the dramatist's conten- !
tion that "everything is funny":
You used me for a night. A passing
fancy.
Who used who?
You made use of me by cunning when my
defenses were down.
Who took them down.
That's what you did. You quenched your
ugly thirst. You took advantage of me
when I was overwrought. I wouldn't do
those things again, not eyen for a
SultanJ
One night doesn't make a harem.
You taught me things a girl shouldn't
know before she's been married at least
three timesJ
Now you're a jump ahead. What are you
complaining about?
You didn't appreciate me for myself. You
took all those liberties only to satisfy
your appetite. eg
Now you're giving me indigestion.
Pinter's view of the affinity between what is comic and
what is tragic provides ah insight into his use of inci*-
dents such as Lulu's meeting with Goldberg— her
LULU:
GOLDBERG:
LULU:
GOLDBERG:
LULU:
GOLDBERG:
LULU:
GOLDBERG:
LULU:
GOLDBERG:
58
Pinter, The Birthday Party, p . ' J . 19.
"earnestness" Is undercut by the "recognizable reality of
i
the absurdity" of her behavior and the words spoken In
this context.
Further discussing the effect of recognizing the ab
surdities and uncertainties in life, Pinter says, "the fact;
that it /Tife7 is verging on the unknown leads us to the
next step, which seems to occur in my plays. There is a
kind of horror about and I think this horror and absurdity :
go together.Having provided a background through col
loquial dialogue and interactions between the characters,
Pinter is now ready to amplify his hints of terror.
The first hint, of course, was Petey's revelation
about the presence of strangers. The hints become less
vague arid more obviously facets of the building terror when
Stan recalls for us that he is a boarder and not a son,,
even though he is treated like a member of the family:
when Meg decides not to give him something cooked for
breakfast because he rose late, Stan casually considers
60
going "down to one of those smart hotels on the front,"
and a bit after reminds Meg that he's the only lodger they
have had since he has been there. In the first case Meg
does not react to his casual comment casually as she
quickly goes into the kitchen to get him some fried bread,
•^Pinter, interview with Tennyson, Esslin Theatre of ;
the Absurd, pp. 205-206.
6°Pinter, The Birthday Party, p. 1 9.
46
indicating that not only does she take him literally but
also that the threat that she might lose him is of a ser
ious enough nature that it must be thwarted quickly.
Stan's observation on the lack of visitors is dramatic
irony since the audience already knows that visitors are
on their way, maybe even outside the door at this very
moment. Prom this point on actions and imagery coalesce
to form the mounting mood which is explicitly realized
with the arrival of Goldberg and McCann. Stan derides
Meg for not making her husband a cup of tea and accuses
her of serving him sour milk instead. He calls her an
"old washing bag,tells her that it is not her place
to come into a man's bedroom, says he cannot drink "this
muck," ^ 2 and violently attacks her housekeeping, calling
the place a "pigsty"^ an(3 cataloguing the various things
that need improving, finally recoiling from her in disgust.
Now comes the actual introduction of menace, and it
is evident from Stan's actions that he recognizes the
existence of the menace. Meg simply mentions that she's
got to get ready "for the two gentlemen-- A pause.
STANLEY slowly raises his head. He speaks without
61Ibid., p. 1 9.
62Ibid., p. 1 9.
63ibid., p. 19.
47
turning.1 1 Acting as though he does not understand, he
asks her what she is talking about, and then claims that
he does not believe her and she is "saying it on purpose,"
as if childishly to upset him. He demands to know more
about the men and then solves the problem like Rose, try
ing to protect himself from menace by denying its exist
ence, by "decisively" insisting that, "They won't come . .
. . Someone's taking the Michael . . . . It's a false
alarm.
Ignored on the spoken level, the news has a causal
effect and things are suddenly no longer as they were. A
concern with identity emerges and Stan asserts himself by
asking Meg who she thinks she is talking to, and then pro
ceeding to tell her:
I've played the piano all over the world. All over
the country. (Pause.) I once gave a concert. . . .
(reflectively) Yes. It was a good one, too. They
were all there that night. Every single one of them.
It was a great success. Yes. A concert. At Lower
Edmonton . . . (to himself) I had a unique touch.
Absolutely unique. They came up to see me. They
came up to me and said they were grateful. Champagne
we had that night, the lot. (Pause.) My father
nearly came down to hear me. Well, I dropped him a
card anyway. But I don't think he could make it.
No, I-I lost the address, that was it. (Pause.)
Yes, Lower Edmonton. Then after that, you know what
they did? They carved me up. Carved me up. It was
all arranged, it was all worked out. My next con
cert. Somewhere else it was. In winter. I went
down there to play. Then, when I got there, the
6ZfIbid., p. 21.
48
hall was closed, and the place was shuttered up.
(Takes off his glasses and wipes them on his pyjama
jacket.) A fast one. They pulled a fast on. I'd
like to know who was responsible for that. (Bitter
ly. ) All right, Jack, I can take a tip. They want
me to crawl down on my bended knees. I can
take a tip . . . any day of the week.^
The pattern of contradiction lends itself to humor as each
positive statement is lessened by another positive, albeit
not so grand, statement: the world becomes the country,
which becomes Lower Edmonton; everyone attended--except his
father, who was nearly there because Stan "dropped him a
card," only the address was lost. On another level Stan's
history is pitiful. The manner in which he relates his
tale shows his defeat, and he seems quietly amazed that
such outlandish things could happen to him, yet he is re
signed. The whole speech has the same ring to it that
Mr. Kidd's remembrances of his mother and sister had in
The Room.
With the entrance of Goldberg and McCann we have to
reorient ourselves, for they come in with no introductory
information and are immersed in a conversation which has
no logical connection with anything which has preceded it,
yet at the same time reinforces the basic concepts which
have been emerging. Immediately the question of identity
and verification are part of the dialogue: Goldberg
admits to having a son named Emanuel, Manny for short,
65lbid., pp. 23-24.
49
whom he calls Timmy. Goldberg's own name will be ques
tioned by McCann later because he calls himself Nat, but
his father called him Benny and his mother and wife both
call him Simey.^ 7 Similarly, Goldberg attaches two names
to McCann— Dermot^ and Seamus.^9 He also refers to other
things in a confusing manner. When he calls Meg "A good
woman. A charming woman" in Act III, he mentions that his
"mother was the same" and his "wife was identical." 70
This yoking of the two women in his life may be more than
a simple comparison,- there may be literal truth in the
statement because on previous occasions he discussed the
two women in parallel terms. Compare:
Up the street, into my gate, inside the door, home.
"Simey," old mum used to shout, "quick, before it
gets coldJ" And there on the table what would I see?
The nicest plece-of gefilte fish you could wish to
find on a plate.'
and
back I'd go, back to my bungalow with the flat roof.
"Simey," my wife used to shout, "quick, before it
gets cold.'" And there on the table what would I
6 6Ibid., p. 8 1.
6? Ibid., pp. 46 and 6 2.
6 8Ibid.,
P. 73.
6 9Ibid., p. 8 1.
7°Ibid.,
P. 73.
7 1Ibid., p. 46.
50
see? The nicest piece of rollmopp and pickled
cucumber you could wish to find on a plate. ' 2
A good representative of middle class ideals, he married
"a girl, just like the girl that married dear old dad"—
no incest Involved, but the concept of verification is in
volved since the two women are referred to in terms con
fusingly alike. Similarly, when McCann replies "That's
true" to Goldberg's assertion that "Everywhere you go
these days it's like a funeral," Goldberg answers, "True?
Of course it's true. It's more than true. It's a fact,"73
a further comment on the distinction between truth and
falsity. Another dimension of mystery is added as Gold
berg and McCann discuss the job they are to perform, but
don't say what the job is.
When Meg returns, the two visitors demonstrate an
Interest in Stanley, quizzing the landlady about him.
Several things are working here. Stan's earlier uneasiness
at the mention of strangers is recalled and it is implied
that the job has something to do with him. Humor and irony
are present even in a tense situation as Goldberg asks Meg
if McCann might go into her kitchen for "a little
74
gargle,'" and when Meg tells Goldberg that Stan has "been
7 2Ibid., p. 6 2.
7 3Ibid., p. 3 0.
74Ibid., p. 3 3.
51
down in the dumps lately," Goldberg replies, "We'll bring
him out of himself, a statement the true meaning of
which comes out only in Act III. Also mixed with the
humor is Meg's simplicity and inability really to compre
hend the world about her. She repeats a confused version
of Stan's life story:
He once gave a concert .... (falteringly).
In . . .a big hall. His father gave him cham
pagne. But then they locked the place up and he
couldn't get out. The caretaker had gone home.
So he had to wait until the morning before he
could get out. (With confidence.) They were very
grateful. (PauseTl And then they all wanted to
give him a tip. And so he took the tip.»D
The distortion of Stanley's tale also is important because
it allows the realization that Meg, like Rose in The Room,
is coincidentally bragging about the exploits of her "son"
and creating a universe which has some meaning for her—
she becomes more sure of herself as she proceeds even
though she is producing a garbled version of reality (a
practical demonstration of the verification theme, for her
story is as acceptable as his). The verification concept
is displayed pragmatically in The Dumb Waiter when Gus
notices pictures on the wall:
GUS: Hello, what's this? (Peering at it.)
"The First Eleven." Cricketers. You
seen this Ben?
BEN: (reading) What?
^ Ibid., p. 3 6.
76Ibid., p. 34.
52 !
GUS; There's a photo here of the first eleven.
BEN: What first eleven?
GUS: (studying the Photo): It doesn't say.
BEN: What about that tea?
GUS: They all look a bit old to me.''
; The world view revealed by Pinter is full of objects and
events which divulge no meaning because they are incomplete,1
or are so unconnected with the context in which they arfe
found that no meaningful relationship can be easily discov
ered . The verification element is also used later to rein
force the feeling of menace. In an argument about a soccer
game Ben first claims that he was not present, then contra
dicts himself by offering a judgment on a disputed play
which took place in the game:
GUS: You were there yourself.
BEN: Not me.
GUS: Yes, you were there. Don't you remember
the disputed penalty?
BEN: No.
GUS: . . .1 didn't think the other bloke
touched him myself. . .
BEN: Didn't touch him.' What are you talking
about? He laid him out flatj7°
Stan's terror becomes centered around Goldberg and McCann, .
but it is some time before the full impact of the menace is
realized. There is a brief interlude during which Stan and:
his tormentors spar, allowing the mood of terror to in
crease, and then all the pressures are brought to bear on
him. When his attackers finally accuse him of something j
77ibid., p. 8 9.
78ibid., p. 93.
53
concrete, they accuse him of everything— the generalizing
effect which says, it does not matter what you did, all
i
that matters is that you did do something. Stan reinforces!
this idea by never replying in specifics or demanding an j
account of what he has done. He knows that he has guilt of
one sort or another in his past. Whether it is a matter of
stuffing himself with dry toast or of contaminating woman
kind— he has been anti-social.
The progression of Stan's inquisition is a study of
psychological warfare in which the subject is assaulted
from all sides at once, with varying periods of aggression !
and restraint. It begins in Act II when Stan walks in on
McCann, who is methodically tearing a newspaper into five
equal strips (destruction of a medium of communication).
After exchanging simple social amenities, Stan attempts to
leave, but McCann blocks him. The first really explicit
act of terror conducted in the play, this action serves to
substantialize the hint of menace, as it is now clear that
!
the evolving mood of the drama is more than purely a mood,
it is representative of a definite, though as yet still
undefined, horror. Stan quickly begins to explain before
anyone can charge him with being guilty of anything. To
McCann's question of whether he is in business, Stanley
answers:
54
No, I think I'll give it up. I've got a small |
private Income, you see. . . . Don't like being j
away from home. I used to live very quietly—
played records, that's about all. Everything
delivered to the door. Then I started a little
private business, in a small way, and it compelled
me to come down here— kept me longer than I expect
ed. . . . I lived so quietly. . . . You know what?
To look at me, I bet you wouldn't think I'd led
such a quiet life. The lines on my face, eh? It's
the drink. Been drinking a bit down here. But i
what I mean is . . . you know how it is . . . away
from your own . . .all wrong, of course . . .
I'll be right when I get back . . . but what I mean
is, the way some people look at me you'd think I
was a different person. I suppose I have changed*
but I'm still the same man I always was. I mean,
you wouldn't think, to look at me, really . . .
I mean, not really, that I was the sort of bloke
to— to cause any trouble, would you?'°
Nobody could blame Stanley for anything after such a
blanket denial, and minor items such as the lines on his
face are easily explained away (is it not admirable that a
man would miss his "own" so much that he has done a little
drinking to help ease himself through?).
Several times during the conversation Stan moves to
pick up a strip of the tom paper, and McCann warns him to
"Mind that," a threat that, like blocking him from leaving,
keeps the thought of physical violence present. There is
actual physical action when Stan becomes so involved in |
i
his attempts to persuade McCann of his innocence that he
i
grips the other man's arm, as though the physical touch will
I
add credence to his plea. McCann strikes out savagely,
7 9Ibid., p. 43.
| hitting Stanley's am. Stan switches tactics, seeking
i
; McCann's friendship by professing a liking and admiration
j for Ireland and the Irish people, but Goldberg enters
i
i
I before he has a chance to proceed very far. Stan is nearly
ignored as Goldberg, Petey, and McCann talk about the good
old days when young men did not take "liberties" and "knew
the meaning of respect." It is in the course of this con
versation that Goldberg recalls his old mum's calling him
"Simey" and the problem of verifying names is initiated.
When Petey and McCann leave, Stan moves on a new
tack, telling Goldberg that he runs the house which is
presently "booked out," so they will have to find other
80
accommodations. Overlooking Stan's description of the
rooming situation, Goldberg again exercises his image-
making power and control of words in a portrayal of getting
up in the morning:
Some people don't like the idea of getting up In
the morning. I've heard them. Getting up in the
morning, they say, what is it? Your skin's crabby,
you need a shave, your eyes are full of muck, your
mouth is like a boghouse, the palms of your hands
are full of sweat, your nose is clogged up, your
feet stinky what are you but a corpse waiting to
be washed.81
Characteristic of Pinter, the strongest, most effective
imagery is that which centers around filth, decay, and
8°Ibid., p. 47.
®1Ibid., p. 48.
56
odors. The notion of filth, decay, and odor which accom
panies and reinforces Pinter's theme of menace comes into
play in The Dumb Walter, for instance, when Gus objects
that he has been sleeping on dirty sheets— "I thought these
sheets didn't look too bright. I thought they ponged a
Game playing is reintroduced when McCann comes back
and Goldberg, McCann, and Stan suggest to one another that
they take a seat:
GOLDBERG: Sit down.
STANLEY: No.
GOLDBERG: sighs, and sits at the table right.
GOLDBERG: McCann.
McCANN: Nat?
GOLDBERG: Ask him to sit down.
McCANN: Yes, Nat. (McCANN moves to STANLEY.)
Do you mind sitting down?
STANLEY: Yes I do mind.
McCANN: Yes, now, but--it'd be better if you did.
STANLEY: Why don't you sit down?
McCANN: No, not me— you.
STANLEY: No thanks.
Pause.
McCANN: Nat.
GOLDBERG: What?
McCANN: He won't sit down.
GOLDBERG: Well, ask him.
McCANN: I've asked him.
GOLDBERG: Ask him again.
McCANN: (to STANLEY): Sit down.
STANLEY: Why?
McCANN: You'd be more comfortable.
STANLEY: So would you.
Pause.
McCANN: All right.n~If you will I will.
You first. ^ STANLEY:
ftp
° Pinter, The Dumb Waiter, p. 92.
®3pinter, The Birthday Party, p. 49.
57
This little interplay is a serious attempt by the charac
ters to assert their superiority over each other. Similar
84-
events occurred in The Room between Mr. and Mrs. Sands
and earlier in The Birthday Party when Goldberg and McCann
first appear— the problem is solved by Goldberg's sugges
tion that they both sit down. The sematic game which
occurs in The Dumb Waiter, Ben saying "light the kettle,"
85
and Gus insisting on "put on the kettle" as proper usage,
is another version of the sit-down-game. It is a means
through which the characters try to demonstrate their , ;
superiority over one another. Like the envelope scene,
though, the kettle argument serves a dual purpose; super
ficially the sight of two grown men arguing over the cor
rectness of a phrase is humorous, yet that such an insignif
icant item can excite such intense interest, well beyond
its intrinsic value, indicates that something is amiss and
the underlying current of menace flows closer to the sur
face again. That there is more involved than whose choice
of words is correct is humorously exposed by Ben's denial
of ever having heard the phrase before and his subsequent
use of the term in a manner suggesting that it is not for
eign to him after all.
The question of seating settled, the inquisition be
gins in earnest, with full emotional force. Standing on
®^Pinter, The Room, pages 106 and 110.
pinter, The Dumb.Walter, p. 97.
58
either side of Stan, the two interrogators rapidly fire a
series of non sequitur questions at their subject:
GOLDBERG:
STANLEY:
GOLDBERG:
STANLEY:
GOLDBERG:
STANLEY:
GOLDBERG:
STANLEY:
GOLDBERG:
STANLEY:
McCANN:
STANLEY:>
McCANN:
GOLDBERG:
McCANN:
GOLDBERG:
McCANN:
GOLDBERG:
STANLEY:
McCANN:
GOLDBERG:
McCANN:
GOLDBERG:
McCANN:
GOLDBERG:
McCANN:
McCANN:
GOLDBERG:
STANLEY:
GOLDBERG:
McCANN:
GOLDBERG
McCANN:
GOLDBERG
McCANN:
GOLDBERG
McCANN:
When did you last wash up a cup?
The Christmas before last.
Where?
Lyons Corner House.
Which one?
Marble Arch.
Where was your wife?
In-
Answer.
(turning, crouched): What wife?
He's killed his wife.'
(sitting, his back to the audience): What
wife?
How did he kill her?
How did you kill her?
You throttled her.
With arsenic.
There's your man.'
Where's your old mum?
In the sanitarium.
Yes.'
Why did you never get married?
She was waiting at the porch.
You skedaddled from the wedding.
He left her in the lurch.
You left her in the pudding club.
She was waiting at the church.
That's the question.'
Do you recognize an external force, . . .
responsible for you, suffering for you?
It's late.
Late! Late enough! When did you last
pray?
He's sweating!
Where is your lechery heading you?
You'11 pay for this.
You stuff yourself with dry toast.
You contaminate womankind.
Why don't you pay for the rent?
Mother defiler!
59 I
GOLDBERG; Why do you pick your nose? j
McCANN: I demand justice.' !
GOLDBERG; What's your trade?
McCANN; What about Ireland?00 |
The controllers of Stanley's ordeal charge their victim ;
with such a magnificent array of crimes, sins, and faux pass
that he must have committed some of them, yet Pinter's !
ambivalent concept of verification and reality is sustained!
when, for instance, Stan's mistreatment and murder of his
wife is denounced only to be followed by a condemnation fori
never marrying. The two charges are mutually exclusive, of'
course. And Stan's examiners never refer to his piano
playing career— the one allegation which might be credible
to the audience.
This confrontation scene is the crux of the play.
It ends in violence with Stan physically attacking Goldberg!
(he kicks him in the stomach) and Stan and McCann circling
one another, each ready to bash the other with a chair,
Qf7
Stan repeating "UuuuuuhhhhhJ "
The potential battle is interrupted by a drumbeat and!
Meg enters to announce the beginning of the birthday party.:
The party is ironic in that it simultaneously celebrates
the death of Stan as an individual (symbolically an artist,!
though the idea of the artist is more useful as a .
86
Pinter, The Birthday Party, pp. 52-55.
87
Ibid., p. 55.
! conventional representation of human sensitivity than as
I a literal fact— at best Stan was a second-rate performer)
and his rebirth as a nonentity conforming to the dictates
of society (when the play ends Stan is dressed as though
for his own funeral). The members of the party play out
their own interests, oblivious to Stanley's presence. Meg
talks about her childhood, McCann reminisces about Ireland,
Goldberg and Lulu practice mutual seduction, Stan sits
silently.
In the ensuing game of blind man's bluff, McCann
touches Stan's glasses, which he breaks after Stan is
blindfolded. Stan is forced back into an active role by
the game. No longer able to see, he destroys the drum when
McCann places it in his way, and then, as if released from
social conventions by the mask or by the thought that if
he's going to be damned, he might as well be condemned for
a concrete reason, he turns on the two women, first trying
to strangle Meg and then trying to rape Lulu.
Act III is an epilogue in which we see the results
of Stanley's ordeal. Meg is still unaware of reality—
mentioning Goldberg and McCann's relationship to Stan, she
n 1 1 8 8
says, 'I think they're old friends." Petey is aware of
! events, enquiring about Stan's condition, but not strong
88Ibid., p. 7 1.
61 \
enough to stand up to the tormentors. McCann and Goldberg |
i
are less polished as a team now that the mission Is accom
plished, and Goldberg stands around spouting aphorisms.
Lulu has undergone an experience with Goldberg which should^
have taught her a lesson, but she gives no Indication that
her future conduct will be any different. Stanley "Is
dressed In striped trousers, black jacket, and white collar.
He carries a bowler hat in one hand and his broken glasses
O n
in the other. He is clean-shaven." ^ He cannot talk.
"Still the same old Stan," comments Goldberg.9<“ * These are
the results of exposure to menace.
The Birthday Party, like The Room, lends itself to
a symbolic interpretation. Keeping in mind the alternate
symbolism contained in the metaphor of the birthday party,
Stan's change of character and his funeral attire in Act
III, the dramatization may be seen as an allegory of death.
There is also ample evidence that Goldberg and McCann may
represent the ideals of society with Stan filling the role
of the artist forced back into the mold of conventionality.
One of Goldberg's characteristics is the continual repeti
tion of cultural cliches, but like the advice of Polonius, ;
the rules laid down are meaningless because they depend on i
learning by rote instead of understanding:
8 9Ibid., p. 8 5.
9°Ibid., p. 8 9.
62
Uncle Barney taught me that the word of a gentleman
is enough. . . my name was good.91 . . . Do your duty i
and keep your observations. Always bid a good morn- j
lng to your neighbors. Never, never forget your
family, for they are the rock, the constitution and j
the core.92. t . play up, and play the game. Honour !
thy father and mother. . . Follow the line, McCann, i
and you can't go wrong. What do you think, I'm a
self-made man? No! I sat where I was told to sit.
I kept my eye on the ball. School? Don't talk to
me about school. Top in all subjects. And for why? '
Because I'm telling you, I'm telling you, follow
my line? Follow my mental? Learn by heart. Never
write down a thing. No. And don't go too. near the
water. And you'll find— that what I say is true.
Because I believe that the world . . . (Vacant.)
. . . Because I believe that the world . (Des
perate. ) . . . BECAUSE I BELIEVE THAT THE WORLD
. . . (Lost.).93
Another characteristic is his faith in panaceas: "The
secret is breathing. Take my tip. It's a well-known fact.
Breathe in, breathe out, take a chance."9^ Later he will
claim success because he never lost a tooth, will have
McCann check hi3 throat and then blow in his mouth, and
stretch a chest expander (which he carries with him) until
it breaks.
The crimes attributed to Stan are mostly anti-social--
murder, failure to keep a clean house, refusal to marry.
The catalogue of awards Goldberg and McCann offer Stanley
for his rehabilitation likewise reflects socially desirable |
9lIbid., p. 3 1.
92ibid., p. 30.
93ibid., p. 8 0.
94Ibld., p. 2 9.
goals and prizes. Stan has been cockeyed for years, but
now he has friends who will help him see straight again.
Having broken his glasses, they will get him a new pair.
They suggest that he has had a nervous breakdown, an accep
table modern social illness, and should have a long conva
lescence "Somewhere over the rainbow," "Where angels fear .
to tread. Once Stanley has followed this program he'll
be set for life as McCann and Goldberg recite in rhythmical
stichomythia:
MeCANNi We'll renew your season ticket.
GOLDBERG: We'll take tuppence off your morning tea.
MdCANN: We'll give you a discount on all inflam- !
mable goods.
GOLDBERG: We'll watch over you.
McCANN: Advise you.
GOLDBERG: Give you proper care and treatment.
Me CANN: Let you use the club car.
GOLDBERG: Keep a table reserved.
McCANN: Help you acknowledge fast days.
GOLDBERG: Bake you cakes.
Goldberg and McCann may also represent another form
of conventionality--organized religion. Their names, the
foods mentioned by Goldberg and his Jewish phrasing utter
ing of "sacred" cliches, their ritualistic approach, the
reference to McCann's recent leaving the cloth ("He's only
been unfrocked six months")^ have been seen by Ruby Cohn98|
95 !
Ibid., p. 86. i
96lbid., p. 8 7. !
97ibid., p. 85. j
Ruby Cohn, "The World of Harold Pinter," Tulane I
Drama Review VI, iii (Spring 1 9 6 2), pp. 5 5-6 8. j
64
and Bernard Dukore^ as evidence of this limiting force
which is brought to bear on the artist by the Judaeo-
Christian tradition (Cohn insists on the use of cliches
while Dukore concentrates on the significance of the name
changes and the circumstances in which they occur). The
two men also convey a feeling of inevitability. As Gold
berg tells Meg when.she professes happiness that the two
men arrived when they did, "If we hadn't come today, we'd
have come tomorrow.1,100 Other critics have agreed that
Goldberg stands for family, school, and social relation
ships and McCann serves the Interests of politics and
religion.
Though there is an artist versus society motif in
The Birthday Party, as in The Room, the meaning need not be
so limited. Because neither the original deed which stimu
lated the menace nor the source from which the menace gen
erates are Identified, and because of the generalizing
effect created by the inclusiveness of the sins attributed
to Stan, once again it is implied that everyone is vulner
able to such terror. One cannot create a secure environ
ment as attempted by Rose, nor can one hide from insecurity
in an already existing situation as tried by Stan. The
99
Bernard Dukore, "The Theatre of Harold Pinter,"
Tulane Drama Review VI, iii (Spring 1 9 6 2), pp. 43-54.
100Pinter, The Birthday Party, p. 35.
i Birthday Party continues the theme of menace initiated in
| The Room, but the menace is less mysterious and more speci
fically concerned with matters of society in the second
play. The Dumb Waiter, Pinter's third play, will explore
I
further sources of horror and the possible consequences of i
exposure of menace.
That it is an organization which Ben and Gus serve
and Gus criticizes in The Dumb Waiter is clear. Somebody
selects the victim, someone else rents the room and notify.;
fies the enforcement squad, and someone else is in charge
of cleaning up whatever mess is made. As Ben says, "They
got departments for everything."101 This picture of a job
for everyone and everything with everyone performing his
own specialization is close enough to a description of
modern society for a correlation to be drawn. Here, then,
the play becomes a depiction of the fate of a sensitive man
(one who begins to ask questions because his last victim
was a girl who came apart so messily that he wonders who
clears up the remains), presenting a threat to society
because he questions rather than accepts and who must,
therefore, be destroyed before he destroys. Gus's recent
penchant for asking questions which is brought to his at
tention by Ben: "You're always asking me questions. . . j
!you never used to ask me so many damn questions. What's j
i . . . . . . . — . . .
101
J Pinter, The Dumb Walter, p. 103.
66
come over you? . . . Stop wondering. You've got a job to
102
do. Why don't you just do it and shut up?" serves as a
foreboding. Because Ben accepts everything as it is, as
Goldberg advised McCann to do in The Birthday Party, he has
no problems. His secret of success, "just do it and shut
up," is reminiscent of Goldberg's words in the earlier
play (Act I). Gus's questioning of the system leads him
in front of Ben's pistol by the end of the drama. Unlike
Stan, he cannot be forced back into an acceptable mold--he
pays no attention to Ben's pleas that he remain silent.
Symbolically the dumb waiter has a two-fold signifi
cance. Most obviously it is a mystery. It represents the
unknown, and thus is a potential source of menace, for it
begins functioning suddenly, for no apparent reason. It
continues to operate in the same manner, making demands on
the occupants of the room, but it is as though it is work
ing automatically since it takes no notice of the responses
stimulated by its actions. Allied with the sense of mys
tery centering on the dumb waiter is the religious symbol
ism connected with it.
Religion is an aspect of society which does, of
course, contain and depend on mystery. The actions of the
machine are god-like too. It pre-existed and initiates
action of its own volition. As a representative of
10%bid., p. 99.
! 67 |
authority, it descends to present demands for food-sacri-
fices. The demands are unreasonable— tea when thereiis no
gas, for example. Although the originator of the demands
remains hidden from the eyes of its two subjects, there is
a means of direct communication. Ben speaks "with great
deference" through the speaking tube. After unquestioningly
trying to appease the authority upstairs, Gus fantasizes
about what heavenly, albeit somewhat prosaic, conditions
must exist up there:
Who knows what he's got upstairs? He's probably got
a salad bowl. They must have something up there. . .
They've probably got a salad bowl up there. Cold
meat, radishes, cucumbers. Watercress. Roll mops.
Pause. The lot. They've probably got a crate of
beer too.103
The final and most frightening quality of godhood displayed
by the controller of the dumb waiter is his power over
life— it is through the speaking-tube that Ben receives the:
order that the next person to come through the outside door
is to be the victim.
While on the subject of religious symbolism, it
should be pointed out that some critics have detected as
pects of Christianity symbolized in the play.3-0^ The at- i
tempt to link the twelve matches in the envelope to Christ's;
apostles and the trinity of rings on the stove to the
| j
103Ibid., pp. 113-114. |
104i(pinterview, " Newsweek LX (July 23, 1 9 6 3), p. 6 9.
!
1
68
Christian tradition seems rather far-fetched, however.
Although an author cannot be accepted completely when
speaking of his own work, Pinter has commented:
When I say there are three rings, I mean there are
three rings. But all of us are indeed surrounded
by the remnants of a Christian civilization. This
question of understanding is on so many different
levels— after all, you can understand with your
big toe-.10?
Aside from any symbolic significance, Pinter's use of
the incident of the envelope of matches being pushed under
the door is admirable. Terror of the unknown is evoked
from the fact that no logical explanation is offered for
the existence of the envelope--there is no writing on it,
no message in it, just the twelve matches. The unknown
element is further compounded when no one is discovered in
the passageway who could have pushed the enigmatic object
under the door. It is here, too, that the audience is
given the first solid indication as to what kind of job Ben
and Gus perform when Gus approaches the door, gun in hand.
That the men have something to fear is obvious from the
presence of the gun, and the door is once more established
as a likely source from which the expected menace will
emerge. Pinter also employs humor in this incident with a
two-fold result. When Ben notes that whoever left the
packet "must have been pretty quick"10^ to have been able
1 0 5Ibid., p. 6 9.
106pinter, The Dumb Walter, p. 96.
69
to disappear before Gus could get to the door, it is funny
because the audience is aware that the actual amount of
time which elapsed between the envelope's appearance and
Gus's opening of the door is not a matter of mere seconds,
and because of this discrepancy some insight of the char
acters' very subjective view of the universe is gained.
The differing reactions of Ben and Gus to the dumb
waiter phenomenon likewise offer a chance to distinguish
some of the differences in their natures which in turn
helps elucidate the meaning of the play. Their attitudes
toward the dumb waiter and its demands are identical to
their attitudes toward other subjects and events in the
drama. Ben accepts without question the absurdity of the
situation and tries his best to fill the impossible demands
made of him. As Alexander Pope phrased it in Essay on Man,
"Whatever is, is right." Gus, on the other hand, neither
accepts nor totally acquiesces; he complains and questions
the whole set of events: "We send him up all we've got and
he's not satisfied. No, honest, it's enough to make the
cat laugh. Why did you send him up all that stuff?
(Thoughtfully.) Why did I send it up?"10^ The distinction
between the positions of the two men is forcefully demon
strated frequently as when Gus looks up the shaft and Ben
1Q7ibid., p. 113* .
70
*i / - \ Q
"flings him away In alarm." Significantly the speaklng-
!
tube works only for Ben.
The presence of the Infernal machine has so Influ
enced the thoughts and emotions of the two-men that they i
no longer mesh. Ben reprimands Gus for not polishing his
gun— pride In one's work Is a middle-class virtue. The
speaking-tube settles the question of usage argued earlier,
in Ben's favor. In catechistlc style the pair then goes
through a dry run of the procedure they follow in an actual;
murder— but for the first time Ben forgets the point at
which Gus is to take his gun out. Gus persists In asking
questions and Ben becomes increasingly more nervous as the i
questions continue, ultimately turning on his partner phys-;
ically. The men momentarily repeat the newspaper routine,
but like everything else which has been repeated since the j
first arrival of the dumb waiter, the sincerity and enthus
iasm of the previous occurrence is missing. Ben doesn't
even read the article, a fact which makes no difference in
ithis new context. '
When Gus goes off-stage for a glass of water, Ben
receives the instructions that the victim is coming. When j
Gus returns, he is "stripped of his jacket, waistcoat, and j
i
tle,"1^ a conventional use of the removal of clothing to
| |
— — ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: 1
108Ibid., p. 105. |
109Ibid., p. 121.
signify the reduction of a man to his most basic state. |
The situation which exists as the curtain falls is over- I
whelming in its implications: Gus has been questioning
the organization (society) and the organization has orderedj
him destroyed; it is Ben, though, who finds himself in an
incredible predicament--lf he follows orders and kills his !
companion, he is sure to start thinking himself, for it
was a traumatic experience which started Gus's mental pro
cesses, and will in turn have to be destroyed by the organ
ization; if he does nbt shoot Gus, they will both be pur
sued. He has been given an impossible choice, one to which;
there is no correct answer, and one which is faced by most :
members of society in one form or another at one time or
another.
When initiative and imagination are stifled, they are;
destroyed. And they must be stifled to a great extent for :
a society to survive, since society is based on order and
the willingness of the majority to accept unquestioningly ;
menial tasks and the rationale explaining them. A figure ;
such as Gus represents quite a threat to a status quo
founded on such principles, since he initiates questioning.j
The gradual build-up of terror follows much the same ;
i
pattern in The Dumb Walter as in The Room and The Birthday I
i
Party. At first there are seemingly Inconsequential facts j
and thoughts mentioned in the course of normal conversation
which take on completely new meanings in toto and in
72
juxtaposition with one another until the menace becomes
I |
I ;
obvious on an intellectual level, mirroring the underlying ;
tone which has been evolving throughout— the final point ofj
| i
the play comes when these two elements are joined, each
; reinforcing the other.
Ambiguity is one of the keystones in Pinter's drama
and the title of this play is in line with such a technique.
Does it refer to the actual machine, Ben's lack of insight,
or the silent killer waiting for his prey? Probably all
three are Involved. Such ambiguity is symptomatic of
Pinter's view of the universe. The machine which does not
work is another evidence of his view. That the toilet does:
not flush properly for Gus does not greatly surprise us,
for in a universe such as ours the traditional is no longer
valid and we only partly expect machines to function pro
perly since there seems to be no logical reason why they
should. This point of discontinuity of lack of connection
was likewise displayed in the picture of the "first eleven.":
As in the previous two plays, humor and dialogue play:
* dual roles. Humor, besides providing something to laugh
I
j |
|at, also serves simultaneously as comic relief and a means ;
i i
I of heightening the feeling of terror by contrast. Examples
ihave already been cited, but it is important to reiterate
i
I
| that a good deal of Pinter's comedy rests on an ironic
1 j
|base. Dialogue is used to keep the action flowing and to
establish a realistic framework, once more allowing an
73
intensification of the menace effect through contrast with
the unrealistic context in which it is uttered. But for |
i i
; Pinter there is much more involved. In "Between the Lines,,
I an article he wrote for The Sunday Times (London), he de- j
s lineates his theory of language and paralanguage:
i Language, under these conditions, is a highly ambi
guous commerce . So often, below the words spoken,
is the thing known and unspoken. . . . There are two ;
silences. One when no word is spoken. The other
when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed
. . . The speech we hear is an indication of that
we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a
violent, shy, anguished or mocking smokescreen which
keeps the other in its place. When true silence
falls we are still left with echo but are nearer
nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say
it is a constant strategem to cover nakedness. . ..
I think that we communicate only too well, in our
silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place!
is continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts
to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is
too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is
too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty
within us is too fearsome a possibility. . . I'm not |
suggesting that no character in a play can ever say
what he in fact means. Not at all. I have found
that there invariably does come a moment when this
happens, where he says something, perhaps, which he
has never said before. And where this happens,
whatihe says is irrevocable and can never be taken
back. . . . There is another factor which I think has j
considerable bearing on this matter and that is the
I Immense difficulty, if not impossibility, of verify- j
ing the past. I don’t mean merely years ago, but
yesterday, this morning. What took place, what was
the nature of what took place, what happened. If |
one can speak of the difficulty of knowing what in i
! fact took place yesterday one can I think treat the j
present in the same way. What's happening now? |
i We won't know until tomorrow or six months time, i
j and we won't know then, we'll have forgotten or our I
| Imagination will have attributed quite false charac-
| teristics to today. A moment is sucked away and j
distorted, often even at the same time of its birth, j
74
I
| We will all Interpret a common experience quite
differently, though we prefer to subscribe to the j
view that there's a shared, common ground, a known
ground. I think there's a shared common ground all
right, but that It's more like quicksand. Because
"reality" is quite a strong, firm word, we tend to
I think, or to hope, that the state to which It refers |
Is equally firm, settled, and unequivocal. It I
doesn’t seem to be, and In my opinion It's no worse
or better for that.110
The entire conversation of The Dumb Walter (or any Pinter
play, for that matter) is an example of Pinter's concept
of language in practice, which In turn reflects the inter
relationship of his themes of menace, verification, and
communication. As can be seen in his comments on language,
the three are inseparable components of a whole, and all
three must be considered in the discussion of any single
one.
While clearly related to The Room, The Dumb Waiter is;
more closely allied to The Birthday Party which openly sets;
the individual against society (or the system, or the organ
ization) and demonstrates that the man who questions must
either be made to conform or he has to be destroyed by
society for its .own preservation.
In the first three "comedies of menace" Pinter
clearly defines and establishes the Interrelationship be-
itween the three concepts which are basic in his thought |
; i
|(communication, verification, and menace). He also j
110
The Sunday Times (London), March 4, 1962, p. 25.
75
jdevelops his techniques of expression, Including humor
! based on non-sequlturs and funny things being said In un?
i
! funny circumstances as a means of contrasting with and
j
| thereby accentuating the prevailing mood of menace. The
idea of an outside threat to a character's security or
individual identity is fundamental in his work during this '
period. A distinguishing feature of the menace is its in- ;
determinate source. Moreover, the threat itself is never
truly identified, though in The Birthday Party and The Dumb
Waiter it is evident that society is involved. Pinter's
next play, A Slight Ache, is pivotal, showing the beginning
of a change in content.
CHAPTER TWO
A New Direction
A Slight Ache represents a measure of Pinter1s grow
ing success and popular acceptance, for it was originally
commissioned to be performed on the British Broadcasting
1
Corporation Third Program on July 29, 1959. More impor
tantly, though, the drama shows a departure from one of
the main themes of the previous plays and indicates the
new direction Pinter will explore more fully in the plays
to follow. Where The Room, The Birthday Party, and The
Dumb Waiter are based on an actual menace and the action
which grows out of that threat, A Slight Ache concentrates
on the derivation of menace. A quite simple detail marks
this play as the beginning of a shift in thematic direc-
tion--it starts out with an unknown menace lurking just
outside the door, but the supposed menace is brought inside
and examined and it becomes evident that it is no menace
at all; the danger is internal, in the minds and actions
of the players. Instead of something external posing a
■^It was later presented at the Arts Theatre in
:London, on January 18, 1961, as a stage play, the first
jof several plays written for a radio or television medium
■and subsequently adapted for the stage.
76
77
threat because it is trying to get at the individual, the
menace exists because there is some need within the indi
vidual which is not fulfilled. Stanley, for example, re
treats to seaside lodgings in an attempt to escape, to cut
himself off from an outside world which had rejected him,
and he creates a self-contained universe which serves as
a sanctuary. With the arrival of Goldberg and McCann, the
outside world has intruded. They are factual manifesta
tions of external physical menace and actually attack
their prey, reducing him to a babblingly impotent figure
by the end of the drama. The matchseller provides no true
threat to either Flora or Edward, except insofar as every
thing has the potential of destroying Edward*s identity.
In The Birthday Party menace is derived from Goldberg and
McCann1s actual pursuit of their quarry. It is the unful
filled emotional needs of the man and woman which are the
source of menace in A Slight Ache.
Just as importantly, in A Slight Ache the menace
starts to become explicitly definable— it revolves around
a central theme of the drive to satisfy primary appetites.2
Where the menace present in the earlier plays is to vary
ing degrees general in nature and the audience never learns
specifically what initiated the threat, from A Slight Ache
2
See Chapman, et al., Chapters Three and Six, for
discussion of this term.
on the origin of menace is more explicit. Pinter narrows
his field of study from generalized menace to need as a
source of menace. A threat to an individual's mental well
being arises from the disparity between the need for and
;the absence of certain psychological elements. Identifica
tion of need as a source of menace simultaneously provides
the characters with a change in motivation, for rather than
trying to escape something, they seek to fulfill their
emotional needs through relationships with other people.
In a familiar opening, the two main characters, Flora :
and Edward, a husband and wife, are discovered sitting at
the breakfast table, engaged in an inane conversation.
Pinter is already preparing for his primary comments,
though, for he quickly establishes : ■ t ’ •.■ob a communica
tions problem between the man and woman, creates an atmos
phere of contradiction and alienation, and demonstrates
the husband's inadequacies. Edward's reaction to Flora's
imisuse of the word bite parallels, and thereby prepares
us for, his sudden actions which he first sees the match-
seller through the window: "/Re stops suddenly/ ...
/thickly/: 'He's there . . . /Tow, murmuring/: Blast
i 3 I
and damn it, he's there.'" The audience becomes increas- i
jingly aware of the menacing nature of the match-seller
j ;
junfolding in Edward's mind as additional bits of !
I ' ;
I i
I i
3Harold Pinter, A Slight Ache in Three Plays (New '
York, 1962), p. 14.
! 79
jinformation are revealed: Edward notes that the stranger
!
i
5has been posted outside their back gate for two months,
denying him, purely through physical presence apparently,
i
the pleasure of using the gate; whereas the wasp had ini
tially been called "vicious" and actually presented no
problem, both husband and wife classify the match-seller
4
as "harmless," in spite of their reaction to his existence
suggesting that since the vicious wasp was harmless the
harmless tramp conversely may prove troublesome. It is
;significant that Flora first refers to the intruder in
5
physical terms--as a large animal, a "bullock" --and that
6
Edward soon picks up her remark. When Flora admits that
she cannot say that she finds the bothersome old man a
7
"nuisance," we are given a foreshadowing of what is to
come, for she seemingly becomes attracted to him, and her
picture of the matchrseller may indicate part of the reason
;that events will occur as they do. Flora's concern with
I the stranger's animal-like appearance indicates a pre-
|occupation with physical matters, and Edward is certainly
i
inot physically impressive. To this point in the play there
:is little to differentiate it from the comedies of menace.
4Ibid., p. 16.
I 5Ibid., p. 17.
j 6Ibld., p. 19.
7Ibid.
The ragged matchseller is invited into the house by.
i !
Flora on Edward's insistence. When he proves harmless, I
unlike the forbidding pair in The Birthday Party who repre
sent external menace intruding on an individual's sanctuary;
it becomes evident that Pinter is introducing a new kind j
!
of menace, for the man does not come in as a real physical
threat.as Goldberg and McCann do— the menace already resides
in the couple. The confrontation between Edward and the
old man brings disastrous results, though: the matchseller
never says a word, and Edward, faced with silence, only
exposes his own fear and inadequacies. When the old man
enters, Edward begins speaking: at first his conversation
seems to be mere rambling, as he talks about the villagers'
former squire and his red-haired daughters. The speech
seems to be a series of memories, each triggered by associ
ation in Edward's mind with what he has just said, but
having no relevance to the action of the play and being
meaningless trivia to the audience. A veiled clue to the
identities which lie behind the tale is included when he
tells of the youngest daughter, whose name he has difficulty
recalling, and refers to her as "the best of the bunch. . .
8 I
A flower." He goes on to mention that he writes "theolog- j
ical and philosophical essays" and "observations of certain j
8Ibid., p. 23.
| tropical phenomena," being especially fond of "Africa ■ . . . j
: my happy hunting ground." His expertise In African matters,
is made questionable seconds later, though, when he in-
! j
: eludes the Gobi in his discussion in a way suggesting that |
he does not distinguish between Africa and Asia geograph
ically, 9 a situation which will be recalled when Teddy is
quizzed on his specialty in The Homecoming.
The speech gives some insight into Edward’s makeup,
and is a pivotal point in the play in terms of defining the
relationship between husband and wife. We learn something
about Edward and his history of failures and partial suc
cesses in life from the knowledge that the essays he is so
proud of are probably faulty since they have not taught
him that the Gobi is in Asia. Edward's reminiscences in
dicate that while he has never been especially successful
before, he cannot even live up to his past now.^° He has
been a relative failure in creative life and the play
shows that this carries over in his attempts to form
^Ibld., p. 2 3.
10See the monologue on pp. 35-36, for instance, in I
which he includes pouring "hot water down the spoon-hole"
: and adjusting the lens of his telescope among his accom- j
plishments— not too impressive as a point of pride. The j
validity of all of his statements 3s made questionable by |
; his reference to the hot water when one realizes that the !
iwasp incident earlier this very day is probably the foun- j .
dation for his claim. On p. 39 his assertion that he was
! ; "number one sprinter at Howells" is opened to doubt when he
alludes to having been "a stripling...like yourself
/Barnabas/*1 "when it is obvious that Barnabas is not a
stripling.
82
relationships with those about him. We learn that things
are not as they should be between Edward and his wife when
we realize that one of the squire’s daughters is Flora and
that Edward is trying to conceal this information. He
relates how Flora has stuck with him "In season and out of
season" (note the floral Imagery connecting the description
of the squire's youngest daughter who "was the best of.the
bunch," "a flower," and Flora) and remembers her "flaming
red hair" in youth— and stops abruptly. 11 Up to this point
there has been nothing to explain Edward and Flora's ac
tions toward one another, but now a little understanding
of their motivation has been added. Although Pinter's play
is not realistic, the actions which take place in it do
proceed from a realistic base of psychological need. In
the sequence following even more information is imparted.
12
Now that he "can get down to brass tacks," the host in
forms the silent stranger that he was not alarmed by the
matchseller's physical appearance. Edward goes on to pro
claim that "Nothing outside this room has ever alarmed
me," and that the matchseller disgusts him. Since he is
agitated, however, one begins to wonder what there is in
side the room which bothers him if nothing outside causes
him to worry when Edward unwittingly provides a clue:
11Pinter, A Slight Ache, pp. 23-24.
12Ibid., p. 26.
83
"You’re no more disgusting than Fanny, the squire's
daughter, after all. In appearance you differ but not
13
in essence." We will be reminded of this admission later
when Edward verbally attacks his wife.
When Flora returns, Edward's understated appraisal
of the situation produces humor, but there is always the
underlying current of menace. Asked how the two men are
"getting on," Edward replies, "remarkably well. He's a
little.. .reticent. Somewhat withdrawn"li|’ --this describing
the completely one-sided talk. Flora offers to examine
their quarry who will .'ladmit everything," to which Edward
hisses, "What are you plotting?"13 The sequence which
follows brings Pinter's new theme into focus for it indi
cates that the wife's unfulfilled desires are uppermost
in her thoughts.
,Sex immediately comes to Flora's mind, as she asks
the matchseller if he has ever been a poacher, a seemingly
irrelevant question until she, like Edward before her,
reveals something of her past, in this case a Laurentian
"rape" with humorous overtones implying her attitude
toward sex: "Of course, life was perilous in those days.
1 3Ibid., p. 2 7.
i^Ibld., p. 2 8.
15Ibid., p. 29.
84
16
It was my first canter unchaperoned." Years later, she
goes on to relate, the man was brought before her for
poaching, but she acquitted him: "He'd grown a red beard,
I remember. Yes, A bit of a stinker"1^--not much of a
condemnation of the man, considering what had happened.
Her phrasing indicates that the story is not to be taken
seriously, but it is a means for introducing the subject
of sex. The fantasy itself Is interesting because it sug
gests that she is seeking a stronger, more domineering man.
Having brought sex into the conversation, Flora mops her
victim's brow, leans on the a m of the chair and intimately
asks If he has a woman. She then rapidly alternates a
castigating attack with a seducing attack. She tells him
that he smells vile, doubts that he realizes sex is "a
very vital experience," commands him to "Speak to /hevj of
love," admires his solid body (perhaps picturing him as the
strong, silent type as opposed to her weak husband), and
ends by deciding to "Keep" him and giving him the name
18
Barnabas, which is appropriate since she turns to him
for solace. Flora then asks if he had been waiting for her
and reveals for the first time that she is aware of the
symbolic content of the situation when she says that she is
going to put him to bed--his deathbed. The connotation of
l6Ibid., p. 31.
17Ibid., p. 3 1.
iQibid., p. 3 2- -an apostle, interpreted the Son of
Consolation, Acts, Iv, 36.___________________________________
85
death in the sex act as a symbolic representation of death
may be implied by this image, but it is more likely that
Flora is acknowledging her selfish motivation which compels
her to kill his individuality so she can subordinate his
personality to her desires. When Edward resumes his con
frontation with the matchseller, he continues to expose
himself, gaining no knowledge of Barnabas in return. The
drama nears conclusion as Edward finally breaks down. His
last spoken words are a question which comes with great
19
effort: "Who are you?" In view of what follows and his
jumbled and inconsistent Insertion of the matchseller into
his own biography, "Who am I?" is really the question.
Flora's act of replacing Edward with Barnabas brings the
curtain down and sums up Pinter's new theme, for she has
actively moved to find psychological satisfaction.
As in the previous works, the strongest images in
A Slight Ache are those of filth and decay in which all of
the senses are abused, emphasizing the mood of menace by
presenting an unpleasant background. One of the first
things that Edward mentions about the stranger is that he
20
can smell him, a not surprising statement considering
that the man is dressed filthily and has been standing in
the rain— even Flora exclaims later that his clothes look
19Ibid., p.39.
2QIbld., pv.21.
86
PI
and feel as though he has been rolling in the mud. x
Symbolically it Is the figure of the matchseller who is
most significant. Some critics22 have suggested that the
matchseller, like the dagger in Macbeth, does not really
exist. They point to the facts that he never is heard and
that A Slight Ache was originally a radio play for evi
dence. Questioning his existence is fallacious for two
reasons: first, the matchseller is included as a character
in the stage directions of the stage version so he exists
by definition; second, and more importantly, the other two
characters act as though he does exist— whether he is real
or not is not as important as the fact that they use him
as a focal point in their struggle for affection. Physi
cally he is described as a dark old man, he is dirty, and
he is pictured in animalistic images. This last item is
important to the overall meaning of the play, for the
imagery used in Edward's speeches indicates that he sees
the man in physical terms, especially in regard to himself
and failure— Barnabas symbolically comes to represent his
antithesis, even though he intrinsically presents no
threat. Flora's depiction of Barnabas as a bullock sheds
some light on her motives. A bullock is an ox or young
2 1Ibid., p. 3 2.
22Arnold Hinchcliffe, Harold Pinter, p. JO, Martin
Esslin, Theatre of the Absurd, p. 20ti. .
87
bull--large, powerful animals full of vitality (Incidental
ly, while Pinter refers to a bullock In other plays, he
never uses the word bull in his dramas). The term is also
applied to a castrated bull, so Flora's interest might not
be entirely sexual, yet there is no question that sex is
involved because of her insistence in it as a subject.
Flora may be using the matchseller as a challenge to her
husband, or perhaps there is a clue here to the reasons
for Edward's failures— Flora's reaction to sex may not be
natural (after all, she seems attracted by a dirty, sick,
passive old man) and she looks to him as a strong replace
ment for her weak husband. In either case game playing,
the use of a third party as a challenge, is being employed
in an effort to find fulfillment, either by forcing her
husband into a role acceptable to her or by allowing her
to engage a substitute. Pinter will explore the game play
ing theme in subsequent plays. That Flora lacks fulfill
ment in her marriage, though, is clear. The fact that she
is willing to turn to an outsider indicates that her hus
band has been unable to satisfy her psychological demands.
She is so desperate in her need that she seizes on Barnabas
as a symbol of fulfillment, even though she is clearly
deluding herself.
Taken together, the imagery describing the match
seller, the roles assigned him by the two main characters,
and the symbolic elements attached to him all combine to
88
produce a character whose prime purpose in the play is to
serve as a catalyst which will allow the problems of a hus
band and wife to be exposed and, after a fashion, to be
solved. All in all, A Slight Ache is basically the story
of a woman's psychological needs, the failure of her hus
band to adequately fulfill those drives, and the wife's
solution. We still may not know the truth of what happened
in the past to start the chain of events in A Slight Ache,
but the motives become clearer as they become less symbolic
and more applicable to the individuals involved. Edward
needs to be needed as the master of all situations as evi
denced in his handling of the rampaging wasp, but he is
emotionally and physically unable to fulfill Flora's
desires. Flora needs more or a different kind of emotional
satisfaction than Edward can provide, so she turns to a
substitute who may satisfy her need. At this point in
Pinter's development it is not clear whether the failure
is meant to represent all failures in life, or if the con
nection has been made between menace and need as a primary
source of threat. Until this drama need has only been
incidentally present. While Edward and Flora dd not dis
cuss their needs, their actions provide evidence that it is
the source of their motivation. Barnabas is not likely to
supply Flora with what she needs, but he is a change from
her husband. Since Edward has been a failure, she can be
no worse off, and the old man might even afford her some
89
hope. The importance both husband and wife attach to the
matchseller is related to their own relationship and re
veals that their primary appetites are the basic motiva
tional Ingredients in the drama. The next few plays still
center on Individual needs and the drives they create ambig
uously, but it is evident that in A Slight Ache aenewnthem-
atic direction is beginning to develop in Pinter's mind
as his focus switches from the forces which threaten the
individual from without to the psychological deficiencies
which menace from within.
23
The Caretaker, continues the thematic direction
started in A Slight Ache in which the menace is no longer
outside the room, creating terror as it snuffles about try
ing to get in— it is a part of the characters within the
room and is carried with them. The drama is significant
for reasons that go beyond merely being an extension into
a trend, though; it is a vital point in Pinter's develop
ment, for it is in connection with this play that the
author admits his awareness that the theme of need is be
coming central in his work. Charles Morowitz reports in an
article in The Village Voice that Pinter has said about the
play, "It's about love. . . . when I equated 'love' with
2k
'need' a certain pattern fell into place." This is as
23The play was first presented at the Arts Theatre
in London on April 27, i9 6 0.
oh
"Theatre Abroad," September 1, i9 6 0.
90
close as he has come to supplying a definition of what will
become his major thematic element, and It provides an under
standable basis for his characters' actions. As stated In
the Introduction, love in a Pinter play differs from the
conventional definition of love. When Pinter talks about
love he means a need for acceptance, or affection, or emo
tional attachment. What he Is trying to say In The Care
taker becomes clear when one realizes that Davies, Aston,
and Mick all need to satisfy a primary appetite for accep
tance, affection, or emotional attachment and the acts of
all three are designed to fulfill their needs (the differ
ence between these three men and Stanley, for example, is
that they actively move toward fulfillment while he was
content with trying to avoid confronting his needs by re
treating).
The meaning of this play has been much discussed by
the critics, none of whom has come up with a satisfactory
answer. This is probably because the alternative possibil
ities are all at least partly true. As usual, the minimal
plot action provides only a few clues. In interpreting
the play the items to be considered include the questions
of Identity and verification centering around Davies;
Aston's attempted reorientation, as well as his suggested
Christ-figure qualities and his role in the society versus
artist confrontation; and the problem of communication and
interaction between individuals. This last element is
91
probably the most Important In determining the ultimate
meaning of the play, for the actions of the three charac
ters make sense when one realizes that each is trying to
establish an attachment with one of the others. Simultan
eously each is trying to protect that relationship from an
outside interference, the third member, who threatens to
destroy it by forming a new pairing. Although not as ap
parent as in A Slight Ache and some of the later plays,
need is a basic theme of the drama and it is Pinter's con
scious revelation of this that marks The Caretaker as an
advance in his thematic development.
Mixed throughout the play, serving as unifying ele
ments, are the minor problems which, though not of conse
quence in this play, plague Pinter characters constantly--
racial tensions, the battle between men and machines. The
opening scene uses one of these minor elements as a device
to introduce one of the real problems of the play. Davies
complains that he could not sit down during his tea-break
25
because the seats were full of foreigners. Davies is
upset further because everybody in the place is "treating
26
like dirt" : there are some things which a man
cannot allow if he is to remain a man and it is important
to Davies that he be accepted as an individual.
2^Pinter, The Caretaker (New York, i9 6 0), p. 8.
2^Ibid., p. 8 .
92
The first clue to Davies' nature comes when he ex
plains to Aston why he was in trouble:
Come up to me, parks a bucket of rubbish at me, tells
me to take it out the back. It's not my job to take
out the bucket.' They got a boy there for taking out
the bucket. . . . My job's cleaning the floor.2'
Although, considering his admitted tasks, Davies' complaint
is amusing (it sounds like a parody of a couple of union
workers squabbling over an insignificant item), there is
an extremely important concept being explored here, one
vital to Davies' makeup. Identity, a sense of the inte
grity of his self-picture, has been threatened. Roles must
be kept separate in order for Davies to maintain his con
ception of his own identity, for if he is forced into a
different role, doing someone else's job, he is not being
allowed to be true to his self-picture. His intense
bigotry is another example of this facet of his character,
for he needs to see someone as inferior in order to empha
size his own "superiority." Acceptance as an individual
is an important part of the old man's motivation, as evi
denced in his activities with the two brothers and in the
importance with which he regards the identity papers he
left in Sidcup fifteen years ago— he claims that recovery
of those papers will solve all of his problems, but he is
always waiting for the weather to break, or, when it is
27Ibid., pp. 9-10.
93
nice out, is unable to undertake the journey because his
shoes are unsuitable. A background of rejection has led
him to seeming apathy— if he does not ask, he cannot be
refused. Actually, though, his apathy is only superficial,
for he is in fact not simply passive or neutral. He is
Involved in performing negative actions actively designed
to lead to self-destruction. The old man can do nothing
constructive to save himself. Like Edward, even when he
tries to control events about him, he is the destructive
agent who keeps things from happening as he hopes.
Davies does have a long history of seeking attach
ments, a place where he can "belong," yet finding reasons
for rejecting relationships when they are tendered him.
As Esslin says, Davies is "a man seeking for a place for
himself, fighting for that little patch of light and warmth
28
in the vast menacing darkness." The most recent exper
ience is the one from which Aston rescued him— he was given
a job, but could not get along with his co-workers:
. . . who was this git to come up and give me
orders? We got the same standing. He's nothing
superior to me. He's not my boss. He's nothing
superior to me. . . .If you hadn't stopped that
Scotch git I'd be inside the hospital now. I'd
have cracked my head on that pavement if he'd
landed. I'll get him.29
As the tramp reveals his biography, it is evident that this
2®"Godot and his Children," p. 142.
29pinter, The Caretaker, pp. 9-10.
94
incident is part of a pattern. He once found a woman who
was willing to marry him, so he immediately imposed upon
the situation an attitude which allowed him to reject her:
That's why I left my wife. Fortnight after I married
her, no, not so much as that, no more than a week,
I took the lid off a saucepan, you know what was in
it? A pile of her underclothing, unwashed. The
pan for vegetaDies, it was. The vegetable pan.
That's when I left her and I haven't seen her since.30
On another occasion he turned to a monastic order, a group
which orients its actions around charity based on love, but
again he was unable to accept their offering and found
reason to reject them or cause them to reject him:
Them bastards at the monastery let me down again. .
.... I said to this monk, here, I said, look here,
mister, he opened the door. . . . mister, I said, I
come all the way down here. . . . you haven't got a
pair of shoes, have you. ... I heard you got a
stock of shoes here. Piss off, he said to me. Now
look here, I said, I'm an old man, you can't talk
to me like that. . . . If you don't piss off, he
says, I'll kick you all the way to the gate. . . .
get out round the corner, and when you've had your
meal, piss off out of it. . . . Right, they said to
me, you've had your meal, get off out of it. Meal?
I said, what do you think I am, a dog? .... One
of them, an Irish hooligan, come at me. I cleared
out.31
The sequence of events as reported by Davies is doubtful.
It is much more likely that he offended his potential bene
factors in some way--the phrasing of his request alone
would not endear him to them. Apparently Davies feels too
3°Ibid., p. 9.
3 1Ibid., pp. 13-14.
95
inferior to be able to accept the psychological elements
that he needs. His expressed fears and prejudices con
cerning blacks and foreigners are indicative of his feel
ings of insecurity based on his self-portrait of inferior
ity:
32
How many more Blacks around here? .... I mean
you don't share the toilet with them Blacks, do you?
.... Because, you know...I mean...Pair1s fair.33
To a bigot, sharing the facilities with inferiors would be
degrading. Davies needs to know that there is something
which makes him better than others, even if it is merely a
matter of ancestry or nationality. For instance, he sug
gests that people prefer to have an Englishman "pouring
34
their tea." This attitude is likewise mirrored in his
reference to the "Scotch git" at the cafe and the "Irish
hooligan" at the monastery— the fact that Davies, like the
woman in Pinter's revue piece, "Request Stop," is English
and they are not is sufficient proof of his superiority.
Ironically he may not even be English. His names are
Welsh and he ignores Mick's question about his ancestry—
but he has assumed the nationality as a means of bettering
himself.
3 2Ibid., p. 14.
3 3Ibid., pp. 18-19.
3 4Ibid., p. 2 7.
96
Still, the old man has needs and he continues trying
to fulfill his need for some sort of attachment, demon
strated by his following Aston home. That this is his
Intent is suggested by a lack of any other reason for tag
ging along as opposed to simply disappearing— perhaps to
■ a k
Sidcup. Not only does he go to Aston's, he is willing
to stay there. Gordon feels that "Davies has offered and
welcomed the exchange of mutual feeling only because it
promised Aston's favor.Boulton sees the tramp as "a
37
man who is seeking sympathy," while Esslin contends that
"his need for a place in the world is pathetically ob-
vious." The existence of papers in Sidcup would, thus,
on
represent proof of his place--they "prove who I am"J^—
since he never gets them, and since he alternately calls
them identity papers, insurance cards, and references,
according to his need at the moment, they may simply be a
symbol of his dream of such a place. Because of his self-
defeating drives and corresponding actions, though, he is
doomed to failure. Davies, "the unfortunate Everyman,
^Pinter's stage directions, p. 7, make it quite v . " r - . ' t
clear that Davies is following his host like a lost dog.
^Gordon, p. 44.
37james T. Boulton, "The Caretaker and Other Plays,"
Modern Drama (September, 1963)* p. 138.
■^Esslin, p. 211.
■^Pinter, The Caretaker, p. 20.
97
whose forsaken nature demands kindness and charity,"
according to Gordon, "cannot conceal . . . selfish, greedy,
t l 4o
and possessive traits," and Esslin agrees that "he is
41
unable to subdue his own nature."
The Caretaker shows that, as Davies is granted the
acceptance he craves, he once again will manage to achieve
rejection. At first he cannot believe that his benefactor
helped him simply because he was in trouble. When it
becomes evident that he can be secure in Aston’s accept-
42 ^
ance, he no longer desires it and turns to Mick as an
other possible source, repudiating his original patron.
This, of course, will lead to his eventual expulsion.
Davies, therefore, might be considered a poor strategist.
However, his consistent choice of words and actions which
will lead to defeat indicates that he is working toward
failure--Davies always makes the wrong choice, indicating
more than pure coincidence. Act III contains a good ex
ample of the old man's self-destructive tendencies as he
tries to play the brothers against one another in his
^°Gordon, p. 42.
^Esslin, p. 211.
42
That Aston accepts him is proven by the older
brother's friendliness (sharing his tobacco and offering
a place to stay and a pair of shoes), trust (he is willing
to leave the old man in the house alone), and interest in
the tramp's plight (he gives him money, offers him a Job,
and attempts to replace the missing bag).
98
effort to form an attachment with either of them, only to
turn both men against himself. He argues first with Aston,
asserting himself as the better of the two, reminding his
43
host that he has never been "Inside one of them places,"
and referring to Mick as his "friend" and "true pal!"^
Aston suggests that "it's about time you found somewhere
45
else" as he notes "I don't think we're hitting it off."
Davies returns with Mick, whom he is telling what happened,
obviously sure that the younger brother will back him
(Mick had, after all, offered him the caretaker's job
earlier too). It soon becomes apparent, though, that
Davies has miscalculated. "You get a bit out of your
46
depth sometimes, don't you?" says Mick. When Davies
refers to Aston as "nutty," Mick starts a diatribe that
ends with his sending the old man away:
What did you call my brother?. .. . Did you
call my brother nutty? My brother . . . that's
a bit of an impertinent thing to say, isn't it?
.... It's all most regrettable but it looks
as though I»m compelled to pay you off for your
caretaking work. Here's half a dollar.47
^3pinter, The Caretaker, p. 6 7.
44
Ibid., p. 67.
4^
Ibid., p. 6 8.
46^.
Ibid., p. 7 1.
^Ibid. . pp. 73-74.
99
Mick's reasons for dismissing the tramp are adequate:
You're really strange. Ever since you come
into this house there's been nothing but trouble.
. . . I can take nothing you say at face value.
Every word you speak is open to any number of
different interpretations. Most of what you
say is lies. You're violent, you're erratic,
you're completely unpredictable.48
In this speech Mick recognizes Davies' nature, which grows
out of his contradictory motivations. On the one hand the
old man's primary appetite for acceptance leads him to
seek relationships with others, yet on the other hand his
need for identity will not allow him to compromise to the
degree necessary to maintain a relationship. If he com
promises with his wife about the proper use of a vegetable
pan or with Aston about whether or not to close a window,
his sense of inferiority is so strong that he feels his
identity is in danger. If he does not compromise, the
relationship may be destroyed. The opposition of these
two mutually exclusive driving forces leads to his "erratic1 1
behavior.
The younger brother also attacks his rival on emo
tional, illogical grounds. He accuses the old man of
not being something he never claimed to be:
You come here recommending yourself as an
interior decorator . . . and what happens?
You make a long speech about all the references
48
Ibid., p. 73.
1 0 0
you've got down at Sideup. . . . I haven't
noticed you go down . . . to obtain them.49
It really does not matter what the nature of the accusa
tion is, though: Mick has wanted to get rid of Davies,
and the caretaker has given him an excuse to do so, some
thing which Davies' previous life would lead us to expect.
Davies' "blunder" has been in alienating himself from Aston
and allying himself with Mick, for in doing so he has
placed direction of his future in the hands of a man who
has a motive for wanting him displaced. Even after their
estrangement, Aston was willing to give his guest "a few
50
bob" to "get down to Sldcup," but Mick never intended to
befriend his brother's visitor. Mick's position is clear
when he concludes his dreams for refurbishing the flat
with the claim that "it wouldn't be a flat it'd be a
51
palace." Davies agrees with him and asks, "Who would
live there?" to which Mick replies, "I would. My brother
and me." Davies wants to know, "What about me?"— Mick
52
"quietly" changes the subject, Ignoring the question.
Throughout the play Davies demonstrates that he needs to
form relationships with others, to find his "place" (his
49Ibid., p. 74.
5°Ibid., p. 68.
51Ibid., p. 6 0.
52Ibid., p. 61.
1 0 1
taking up with the brothers), first with Aston, then with
Mick when the original relationship disintegrates, yet is
unable to create permanent attachments. The play concludes
with this vulnerable, pathetic character desperately try
ing to reestablish the convivial relationship with Aston
which was present at the beginning of the play, plaintively
crying, "What am I going to do?. . . . Where am I going
53
to go?" but it is clear that his needs will never be
satisfied. It is difficult to feel much compassion for
him, though, because of his unsympathetic nature— he seems
to deserve what he gets.
I
Aston, on the other hand, arouses our sympathies.
Like Davies, he is always about to do something which he
never quite gets around to (building a shed out back).
He's stuck "Between the idea/ And the reality/ Between the
54
motion and the act." The reason for Aston's behavior,
however, is different from that which keeps Davies inac
tive— Aston is the sensitive man, and the shadow has fallen
because he did not conform to society. Unlike Davies,
i
| though, his non-conformity was active and therefore a
threat, so he was made a non-threat by society in an act
of self-preservation.
53Ibid., pp. 77-78.
3^T. S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men," in Collected Poems
(New York, 1962), p. 58.
1 0 2
There is a suggestion of Christ symbolism in Aston.
He is in his early thirties, calls himself a carpenter, is
sensitive, helps people, and has a cross to bear in the
form of his damaged mentality forced on him by society.
It seems more likely, though, that if he is meant to be a
symbolic figure, he fits the role of the sensitive person
who is crushed by a society which can neither understand
nor tolerate the differences in his makeup which set him
apart from ordinary men, a role previously suggested by
the treatment of Stanley in The Birthday Party. In the
closing speech of Act II he explains, almost to himself
really, how he used to think (in nearly Messianic terms),
what happened to him, and how he is now. The gap between
pain and suffering and articulation of the experience— an
experience in which society, including his mother, was
trying to help him, but because they did not understand
only succeeded in destroying his essential character—
creates a rendering of that experience which is detached
and deeply involved and moving at the same time:
. . . he wasn't supposed to do it while I was
standing up . . . anyway, he did it. So I did
get out. I got out of the place . . . but I
couldn't walk very well. . . . The trouble was
... my thoughts ... had become very slow . . .
I couldn't think at all . . . I couldn't . . .
get ... my thoughts . . . together . . . uuuhh
. . . I couldn't hear what people were saying.
I couldn't look to the right or the left . . .
because if I turned my head round . . . I couldn't
keep . . . upright. And I had these headaches
. . . I should have died. Anyway, I feel
103
much better now. ^
Through an accident in a mental hospital a sensitive indi
vidual* s imaginative powers have been destroyed and he is
left nearly emotionless. His attitude toward other people
is changed too.
Essentially, aB reported in his troubled history at
the end of Act II, Aston needs contact with other people.
He suffered a breakdown when he found out that others did
not pay attention to him:
. . . they always used to listen. I thought
. . . they understood what I said. I mean I
used to talk to them. I talked too much. That
was my mistake . . . they used to listen, when
ever I . . . had anything to say . . . but maybe
I was wrong. Anyway someone must have said
something . . . some kind of lie . . . people
started being funny. 56
Even his mother failed him:
I knew I was a minor. I knew doctor~ J
couldn't do anything to me without getting
permission. I knew he had to get permission
from my mother. So I wrote to her and told her
what they were trying to do. But she signed
their form, you see, giving them permission.
I know that because he showed me her signature
when I brought it up.57
Because of his rejection by those about him (the men
at the cafe, the men at work, his mother), Aston has de
veloped feelings of insecurity and his life has now been
reduced to the point where he is watched over by his younger
55
Pinter, The Caretaker, p. 57.
56Ibid., pp. 54-55.
57ibid., pp. 55-56. ____
104
brother at his brother's flat. He no longer actively seeks
out others at work or at the cafe. He has adopted a com
paratively passive role In which he generally remains
silent and tries to figure out what Is wrong with the
world. This is reflected In his continuing attempts to
repair broken objects such as the toaster. If simple
mechanical things can be made to function correctly, then
he can obtain a solid base in reality, for he will have
something in which he can place his trust. People have
let him down before, after all, and he needs some place
to start over again. He still needs contact with people,
though, and Davies seems to be suitable to begin with,
since his position when Aston befriends him, a busboy in
a poor establishment being attacked by his fellow workers,
certainly indicates that the tramp will pose no threat.
Davies does become a menace to Aston's current mode of
existence, however, and Aston is forced to throw out the
man who would displace him in the security of the flat and
in his relationship with his brother. A result of the two
brothers' experience with the old man may be that they are
brought closer together than before as they unite to over
throw a potential usurper.
ASTON comes in. He closes the door, moves into
the room and faces MICK. They look at each other.
105
Both are smiling, faintly.58
Aston, then, is a character whose need for human contact
has led him to disillusionment, since his overtures to
others have been rejected because of their unusual nature
yet he keeps trying to establish a relationship with some
one and in the end the union between him and his brother
is stronger for his efforts. Still, Aston's role is
basically that of an object over which his brother and
his new-found, "friend" battle.
Davies sees reality only as it pertains to him in
terms of physical things such as shoes. His inadequacies
and fears are represented by the ever-present foreigners
(the blacks next door) and machinery (the unconnected stove
which might gas him). He is unable to function in a com
plex society, yet his arrogant actions lead to expulsion
from any sanctuary. Where Davies had his Sidcup, Aston
has his shed, as he too is ineffective in the modern world.
Since he has lost his imaginative ability (as evidenced by
his simple dream of building a shed and his straightforward
description of the events at the hospital, especially when
these are compared to Mick's elaborately described dreams
—
Ibid., p. 75. In Pinter's screenplay for the movie
version of The Caretaker, The_Guest, as Hinchcliffe points
out, p. 1 7 5, the significance of the glance between the two
brothers is more emphatic because of the camera's focusing
ability while in the play there is only a slight implica
tion.
106
of renovating the house and his fantastic accounts of
uncles and friends— as Aston tells Davies at the end of
Act Two, he used to see things very clearly), Aston has
turned to his tools as an answer in an act of replacement.
It is through the interaction of these two men that their
characters are portrayed, a cause and effect pattern in
which the actions of one determine the actions of the
other. And it is solely because of his relationship with
the other two men that we understand Mick at all.
Mick's motivations are harder to decipher than are
those of either Davies or Aston, but love for his brother
is a primary factor. This is demonstrated by his imme
diate reaction to Davies as a threat; he attacks the new
comer without hesitation. As Taylor points out, it is
evident that Aston "likes /p&vies/ and likes his company.
Mick's jealousy is instantly aroused, and his one thought
59
is to get the old man out." Taylor goes on to say that
Mick's methods are devious, but they are all aimed at
repelling the intruder Davies because of his jealousy.
He needs his brother to the extent that he will fight for
him. And because Aston can no longer adequately take care
of himself, Mick's own affection for his brother demands
that he take care of him. Once these facts are recognized,
Mick* s actions make a great deal of sense, for they are
59Taylor, p. 247.
107
directed toward helping his older brother and at preserving
the relationship which exists between them. We find out
very little substantial information about Mick, but he
displays the physical violence and brutality of Davies
who is quick to pull a knife and who does not hesitate to
attack Aston's vulnerability for much the same reason,
if from a different position (where Davies acts in trying
to ally himself with one of the brothers, Mick is trying
to preserve the status quo). Both men react to one another
with apprehension, for each represents a threat to the
security of the other. Most of Mick's actions stem ul
timately from affection for his brother and a desire to
help and protect him, a reversal of the normal big brother/
little brother relationship. He has provided Aston with a
place to live and encourages his interests. In an early
conversation with Davies he indicates that when the flat
is redecorated he and his brother will live there to-
60
gether. Later he explains why his brother is living in
the house and what he is doing there:
I'm not worried about this house. I'm not
interested. My brother can worry about it.
He can do it up, he can decorate it, he can
do what he likes with it. . . .1 thought I gn
was doing him a favour, letting him live here.
6o
Ibid., p. 6l— his ignoring of Davies' question
pointedly excludes the old man from this future.
Ibid., p. 74.
1 0 8
The house Itself does not Interest him; even his elabor
ately conceived plans for redecorating seem to be unimpor
tant (contingent on living with his brother). It is only
in terms of providing his brother with something to do that
the house becomes important and Mick thought that he was
helping Aston by letting him stay there. His attacks on
Davies are partly self-protective since Davies might re
place him in his brother's eyes, yet they are meant to help
Aston too, for Davies has nothing to offer Aston. As Mick
tells the old man, "Ever since you come into this house
there's been nothing but trouble," for "You're nothing else
62
but a wild animal, when you come down to it."
Mick's strategy in expelling the tramp indicates
that his protective stance regarding Aston derives from
fraternal affection rather than from merely a sense of
duty. It is clear that Mick recognizes Davies as an
opponent from the very beginning, and it is also clear
that he would have little trouble driving the intruder
out with physical force. His immediate reaction -to the
presence of a guest in his brother's room is an attack
which completely overpowers its victim. In the interroga
tion which follows the younger brother repeatedly speaks
Davies' alias with an emphasis that gives the name a
6?
Ibid., pp. 73-74.
109
curse-like quality: "Jen...kins. Mick's pronunciation
of the surname coupled with the comparisons of Davies to
64
people he reminds him of and his description of the old
man, "You're stinking the place out. You're an old
robber...an old skate...an old barbarian,"^ shows that he
has unhesitatingly categorized his adversary as an enemy,
and an unsavory one at that. The younger brother also
shows his quick awareness of the situation when he asks,
66
"You intending to settle down here?" Yet he does not try
to force a withdrawal. Instead, he initiates a plan of
attack whereby Aston will himself eventually reject the old
man voluntarily so that he will not turn against his
brother for having banished his friend and so that banish
ment will not in itself make the tramp more appealing.
Mick builds up Davies' confidence in their relationship,
offering him the caretaker's job and implying
^3jbid., p. 30 and p. 33--Eric Partridge in A Dic
tionary of Slang and Unconventional English notes that
"kins' is a suffix, colloquial in tendency, seen in the
"euphemizing of oaths"— p. 4-57.
' f ? h
The "my uncle's brother" and "a bloke I once knew
in Shoreditch" tales on p. 31 and p. 32 of The Caretaker.
^Pinter, The Caretaker, p. 35. Aston will later, p.
6 9, claim that Davies has been "stinking the place out,"
too.
66Ibid., p. 34.
110
dissatisfaction with his brother,^ so that Davies will
go
overstep the bounds, "get a bit out of /hIs/ depth,"
Davies does so, threatening his host with a knife and
reminding him that "I never been inside a nuthouse,
and Mick's plan is successful as Aston literally turns his
back on the old man as the final curtain falls. If Mick
were simply being protective, he would have removed the
threat instantly and permanently by force and the implica
tion of future violence or even legal recourse, but he
undertakes the slower, more devious procedure because his
brother's feelings are important to him; he wants to be
sure that his actions do not cost him the relationship he
has with his brother. The relationship between Mick and
Aston is emphasized by the fact that they always refer to
one another as "brother," never by name. The motivation,
then, is fraternal affection, as opposed to duty.
Finally, as mentioned above, when Mick leaves the
stage for the last time, having defeated Davies, the two
brothers smile faintly to each other. Clifford Leech sees
^"I'm a bit worried about my brother...He doesn't
like work...It's a terrible thing to have to say about
your own brother."--p. 48. Ironically Davies does not see
the evidence which contradicts this assertion--such as
Aston's tarring the roof.
go
Pinter, The Caretaker, p. 71.
69ibid., p. 67.
Ill
this smile as a token that things are again as they should
be70--the family tie has been reunited and there Is hope
for the future. This last glance between the two brothers,
therefore, helps emphasize the theme of need for It sig
nifies their dependence upon each other, thereby placing
their actions and motives in perspective. They have proven
to one another their affection, and Mick's going out indi
cates a realization that the situation is now secure. He
can rely on his brother to expel Davies, and, therefore,
his presence is no longer necessary. "The two brothers
jointly seem to symbolize... family compatibility," accord
ing to Ruby Cohn^ 1 and Boulton finds that "despite their
lack of communication there is a bond of sympathetic under
standing between them; they are the unified centre of the
72
play's action."' Interestingly, even though it is the
reason for the conflicts which arise in the drama, contrary
to the conclusion of A Night Out, love is presented as po
tentially positive, the source which may bind brothers
together and offer hope for the future in their reconfirmed
70
"They are brothers, and...they are together for a
moment, in silence...as they smile... there is understand
ing and affection"— "Two Romantics: Arnold Wesker and
Harold Pinter," in John R. Brown and Bernard Harris,
Contemporary Theatre (London, 1 9 6 2), p. 2 9.
^Cohn, p. 6 7.
72Boulton, p. 132.
112
allegiance to one another. This is simply the other side
of the coin; if the lack of something leads to menace, the
presence of that thing should displace menace.
Pinter himself has said a great deal about the mean
ing of this particular play, though one feels at times that
he is like Davies who replies to Mick's query, "Are you
Welsh?" by saying "Well, I been around you know." In
answering the criticism by Leonard Russell in The Sunday
Times that the audience laughed at The Caretaker as if it
were a farce, Pinter wrote:
Certainly I laughed myself while writing "The
Caretaker" but not all the time, not "indiscrim
inately." An element of the absurd is, I think,
one of the features of the play, but at the same
time I did not intend it to be merely a laughable
farce. If there hadn't been other issues at stake
the play would not have been written. . . .As
far as I'm concerned "The Caretaker" is funny
up to a point. Beyond that point it ceases to
be funny, and it was because of that point that
I wrote it.73
74
This sounds like Pinter's definition of tragedy. What
happens at that point is the play, but the author recog
nizes a certain self-direction imposed by the drama itself:
At the end /of The Caretaker7 there are two people
alone in a room, and one of them must go in such
a way as to produce a sense of complete separation
and finality. I thought originally that the play
must end with the violent death of one at the
73Tlie Sunday Times (London), August 14, i9 6 0.
74
1 See Chapter One.
113
hands of the other. But then I realized, when I
got to the point, that the characters as they had
grown could never act in this way.75
It is evident why one of the people did have to go, though.
In the relationship between the two brothers the intrusion
of an outsider could weaken their bonds and their power to
help each other might be diminished as a consequence.
Aston is dependent on Mick to provide a sanctuary where no
one will bother him and he can work things out in peace.
Mick is his brother's keeper, his caretaker. Aston may
feel some insecurity in his relationship with Mick, how
ever. After all, people he had trusted had failed him
before— one need only remember the friends who had turned
him in and the mother who had signed the consent papers to
understand Aston's reluctance to accept any situation as
secure. Nevertheless, he does desire human companionship,
so when Davies follows him home, he is willing to take a
chance, and the circumstances for the play are set. When
Aston recognizes what kind of person Davies is, he realizes
that the tramp lacks any redeeming qualities (and may en
danger his association with his brother as well). This
being the case, it is Davies who "must go" so that the
original relationship may remain intact. In an interview
with Kenneth Tynan, Pinter is even more explicit about how
the drama might have ended and how it does end,
75
John R. Taylor, Anger and After (London,1 9 6 2),p.246
114
Incidentally recognizing that his techniques have improved:
The original idea...was...to end the play with the
violent death of the tramp. . . . It suddenly struck
me that it was not necessary. And I think that in
this play...I have developed, that I have no need to
use cabaret turns and blackouts and screams in the
dark to the extent that I enjoyed using them before.
I feel that I can deal, without resorting to that
kind of thing, with a human situation. . . . I do
see this play as merely...a particular human situa
tion, concerning three particular people and not,
Incidentally...symbols.
The essence of this statement is further evidence of the
author's centralizing of the theme of need. The "human
situation" is the confrontation of various characters with
various psychological drives. There is no reason to kill
the tramp if he does not fulfill someone's needs, because
he is important only if he functions as a satisfactory
agent and he ceases to be important when this requirement
is not met. His loss, therefore, is not traumatic, so he
can be ousted easily (he is not of enough consequence to
require killing as a threat to existing relationships).
When both brothers are cognizant of this, the play ends.
The final meaning of the play has been simply ex
pressed by Pinter elsewhere, too. Terrence Rattigan
claims that, "When I saw The Caretaker I told Pinter that
I knew what it meant. 'It's about the God of the Old
Testament, the God of the New, and Humanity, isn't it?'
Pinter said blankly, 'No, Terry, it's about a caretaker
76Ibid., p. 212.
115
and two brothers."*^ This statement becomes meaningful
when joined with Pinter's assertion in Charles Morowitz's
The Village Voice article that the play is "about love"
and that when he "equated 'love' with 'need' a certain
pattern fell into place.
What this statement means in terms of the action of
the play is simply that the three characters all have
individual needs for attachment of some kind and that
everything they do is aimed either at creating such a
relationship or maintaining one which already exists.
Davies tries to form alliances with both Aston and Mick,
but fails. In the final analysis it must be admitted that
Davies remains an enigmatic, chameleon-like figure, who
tries to fulfill his own needs for companionship by chang
ing to fit the requirements needed to fulfill the needs of
79
others so that they will form an alliance with him (there
are traces of Davies in both Stella in The Collection and
Ruth in The Homecoming in this respect). He allows those
around him to play out their own fantasies because he is so
indefinite, taking on the shape they need. The irony is
■77
Hinchcliffe, p. 8 .
"Theatre Abroad," September 1, i9 6 0.
7%ick displays his astuteness during one of his
games with Davies when he tricks the old man into contra
dicting himself. He is aware of the tramp's changeable
nature and this allows him to manipulate the old man— p. 5 0.
116
that his changeability and lack of selectivity ultimately
cost him what he most desires. Mick recognizes Davies as
a threat to the union between himself and his brother and
strives to displace the tramp so as to keep his own posi
tion secure. What each man does Is aimed at fulfilling his
personal needs.
It Is clear that Pinter was aware of what he was
doing when he wrote this play, and that he consciously
intended to comment on psychological needs. His statement
about the meaning of the drama reveals this. Furthermore,
it Is obvious in the way he plays the three men off against
each other that he was probably consciously taking Into
account their motivation which certainly would create the
pattern of situations and actions presented in The Care
taker. His comment about how the play "must" end is fur
ther evidence of his awareness of need as a thematic
element. It is the author's admitted awareness that the
concept of psychological need is centralized as his prime
subject in this play which makes The Caretaker so important
in Pinter's development.
As can be seen from the excerpts quoted above, The
Caretaker includes many characteristics typical of Pinter
plays. A combination of the problems of verification, the
use of language for defensive purposes rather than for
communication, and the fact that individuals are constantly
undergoing change to the degree that they cannot predict
1 1 7
their own actions, let alone those of others, as discussed
in Chapter One, creates a world in which identity is diffi
cult to establish and even harder to maintain. The ques
tion of identity which began with Rose's "Who are you?" in
The Room and was continued by Edward's repetition of the
same question in A Slight Ache is raised by Mick's inter
rogation of Davies. Davies' search for and insistence
upon his integrity as an individual reminds us of Stanley's
"Do you have any idea who I am?" in The Birthday Party.
There is a major difference between the comedies of menace
and A Slight Ache and The Caretaker, though, for in the
latter dramas the characters are defined in terms of their
relationships with one another as they try to form some
kind of link, an element which Pinter will expand upon as
the exploration of need replaces menace used merely as a
stage device to create a mood complete with "blackouts
and screams in the night." The movement from simple
menace to need which began in A Slight Ache has reached
the level of centrality in the playwright's work in The
Caretaker and he turns his attention to his new theme in
following plays.
CHAPTER THREE
| A PATTERN OF NEED
I In the dramas following A Slight Ache psychological
need becomes more and more important as a fundamental
theme and it is apparent that Pinter is beginning to look
at this subject as the main theme in his writing. While
the menace established as a prime element in his first
'three plays continues to be a basic component in both form
and content, as in A Slight Ache, menace ceases to be
important simply as something which threatens an individual,
but gains significance when attention centers specifically
iaround a need to fulfill primary appetities as a source of
menace. The dramatist realized the potential of the sub
ject of need introduced in A Slight Ache when he wrote
The Caretaker and in his subsequent plays the threats which
confront various Pinter characters will have their basis
In different kinds of need; for instance, A Night Out
explores the effect of too much of the wrong kind of love
and in Night School the plot revolves around a man who
bannot accept love. More importantly, his next three '
major plays— The Collection, The Lover, and The Homecoming— j
; I
are all consciously concerned with different psychological i
119 '
j
aspects of need and they Include a view of reality which i
icreates humor based on bizarre situations. i
! 1 ;
| The Collection, a wonderfully funny play, is one of
i j
|
:Pinter»s most dramatically conventional works. Most of his |
i i
! ■ ,
normal elements are here, though there are some changes.
The Collection includes a group of characters in the upper- j
middle class. Partly as a result of the class level and ;
partly as a theatrical technique, the setting for the drama i
is the most elaborate of all Pinter*s plays. The stage is
divided into three sections: a telephone booth and two
living quarters. The division into three separate areas
is important to the action and meaning of the play since
Bill and Stella must not be brought together (the phone
booth provides a means for linking the two dwellings).
2
Like The Collection, The Lover also appears to be
an amusing comedy at first glance. It is, on the surface,
the battle of the sexes waged by two urbane, witty people.
The serious tragic situation underlying soon becomes appar- ;
ent in spite of the light, frivolous tone which carries
through most of the play from the opening scene--a situation’
^The Collection was first presented by Associated-
Rediffusion Television in London on May 11, 19&1, and then
Staged a year later by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the I
Aldwych Theatre, London, on June 18, 1962.
j j
| 2The Lover was first presented by Associated-Redif-
ifusion Television in London on March 28, 1 9 6 3, and subse- j
iguently staged at the Arts Theatre on September 18 of the |
same year, Harold Pinter directing the production.
i 120
| i
Incorporating identity and verification problems, the dif- j
i ■ !
ficulties in communication which grow out of and simul- |
! i
taneously re-enforce those problems, and the emotional j
! i
ineeds which are the basic stimulus- of the action. The !
Lover continues Pinter's examination of people seeking
fulfillment. Sexual adjustment is part of the issue in j
this play. The author combines in one couple the ideas
of fidelity versus infidelity: wife versus mistress (or
whore), husband versus lover. Where the characters in
The Collection are dissatisfied with the conditions of
their relationships, however, the characters in The Lover
are disturbed by the ideas which underlie their relation
ship, for those ideas (the refinement in marriage and
sexual attraction) seem to be mutually exclusive in the
minds of both husband and wife. As in The Collection before
it, a good deal of the humor in The Lover depends on
bizarre or absurd situations which grow out of a lack of
psychological equilibrium.
The final play of consequence in Pinter's second
major period of writing is less conventional and funnier
than the first two because the characters are more desper- |
ate in their needs so that their actions are more exag-
!
|gerated and even further from normal behavior. The charac-
i ;
ters have not reached the point where they have to protect
viable relationships--they are still trying to create them. .
! 121
' 3 i
His third full-length play— the two-act The Homecoming -- |
I I
|is at the same time his most representative, his best, and |
his most important drama. !
The action of The Collection revolves around the
j
theme of verification which Pinter has been exploring
since The Room. In this case something happened or it !
did not happen, and four characters, Bill Lloyd, Harry
Kane, and James and Stella Horne (the surname carrying a
suggestion of cuckoldry), are involved in finding out or
concealing the truth. As a means of exploring the theme
of need in this play, Pinter has made the event in question
one which has significance in the lives of the four people
and their attachments to one another. Hinchcliffe contends ;
that "what has happened in the play is that two relation
ships that had rather fallen into habit . . . /are/
jolted" because of the alleged events at Leeds. As a
result of this jolt, "the two people in each /pairing/ !
4 ;
have . . . to rethink the basis for their relationships." !
When James and Stella are seen for the first time it I
is obvious that they are not getting along well. James ;
• i
I i
3The Homecoming was first presented by the Royal j
iShakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre on June 3, 1965 S
jwhere it ran for a year and a half, closing only to take j
ithe original cast to New York for the American premiere in j
11967 where it won the New York Critics1 Antoinette Perry
jAward for Best Play of that year, also earning Pinter the
jAward for Best Playwright.
1 ^Hinchcliffe, p. 117. f
122
Ignores his wife's questions and Stella slams out of the
house. A series of events quickly establishes that the
I relationship between Harry and his younger companion, Bill,
|is strained, too, starting when Harry comes down to break
fast, complaining that Bill has not fixed a stair rod as
5
ipromised— or at least he "didn't fix it very well."
Apparently relationships within the two pairings have not
been completely satisfying and the cause of action in the
drama results from the dissatisfaction of two of the char
acters. Later evidence will support the assumption that
the relationships are in fact still in the process of
deteriorating. What happens in the play grows out of a
need for love as the four people attempt to protect,
solidify, or simply redefine the bonds between themselves
and their partners. A similar implication of things not
being satisfactory in a relationship is set with the first
words spoken in The Lover: "RICHARD (amiably): Is your
6
lover coming today?" Again, the inference is that there
5
•"Harold Pinter, The Collection in Three Plays (New
jYork, 1962), p. 45. Harry is also displeased that Bill has |
left a glass of fruit juice on a tray, rather than placing j
it in front of his roommate. Besides displaying disgust !
over such minor incidents, when Bill says that he is going !
!to see a film today, the older man sarcastically observes, |
i"Wonderful life you lead"--p. 46. Almost casually, Harry
Informs Bill that "some maniac" telephoned at four o'clock
jthe night before and wants to know who it was— p. 46. When
Bill states that he has no idea who it might have been,
Harry demands to know if he met anyone on his trip the week
before. Bill denies meeting anyone.
^Pinter, The Lover (New York, 1966), p. 5.
123
is something amiss In the marriage. Since neither'husband j
i ' j
inor wife seems distressed by what would normally be an '
:intolerable situation, the inference is that the normal
|marriage relationship is distorted. And, as in The Collec- ;
{ i
tion, it will become clear that this situation exists be
cause the couple has failed to fulfill one another's needs
in a conventional fashion. Act I of The Homecoming opens
with Lenny reading the racing section of the newspaper.
His father, Max, comes in and asks him a question, which
the son ignores; When the old man persists, Lenny looks
up quietly and answers, "Why don't you shut up, you daft
prat?" provoking Max into lifting his walking stick and
declaring, "Don't you talk to me like that. I'm warning
you." This is a pattern which will be repeated many times ;
during the play as two characters spar with one another,
balling names, showing no respect, threatening physical
violence--but it is all done half seriously, half play
fully, as though it is the only way the participants know
. 8 |
of expressing affection for each other. Again, a condition!
parallel to that in The Collection and The Lover exists in
the abnormal relationship between father and son which is
I ^Pinter, The Homecoming (New York, 1 9 6 7), p. 7* j
! . 8 i
! As Gordon points out, "this is a game or ritual j
enacted daily to maintain the status quo"— p. 5 ^ . j
124
9
displayed. These three plays are extensions of the ideas
j
I presented in A Slight Ache and consciously studied in
I The Caretaker. There is menace, but it is a threat to
;emotional well-being which grows out of the fact that the
characters involved are placed in circumstances in which
their psychological needs are not being met by those around
10
them and the dramas explore some of the ways in which
individuals attempt to rectify the situation by forming or
strengthening attachments with others.
In The Collection physical menace similar to that
found in the "comedies of menace" is introduced when James
visits Bill. Nevertheless, it will soon be evident that
this type of menace is of only secondary importance to the
people in the play. Although neither man recognizes the
other, James knows that he wants to talk to Bill Lloyd and
forces his" way into the room. The element of fear, of a
threat existing for an unknown reason, is present now and
will be for the remainder of the play, but it never becomes
jthe focus of the author’s attention. It can be dismissed
a
^The ritual itself may be normal, but in this family
lit pervades all actions to such an extent and with such
iintensity that it goes beyond the customary exchanges
ibetween father and sons or siblings.
10For example, Stella is not an external menace to
jHarry and Bill since, like Barnabas, she represents no
; intrinsic danger. Where Goldberg and McCann definitely
lintimidate Stanley, Stella would pose no danger to the
Itwo men if their relationship were stable.
125
because Pinter expresses It only in a humorous context in
;the drama, and does not develop it to the extent he did In !
i 1
The Birthday Party where physical menace caused a breakdown.;
i
iInstead he focuses on the mental aspect— the menace stems j
from a fear of being deprived of the emotional affinity
the characters in The Collection require. The comic is
stressed in the absurd dialogue which develops when James
asks Bill if he has any olives, as soon as he comes through
the door, and then takes a grape out of a bowl of fruit
and asks where he should put the pips. When Bill answers,
11
"In your wallet," James takes out his wallet and puts
;the seeds into it. He then asks Bill if he had a "good
12
time in Leeds last week." Bill expresses ignorance of
what the intruder is talking about, so James explains:
JAMES/wlth fatigue/: Aaah. You were down there
for the dress collection. . . .
BILL: Did I?
JAMES: You stayed at the Westbury Hotel.
• • • •
BILL: What was I doing there?
JAMES /casually7: My wife was in there, That's
where you slept with her.
Silence.
BILL: Well. . . who told you that?
JAMES: She did.
. . . . TO
BILL: Mmmm? Who is your wife? I
^Pinter, The Collection, p. 52.
12Ibid., p. 53.
13Ibid., pp. 54-55.
126
The audience’s reaction to James’ revelations and Bill's
|
|responses is often a mixture of being offended and amused
I 14
'at the same time. Bill would normally be condemned by
I
! society for his activities, but the presentation has been
in an offhand manner. The immediate implication is that
James attaches little importance to the event. And Bill's
reactions in no way lessen the viewer's difficulty in
determining the truth about what actually happened. This,
of course, is one of Pinter's main purposes. When asked
to verify whether an affair actually did take place, he
has replied, "I am not mystified. . . . When an event
occurs— some kind of sexual event in The Collection, for
example— it is made up of many little events. Each person
iwill take away and remember what is most significant to
:him. The more other people try to verify, the less they
„15
'know. This play is a practical demonstration of
.Pinter's philosophy. To the abrupt and stunning accusa
tion Bill defensively replies that he "was-nowhere near
; Leeds last week. . . . Nowhere near your wife either. . . .
! Apart from that, I . . . just don't do such things. Not
l6
;in my book." Because of the homosexual implications
14
As evidenced at its production at the Century City
I Playhouse in Los Angeles in 1 9 6 8.
! ^Gordon, p. 52.
! -i c.
Pinter, The Collection, pp. 54-55.
127
17
evolved throughout the play, this statement "Not in my
ibook," is possibly fact and certainly funny in retrospect. |
|There is also humor in Bill's flippant replies to such a |
; i
;serious charge. Violence and terror emerge when James
|makes a sudden move toward his host and Bill falls over
: j
backwards as he starts away from the attack. Lying on !
i
; j
the floor, with James standing threateningly over him, Billj
makes a confession, the second version of what "really"
happened in Leeds:
The truth . . . is that it never happened ...
what you said, anyway. I didn't know she was
married . . . you were right, actually, about j
going up in the lift . . . we . . . got out of
the lift, and then suddenly she was in my arms.
Really wasn't my fault, nothing further from
my mind. . . . Anyway, we just kissed a bit. ...
The rest of it just didn't happen. I mean, I
wouldn't do that sort of thing . . . it's just
meaningless.18
It is clear at this point that some, if not all, of the
|
characters will be exposed to some sort of menace and that
|it is related to the theme of need in some way (James' |
attack is instigated because his love has been placed in
1^While there are no overt proofs of homosexuality j
|in the play, critics like Hinchcliffe (p. 117) and Gordon j
I (p. 5 2) assume that its existence is so obvious that they j
|discuss it in their studies, yet feel no need to include j
|evidence of its existence. Some actions which support the |
I contention that homosexuality is present in the play include
Harry's jealousy of James which is evident throughout, and
Bill's overt attempts to please James, as when he supplies
ithe olives. There is also Bill's admission that relations
jwith women are not in his "book"; such things have no appeal
Ifor him.
! -I Q
| Pinter, The Collection, pp. 58-59.
128
Jeopardy and Bill is a victim, accused of having been the
source of peril), but the direction the play will follow
i
has yet to be set. j
In The Collection the existence of unsatisfactory j
| j
|associations creates a menace tentatively connected with
need, but the exact form the menace will take is not
developed immediately. In The Lover an uneasy marriage
:partnership is advanced, too, but the drama develops along '
I a different course— menace related to psychological need is ;
apparent from the outset. The shock of the first scene is
intensified when Richard returns, for everything is still
inexplicably quite pleasant. The conversation moves to the
lover's visit and how Sarah entertained him: 1 1 RICHARD:
Pleasant afternoon?. . . . Your lover came, did he?. . . .
19
Did you show him the hollyhocks?" Sarah remains at ease
throughout. Richard's attention is drawn to the Venetian
blinds, which are crooked, a malfunctioning mechanism
; serving as a reflection of a physical universe in which i
objects do not fulfill their customary roles in much the
; |
same way this husband/wife combination has broken down. |
|There follows an inane exchange between the two concerning i
'the weather. The picture of an essentially typical sub- |
jurban household begins to evolve from these meaningless
iobservations and comments, but Richard initiates the chain
•^piriter, The Lover, p. 7.
129
of events which will lead to the dissolution of their
I present relationship. He starts to ask questions:
! RICHARD: Does it ever occur to you that while
i you're spending the afternoon being unfaithful
| to me I'm sitting at a desk going through
balance sheets and graphs?
; SARAH: What a funny question.
RICHARD: No,- I'm curious.
SARAH: You've never asked me that before
RICHARD: I've always wanted to know.20
|Beginning of questioning can upset the balance of the es-
I
jtablished order; once the questions are asked, things may
I be irrevocably altered, a new direction is set and nothing
jean reverse the process of change. Gus in The Dumb Waiter
imade the mistake of questioning, for example, and ended up
I in front of his companion's gun.
j
Sarah's answer provides the first key to the meaning
|of the play: "Well, of course it occurs to me. . . . It
„21
makes it all the more piquant." The play on specific
words is especially important throughout this play, and
the following exchange demonstrates the stress of Sarah's
separation of respectability and sex which constitutes
the fundamental conflict in the play:
SARAH: How could I forget you?
RICHARD: Quite easily, I should think.
SARAH: But I'm in your house.
RICHARD: With another.
SARAH: But it's you I love. d
20Ibid., p. 9.
21
Pinter, The Lover, p. 9.
22Ibid., p. 10.
Talking around their subject, ignoring each other's ques
tions, but Interspersing comments directly related to the
subject is a form of communication for this couple and
each understands what the other is expressing or leaving
unexpressed. Richard's admission concerning a mistress
indicates the game playing aspect of their talk as he
quibbles over words, but again the words are important
indicators of what lies below the surface of the game:
"But I haven't got a mistress. I'm very well acquainted
with a whore, but I haven't got a mistress. There's a
23
world of difference." Although he never defines a
mistress, the depiction of his whore clearly includes
a linking of sex with man's animal nature (as opposed
to an emotional experience), made explicit by his imagery,
and contrasts vividly with the qualities used to describe
the type of woman who appeals to him, the type that he
will marry. A whore is "a functionary who either pleases
or displeases," someone who can "express and engender
lust." Where a whore is "cunning," a wife is a person
of "grace," "elegance," and "wit" whom one can "respect,"
"admire," and "love," and who provides a marriage with
24
"dignity" and "sensibility." Readily admitting things
Sarah has never asked about so bluntly before, Richard is
23Ibid., p. 11.
24Ibid., pp. 12-13.
131
free and open In delineation of his whore, for he advo
cates "Frankness at all costs" as being "Essential to a
healthy marriage," a funny statement in the context.
Implying that sex is apart from normal married life,
Richard answers his wife's objections that the whore
cannot be as bad as her husband claims by ironically
noting, "You can't sensibly Inquire whether a whore is
witty. It's of no significance whether she is or she
25
isn't. She's . . . a functionary."
The distinction between wife and whore is further
explored in Richard's next speech when his use of words
contrasts with the harsh "whore" and "functionary" just
mentioned: "I wasn't looking for a woman I could respect,
as you whom I could admire and love. . . . All I wanted
was . . . someone who could express and engender lust
26
with all lust's cunning.". Indicating that there is a
separation between respectable "love" and sexual desire,
the speech further explains the characters' actions. The
requirements for a marriage partner are so different from
those which qualify a woman as a sexual object that they
cannot exist simultaneously in one person. The defining
of the two individuals and their relationship continues:
SARAH: I'm sorry your affair possesses so
little dignity.
RICHARD: The dignity is in my marriage.
25Ibid., p. 12.
26Ibid., p. 13.
132
SARAH; Or sensibility.
RICHARD; The sensibility likewise. I wasn't
looking for such attributes. I find them in you. '
The words the couple uses to discuss sex and marriage
emphasize the dichotomy which exists in their minds and
the amount of emotion with which they view that dichotomy.
Grace, elegance, and wit in a woman, and respect, admir
ation, love, dignity, and sensibility in marriage are
opposed to lustful pleasure in the minds of both man and
wife. The actions of the couple show that Richard and
Sarah are two people who love one another and need each
other's love, yet find it impossible to reconcile their
sexual wants with their emotional requirements, so their
relationship is menaced when the two forces come into
conflict. At the same time their requirements for an
attachment and emotional involvement demand that they
preserve that relationship. The result is a series of
"games in the play /whicty' are elaborate and ritualis
tic . . . they separate the respectable husband-wife
relationship from the more passionate lover-mistress
, , 2 8
relationship.
Just as the element of menace in The Collection and
The Lover develops because of the individual's needs, a
picture of uneasiness simultaneously created and held in
27Ibid., p. 13.
2^Hinchcliffe, p. 122.
check by love comes from Lenny's treatment of his father
in The Homecoming. Max reminisces about the past when he
was a "tearaway" and could have taken care of his son
"twice over." His powers have faded and although he
still rules the family, he maintains his tyrannical posi
tion as the old patriarch who rules a Freudian primal
unit at least in part by common assent of the governed.
The use of the diminutive form of the sons' names indi
cates the family's attitudes toward one another— the sons
are still seen as children and their names are represen
tative of their subordinate position in the family.
Lenny's intelligence and Joey's physique are adequate
to overthrow their father, but they lack the■necessary
ambition. The dialogue between father and son is reveal
ing:
MAX: Mind you, /Jessie/ wasn't such a bad woman.
Even though it made me sick just to look at
her rotten stinking face, she wasn't such a
bad bitch. I gave her the best bleeding years
of my life, anyway.
LENNY: Plug it, will you, you stupid sod. I'm
trying to read the paper.
MAX: Listen.' I'll chop your spine off, you talk
to me like that! .... Talking to your lousy
filthy father like that . ' 2 9
First, Max contradicts himself and reveals his unflatter
ing impression of women, which includes a reversal of a
wife's customary complaint about wasting'the best years
of her life. Lenny displays no respect for his father
29pinter, The Homecoming, p. 9.
134
and instead of answering the image painted by the old man
by standing up for his mother, he wants Max to be quiet
because he is being bothered while trying to read the
newspaper. Max's choice of words in describing himself
keeps the tone of his exchange with Lenny amusing instead
of serious. The two men threaten, but they do not mean
to call anyone's bluff; they tolerate each other. After
all, Lenny continues to live in the house and his father
allows him to remain. There is a serious game being
played, and the presence of potential crisis comes from
the expression of the unconventional thoughts in an un
common manner, but as in the previous two dramas the
emerging pattern of action implies that need is the
essential element which defines the game for it is
specific needs which ultimately determine the characters'
actions.
A threat to an individual's mental well-being which
grows out of these psychological needs is a common feature
of these three plays, although the conclusions which can
be drawn from the evidence they present are different.
In The Collection the meaning of the play begins to
become clear when Harry and Bill have a confrontation
in which Harry is upset by the fact-that someone has been
calling on Bill. Harry's fictionalized account of James'
first visit tries to get to the truth in a bantering
135
manner that masks concern which becomes more evident later.
It also differs remarkably from what the audience knows
really happened, and this may be a clue to the general
plot of the drama in that Harry is using his imagination
in an attempt to clarify his association with Bill, just
as each of the other characters is attempting to stabilize
personal standings in their respective pairings.
In the living room on the other side of the set the
other couple also discusses James* visit as they, too,
try to verify the conditions of their relationship.
James announces that he has come to a decision; he
intends to go see his wife's lover. Stella claims that
there is no need to, that he was of no importance. James
incidentally mentions that he merely wants to see if the
fellow has changed since they last saw each other, to
which Stella reacts in an interesting progression of
thoughts: "You've never seen him. Pause. You don't
know him. Pause. You don't know where he lives. Pause.
. 30
When did you see him?" The movement from denial of
possibility through partial acceptance, to a final acknowl
edgment, all without any prompting on her husband's part,
is characteristic of the thinking of Pinter characters,
for it develops on a line of logic which defines itself
as it progresses. It has no referents outside itself, yet
3°Pinter, The Collection, p. 65.
136
is internally consistent in alternating implied premises
with those actually stated. In essence, the omitted
premises contradict those stated: when Stella says that
James does not know Bill, her next step is to concede that
they are acquainted but to deny that he knows where Bill
lives. The middle step is ignored. In other words,
Stella's movement from denial to acceptance is not as
startling as it may at first seem, for she convinces
herself through a series of small steps, each one depend
ent on the thought which immediately preceded it. The
movement in many of Pinter's plays follows a similar
line in that the conclusion appears absurd, yet given
the premises present at the beginning of the play one
arrives at the end through a progression of steps which
follow from what went before and prepare for what is to
come. No one step is especially illogical, but the cumu
lative effect is that of absurdity (The Homecoming being
a prime example of this effect in action).
When Harry meets Stella, he asks if she knows Bill
Lloyd personally. She says no, so Harry tells her that
Mr. Horne has been bothering Bill of late with a fantastic
story. Stella is apologetic and after explaining that
they have been happily married for two years offers a
third version of events at Leeds: "my husband has sud
denly dreamed up such a fantastic story, for no reason
137
at all,""something she attributes to the fact that "he's
31
just not been very well lately, actually . . . overwork."
James1 second visit with Bill brings things to a head.
Bill brings out some cheese, commenting on his "splendid"
cheese knife, but assuring James that it will not cut him
if he handles it properly. The two men talk about the
affair at Leeds and Bill philosophizes on the nature of
women. James picks up a fruit knife and challenges
Bill to a mock duel— "First one who's touched is a
32
sissy." During the ensuing action Bill is cut. James
remarks, "Now you've got a scar on your hand. You didn't
have one before, did you?" a reference to their first
confrontation in which Bill claimed innocence because
there were no scratches on his body. Harry, who had
returned earlier in the scene but remained unnoticed in
the hall, observing and not interrupting, enters and begins
speaking as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
His reactions to an attack on his roommate are so out of
place that they are funny:
What have you done, nipped your hand? Let's
have a look. /To James/ Only a little nip
isn't it? It's his own fault for not ducking.
I must have told him dozens of times, you know,
that if someone throws a knife at you the„„
silliest thing you can do is to catch it.^
31Ibid., p. 71.
32Ibid., p. 75.
33Ibid., p. 7 6.
138
After proposing an Ironic toast, "Healthy minds in healthy
,,34
bodies," Harry mentions that he has recently met Stella
and that she provided him with what is in essence a fourth
version of the Leeds incident--she "made a little tiny
confession. . . . What she confessed was . . . that she'd
„35
made the whole thing up. Bill agrees that it was pure
fantasy and that he would not know the woman if he saw
her. To James' comment that it was strange that he con
firmed her whole story, Bill responds, "You amused me.
,,36
You wanted me to do so." As is typical in Pinter,
imagery based on filth is related to the underlying
meaning of the play when Bill's attitude prompts Harry
to expand a statement he made to Mrs. Horne earlier, in
the strongest imagery in the drama, concerning his pro
tege's origin:
Bill's a slum boy, you see, he's got a slum
sense of humor. ... I have nothing against
slum minds per se. . . . There's a certain kind
of slum mind which is perfectly all right in a
slum, but when this kind of slum mind gets out
of the slum it sometimes persists ... it rots
everything. That's what Bill is. There's some
thing putrid about him . . . he's a slum slug . . .
he crawls all over the walls of nice houses,
leaving slime. . . . He confirms stupid sordid
little stories just to amuse himself. . . .
All he can do is sit and suck his bloody hand
and decompose like the filthy putrid slum slug
he is.37
3 4Ibid., p. 7 6.
35Ibid., pp. 76-77.
36Ibid., p. 77.
37Ibld., pp. 77-78._____________________________________
139
Harry sees James as a rival for Bill's attentions because
Bill procured olives for him, set up a cheese tray, and
admits that he did something merely to please the other
man. Jealous of his roommate, Harry resorts to name
calling. If something (Bill's affection) cannot be
obtained, then it is a good idea to degrade its value
so that the impending loss is less severe.
James expresses great relief at finding out the full
truth of the matter and, using the same words Stella used
earlier, excuses his wife’s actions with the conventional,
"My wife’s not been very well lately, actually. Over-
,,38
work." Bill, however, unexpectedly brings everything
which has just been verified into question again with a
fifth version of the story:
I never touched her . . . we sat ... in the
lounge, on a sofa . . . for two hours . . .
we talked about it . . . we didn't . . . move
from the lounge . . . just talked . . . about
what we would do . . . if we did get to her
room. 39
James leaves the house as Harry and Bill remain
silently seated. The lights in the house fade to half
light. When James returns home, apparently believing
Bill’s tale, he tells Stella that he knows that nothing
happened--they simply sat and talked. When he asks,
nO
Ibid., p. 78.
39Ibid., p. 79.
140
Zin
"That's the truth . . . isn't it?" Stella looks at him
with a Mona Lisa smile, "neither confirming nor denying.
41
Her face is friendly, sympathetic."
According to Pinter's comments on verification and
the nature of reality, an interesting but probably irrel
evant question is which version of the events that took
place at Leeds is true. As mentioned previously, Pinter
feels that any single event is a composite of many small
events and each individual's perceptions will be deter
mined by what is most relevant to himself personally.
For example, Harry's version of the meeting is a distor
tion of Stella's tale, created in an effort to preserve
his affinity with Bill. And this may be the key to the
play. It is conceivable that The Collection is a demon
stration of the problems involved in verification which
the author has been exploring since The Room. The point
of the play then could be seen as an attempt to expose
the tenuousness of relationships because of the inability
of the participants to verify those things which constitute
the basis of their relationship— i.e., security in their
emotional attachments. Bill's last version is probably
closest to the truth in that the facts and reactions
throughout the drama most consistently support it. If
^°Ibid., p. 80.
41 Ibid.
141
they talked and Stella, because of her dissatisfaction
with the conditions of her marriage, exaggerated in her
account of the encounter, we could easily arrive at James1
version. Given that version, Bill's reaction is natural,
for he is scared and trying to hurt his tormentor, so he
tries to shift the blame, claiming that it was her fault
but at the same time a product of her imagination. When
Harry presents his version, we cannot be sure if Stella
told him anything, and if so we have no assurance that
she told him the truth— Harry is simply trying to protect
his own interests by taking the easy way out. Bill's
final truth has been attributed to the stinging humilia-
42
tion of Harry's "slum" speech, but the version he
presents certainly need not bear out this contention.
There really is no reason at this point for him to say
anything further, unless it is the truth. Having gone
full round, through several possible explanations, this
seems to be the only alternative left, and Bill, relieved
that the uncomfortable episode is about to end, tells the
truth in a gesture of release, to clear the air. It also
gives him the last laugh in what started out as an inno
cent joke, for the story the two men are complacently
accepting because it best suits their needs is challenged.
Harry is once more placed on the defensive since all
^Arnold Hinchcliffe, Harold Pinter, p. 116.
142
previous versions are made questionable by Bill's confes
sion, implying that the present answer may become suspect
In the future. Bill, therefore, gains the upper hand in
a relationship which has not fully pleased him up to now.
Stella's reaction makes sense, too, for it is evident
through the course of the drama that her marriage lacks
43
something, and she, like Bill, has a better chance to
gain the upper hand in her marriage by keeping her husband
unsure— he will no longer take her for granted and thus
will provide the attention that she requires. At the end
of the play her position has been strengthened in compar
ison to what it was when the drama opened. We are first
exposed to Stella in the role of a wife unsure of a hus
band over whom she has no control. He does not answer
her questions and generally ignores her presence. . . Not
even sure that he will be in that night, the ineffectual
44
Stella can only slam out of the house in frustration.
The situation is reversed when the final curtain falls,
for now it is James who is unsure of his partner, asking
45
her questions to which he receives no answer. He has
been placed in the position of trying to save a marriage
which just a few hours before he merely had been accepting.
^As she admitted earlier, James has been very busy,
and perhaps he has not been paying her the attention she
desires.
44
Pinter, The Collection, p. 45.
45Ibid.. p. 80. ________________________________
143
He has been put on the defense. This entire maneuver is
an example of what Eric Berne has called the "Let1s You
46
and Him Fight" ploy.
It may be argued that the sequence of events por
trayed in The Collection serves to weaken rather than
strengthen the bonds between the members of the two
couples. After all, the tenuousness of such bonds has
certainly been proven, and all four characters are now
clearly aware of the possibility of change in partners.
It might even be suggested that sexual identities may be
an issue of verification and that Harry's jealousy of
James is well founded, for James has become conscious of
the fact that there is potential fulfillment outside his
marriage. Gordon goes so far as to claim that James may
have instigated the whole chain of events by fabricating
the initial charge because of a homosexual interest in
47
Bill, but there seems to be no evidence to support this
46
Berne claims that the psychology involved is
"essentially feminine." "As a maneuver it is romantic.
The woman maneuvers or challenges two men into fighting,
with the implication or promise that she will surrender
herself to the winner. After the competition is decided,
she fulfills her bargain. This is an honest transaction,
and the presumption is that she and her mate live happily
ever after."— Games People Play (New York, 1964), p. 124.
Pinter uses this dramatic formula again In The Basement
(1 9 6 7). How happy James and Stella will be is debatable,
but the smile as the play ends indicates that Stella is
prepared to live "happily ever after" In the relationship
as it now exists.
47
'Gordon, p. 52.
144
contention in the drama (James was not even sure of Bill's
identity when they first met). James may in fact become
aware of this alternate possibility, but there can be no
doubt that he rejects it in favor of returning to his
wife: there is never an explicit mention or any other
overt sign of any sexual relationship between James and
Bill; James convincingly turns on Bill; and he goes back
to Stella. More important, perhaps, than the simple fact
that the husband returns home at the end of the play is
his attitude toward his wife. It is obvious that she is
important to him, for, as demonstrated by his uncertainty,
he is returning because he wants her, and he is still
afraid that he might lose her.
The stress of the play seems to be on the difficulty
of verification which leads to an awareness of the possi
bility of change. The realization that the potential for
change exists may weaken the relationships because the
partners can no longer be sure of one another. It may,
conversely, strengthen the relationships because the
partners will strive to protect their ties since they have
seen how fragile they are. Or it may not alter them
appreciably either way (if Pinter is simply exploring
another instance of the problems inherent in the desire
for verification). It is impossible to tell what the
ultimate outcome might be, the seeds of doubt having been
145
planted, but as The Collection ends the two couples have
been reunited in efforts to retain their relationships.
In terms of the play, the truth of what happened at Leeds
is not significant. Verification means that one version
may be true, or any combination of versions. What is
important is how and why people react to what they con
sider the truth.
The Collection is the first of Pinter*s plays which
deals with sex specifically as a subject. Many of the pre
vious works included sex as an incidental ingredient. In
A Slight Ache there is a suggestion that Edward was unable
to satisfy his wife's desires, some of which were at least
partially sexual in nature. The homosexuality in The
Collection is an extension of the suggestion in The Dwarfs.
Prom Rose in The Room on, Pinter implies that women
are almost always either whores or adultresses. With
Rose there is a hint of prostitution. In The Birthday
Party Meg's relations with Stanley are suspect and Lulu
is promiscuous. In A Slight Ache Flora opts for the
matchseller in place of her husband. Albert in A Night
Out pays a visit to a streetwalker's room after his misad
ventures with the firm's girls. The schoolteacher Sally
leads a double life as Katina in Night School. Since this
is the way women are presented, it comes as no surprise
that Stella might have strayed. While sex was an element
in the previous dramas, however, The Collection uses the
146
subject as a metaphor for expressing the author's obser
vations.
The title of the play may refer to the dress collec
tions taken to Leeds which serve as the immediate cause
that stimulates the plot, the collection of human rela-
48
tionships, or, as proposed by Hinchcliffe, the fragility
of human relationships, sexual or otherwise. With the
circular relationships (the eternal triangle, infidelity,
and jealous lovers) which are traditionally present in
stage comedies as a background, Pinter has continued to
comment on his usual topics from a fresh viewpoint with
more sustained humor than heretofore. He has enlarged
his study of people in which need is emerging as a motive
force. Now he begins to look at some of the ways they
might attempt to satisfy their psychological demands.
The wife/whore duality and the resultant game play
ing occur again in Pinter's next play, The Lover. The
basic idea upon which Pinter built The Lover is graphic
ally developed by casting Sarah in the role of both wife
and whore. Where she was obviously a housewife in the
opening segments of the play, she is shown in a different
setting later. The first indication that role playing
and exchanging is involved comes when Richard notices
that Sarah is wearing "unfamiliar" high-heeled shoes
^Hinchcliffe, p. 116.
147
and asks her about them. She mutters, "Mistake. Sorry,"
and goes into the hall where she puts the high-heeled
shoes into a cupboard and puts on a low-heeled pair.
49
"Apparel oft proclaims the man," and Sarah's shoes are
a distinguishing mark; they serve as a uniform. At a later
date she is discovered wearing a "very tight, low-cut
50
black dress." The wife/whore idea again is brought
home when she suddenly notices that she has on her low-
heeled shoes, and hurries to the cupboard and changes
into her high heels. She sits on the chaise longue where
she goes through a number of poses in rehearsal of the
position she will assume upon her lover's arrival. The
doorbell rings and Sarah familarly greets the man stand-
51
ing without— "Hallo, Max," — but it is Richard who enters.
As he comes into the room, however, there are some imme
diately noticeable changes from the Richard who left
earlier. The clothing, actions, and words throughout the
scene in which Richard is present as Max combine to
create a figure more masculine, harsher, more vulgar and
coarse, more vital and animalistic than Richard as Richard.
^William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince
of Denmark in The Complete "Works of William Shakespeare
(Garden City, 193b), I, iii, 1. 72 (p. 739).
50
Pinter, The Lover, p. 18.
51
Ibid., p. 19.
148
Sarah’s actions have undergone a transformation too. She
seductively postures before her lover, who takes bongo
drums from the hall cupboard. While he taps on the drums,
she scratches the back of his hand and the game period
has begun. The free use of new names (Max, Dolores, Mary)
and rapidly switching roles are serious and frighteningly
significant to the meaning of the "drama, but the fast
rhythm of changes, culminating with a gradual sinking
into an emotional quicksand produces a hilarious effect.
Max, however, is still an unsettling influence as
he continues the attack on their relationship which began
with Richard's questions. Max's insistence that he has
played his last game is met by Sarah's seductive attempt
to get her lover to play another game; it was teatime
« 52
before, now she wants it to be whispering time"
(a phrase she will repeat later) and for him to love her.
She has expressed the underlying conflict earlier: "You
don't really think you could have what we have with your
53
wife do you?" --the divorce of sex from marriage is
implied. When Max asks how her husband bears it, she
replies, "He's happy for me. He appreciates the way I
..54
am. He understands." The distinction between Sarah's
52Ibid., p. 27.
53ibid., p. 26.
^Ibid.
149
conceptions Is clear by now— a husband supplies under
standing and the "respectable" elements of marriage, a
lover provides sexual release. Max's earlier differen
tiation of a wife and a mistress was essentially the same.
As a lover, though, his reaction is amusingly ridiculous.
He denies her, claiming, "You're too bony."
When Richard returns as Richard, he has made an
irrevocable decision while caught in a mundane traffic
jam: her "debauchery," her "life of depravity," and
"path of illegitimate lust" has to stop. He forbids
her to entertain her lover on the premises ever again:
"Perhaps you would give him my compliments, by letter
if you like, and ask him to cease his visits (He consults
57
calendar.)— the twelfth inst." Sarah is taken aback by
Richard's insistence, for they have been married ten
years, have engaged in the masquerade almost from the
58
beginning with no previous reluctance on his part. The
picture of a young bride who was unable to reconcile her
idealized vision of marriage and her sexual desires and
a husband who tried to help her is now complete. The
55ibid., p. 2 8.
5 6Ibid., p. 3 3.
57
Ibid., p. 3 4.
58 „
"I didn't take my lover ten years ago. Not quite.
Not on the honeymoon."— Ibid., p. 35.
150
background of what preceded the play having been furnished,
the reason for the game playing becomes comprehensible.
Richard is no longer satisfied with the game which
has trapped them, for they are no longer in control; they
are controlled by the game itself. In an attempt to bring
them back to a face-to-face confrontation with reality,
he is trying to destroy the game while staying within its
context— i.e., he refuses to admit that they have been
playing dual roles. As the outraged husband, he tells
his wife to "Take /Max/ out into the fields. . . . Find
a rubbish dump. . . . Buy a canoe and find a stagnant
59
pond." Aside from the images, reversal makes this
discourse amusing since it would have been acceptable
earlier in the play, before the audience was aware of
the facts, but now it is ironically humorous. With "quiet
anguish" Sarah recognizes what is happening and, sounding
like Martha when George takes their son from her in Edward
Albee's Who1s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, tries to dissuade
him by reminding him of the mutual consent involved:
"You»ve no right to question me. ... It was our arrange-
60
ment." When Richard*s course cannot be altered, Sarah
strikes out, trying to hurt him by extending her fantasy
and claiming that she lavishly entertains other callers
when he is not at home.
59ibid., p. 35.
^Ihld,-,,_,p.— 37-.
151
Whether Richard concedes that he cannot change Sarah
or whether he himself cannot give up the game is not
clear, hut he shifts from inquisitor to play maker when
he stops asking how the drum is used during her illicit
6l
afternoons and initiates the "Got a light?" procedure.
Sarah is startled and rebels at first— the game is being
played in the wrong circumstances. Richard continues to
develop the "You're trapped" theme, and she soon falls in
line with the appropriate responses: "I'm trapped. . . .
You've no right to treat a married woman like this. . . .
62
But my husband will -understand." When she says "I've
never seen you before after sunset," it is apparent that
they are creating a new situation, one which will allow
them to continue--and one which will add a new stimulus
to their relationship. The basis for their problem still
exists, however, for they have treated the symptom and not
the disease— they are concerned with.an anodyne to relieve
their suffering as opposed to finding a cure for what is
causing the pain. That the couple is where they were at
the beginning, still unable to reconcile the conflict, is
demonstrated by Sarah's need to change her uniform and
Richard's need to have her do so as the play ends:
61
Ibid., p. 38.
62
Ibid,, p. 39.
152
SARAH: Would you like me to change?. . . .
1111 change for you, darling. Shall I?. . . .
RICHARD: Yes. . . . Change your clothes. . . .
You lovely whore. 63
Richard's last word in the play is indicative of the
problem Pinter is exploring in The Lover because in order
1 to relate to his wife sexually he must see her in a non-
j respectable framework. It is clear throughout the drama
that Richard and Sarah enforce a distinction between
marriage and sex. This is brought out in their dress
64
(Richard and Sarah wear clothes which are "sober" and
65
"demure" in contrast to the suede jacket and low-cut
dress of Max and Dolores), their speech (the wife versus
whore debate), and their general actions toward one an
other (a sedate couple as opposed to the game players).
George Wellwarth claims that the couple indulges in "their
sadistic fantasies . . . in order to achieve sexual po-
„66
tency," and indeed the games do serve as a sort of
foreplay, but they are more significant than simply that.
67
Sarah "looked first," taking her lover shortly after her
honeymoon because he symbolically represented a
63Ibid., p. 40.
64 •
Ibid., p. 6.
^Ibid., p. 5-
f i f i
The Theatre of Protest and Pradox (New York,
3-965), pT 211.
^Pinter, The Lover, p. 13.
153
reconciliation between her distortion of puritan morality
which conceived of sex as something not to be indulged in
for enjoyment and her natural biological urges. A wife
68
is someone to be proud of for her social graces— a
woman who provides sexual satisfaction is a whore who
"pleases" "between trains." As a matter of verification
(in this case personal identity) it is vital that the two
aspects of her life, marriage and sex, be kept- separate
and carefully labeled. Thus the differences between her
roles are stressed by the way in which Richard treats her—
according to the role she is playing at the time. Bamber
Gascoigne of The Observer sees The Lover as "an expres-
sionistic drama about a young couple who can't reconcile
their respectable idea of marriage with the violent ritual
of their sexual passions. So they keep sex in a separate
69
compartment." This idea is epitomized by Sarah's state
ments to the effect that one who suggests sexual activity
70
has "no right to treat a married woman like this" when
confronted by Max. Since Sarah's problem will not allow
this married couple to accept sex as a part of marriage,
it forces them to mask themselves as sexual participants,
thus making sex something outside of marriage, lust as
^®See Pinter, The Lover, p. 3 1.
^Recorded in Hinchcliffe, p. 124.
^°Pinter, The Lover, p. 39.
154
opposed to respectability or refinement, which is ex
pressed as near rape or seduction (force as opposed to
overt acceptance) and thus acceptable as being undesired
or even unavoidable and this a venial, sin. Passion and
respectability are thereby reconciled and everything is
all right, as indicated by Sarah's constant refrain that
her husband "understands."
The Lover tells what happens after the game has been
established to the extent 'that one of the partners,
Richard, realizes that he is losing his identity to the
game and that instead of controlling it, it is controlling
him. In effect the archetypal male finds himself intrud
ing upon himself on his own territory, established by
night versus day. Richard accepts defeat as the play
concludes, rather than lose Sarah. Striving to protect
their marriage in terms which will not threaten their
integrity as individuals, Richard and Sarah create a
new game out of the ashes of their old game. In a
master's thesis written at Columbia Gerald Berkowitz
remarks that this is substantially the opposite conclusion
of The Room, though the results are the same, for he sees
that "individual identities are ultimately destroyed, not
by an outside force, but by the very relationship that was
,.71
created to give them meaning." The paradox is that the
^Gerald Berkowitz, "Harold Pinter" (master's thesis,
Columbia University, i960), p. 6 3.
155
two people Involved must play the game if they are to
harmonize areas in their own natures, forcing reality to
fit their theories, but in so doing they subordinate them
selves to the identity of the game. The play is, then,
the story of two people who psychologically need both
the sexual and refined or idealized aspects of marriage,
but find them unreconcilable, so turn to a sort of psycho
drama which allows them to fulfill their need, a need so
great that loss of personal identity is subordinate to it.
The meaning of The Homecoming is harder to decipher
than was the case with either The Collection or The Lover.
It is apparent, though, that the casual acceptance of the
abnormal is an integral part, abnormality occasioned by
the characters* sense of desperation. When Teddy and Ruth
enter his boyhood home, Teddy assures his wife that she
will be welcomed by the family because "They’re very warm
72
people, really. Very warm. They’re my family." Yet,
when Teddy and Lenny suddenly meet after Teddy’s six-year
absence, for example, the two start a casual conversation,
making no mention of the absence or return for some mo
ments. The characters’ actions in the play indicate an
almost overpowering need for emotional attachment, yet
they seem unable to admit this, as though they are embar
rassed at being so weak that they are dependent upon
72
Pinter, The Homecoming, p. 23.
156
others. Admittedly, on the surface the family's actions
toward one another are not indicative of need, hut this
is part of what Pinter is trying to say in The Homecoming.
Because of the difficulties in communication and the
resultant frustrations, because of the emotional needs
of the characters and their resultant vulnerability,
affection is not expressed in a normal fashion. There
i
I
is a series of minor details which, taken in toto, implies
that the men are emotionally attached: most obviously
they live together— first of all, Max could kick them
out, and secondly, Sam, Lenny, and Joey all work, so
they probably could support themselves singly; a wall
was torn down to provide a larger living room so that
they could all get together freely; when they are to
gether their questions show an interest in one another's
jobs (pimping, driving) and hobbies (horses, boxing),
albeit some of the discussions are satiric in nature;
they go to football matches together; they cook and do
housework for the family unit; and there are affectionate
bantering and games which are really attempts at communi
cation. Individually there are further evidences that
there is feeling between the members of the family. Max
took the responsibility of raising his family when his
father died, and after Jessie's death managed to hold
things together fairly well— "I suffered the pain, I've
157
73
still got the pangs" he complains. He has made sacri
fices for his kin. He did enjoy his family too, though,
, i
as he says in his reminiscing about his sons as children,
74
"What fun we used to have in the bath." In Act II
Lenny speaks of the family as a "unit" in which Teddy
is "an integral part" to the extent that when the whole
family sits in the backyard, "there's always an empty
75
chair standing in the circle, which is in fact Teddy's."
The circle emphasizes their unit. Most importantly, Teddy
cares enough for his family that he does come home.
In spite of the avowed familial relationship, the
two brothers, like fighters carefully testing one another
in the opening round, amusingly discuss something which
has been keeping Lenny awake instead of greeting each
other with some acknowledgment that there has been a
period of separation.
TEDDY: Hullo, Lenny.
LENNY: Hullo, Teddy.
Pause.
TEDDY: I didn't hear you come down the stairs.
LENNY: I didn't.
Pause.
* • • •
TEDDY: How are you?
LENNY: Well, just sleeping a bit restlessly,
what's all. Tonight, anyway.
TEDDY: Bad dreams?
LENNY: No, I wouldn't say I was dreaming. It's
not exactly a dream. It's just that something
keeps waking me up. Some kind of tick.
73Ibid., p. 47.
74ibid., p. 46.
73Ibld._. p. 65.
158
TEDDY: A tick?
LENNY: Yes.
TEDDY: Well, what is it?
LENNY: I don't know.
Pause. yg
TEDDY: Have you got a clock in your room?
This is just one of many instances In.which characters
react to an extraordinary situation as though it is per
fectly natural. Lenny's meeting with his brother's wife
is another example of characters regarding an unusual
occurrence as though there is nothing out of the ordinary
taking place:
LENNY: Good evening.
RUTH: Morning, I think.
LENNY: You're right there.
Pause.
My name's Lenny. What's yours?
RUTH: Ruth.
LENNY:* Cold?
RUTH: No.
LENNY: It's been a wonderful summer, hasn't it?
Remarkable.
Pause.
Would you like something? Refreshment of some
kind? An aperitif, anything like that?
RUTH: No, thanks.
LENNY: I'm glad you said that. We haven't got
a drink in the house. . . . You must be con
nected with my brother in some way. 77
Although Lenny suddenly finds a strange woman letting
herself into his house and Ruth is confronted by a man
-she has never seen before, the two people react as though
this is an everyday occurrence, nothing out of the
76Ibid., p. 25.
77Ibid., pp. 27-28.
159
ordinary. The lovemaking scene in the final act, dis
cussed later, is both shocking and hilarious. These
scenes are useful in helping the audience determine the
meaning of the play, for they expose the characters1
desperateness in that they seem willing to agree to any
thing, no matter how unusual it may appear on the surface,
in hopes that it may lead to solving their unhappy sit
uations. They will and do play, whatever the game.
The first overt clue that The Homecoming is con
cerned with the theme of need comes at the end of Act One
when Max welcomes his boy in a manner as extreme as his
rejection had been: "Teddy, why don't we have a nice
7ft
cuddle and kiss, eh? Like the old days?" Teddy agrees,
and the first half of the play ends with the two men
facing each other, Max happily exclaiming, "He still
79
loves hi? father.'" and lines of affection have been
tentatively reestablished. Max's initial reaction to the
return of his oldest son can be explained as anger at
Teddy's having left in the first place. After all, Max
had undergone elaborately described self-sacrifices in
order to keep his family together, only to have Teddy
fail in his duty as a son when he deserted them.
78Ibid., p. 43.
^Ibid., p. 46.
160
The effects of need are exposed in different ways
with the various characters. Sam is tied to his brother's
late wife. Although he knows that she was unfaithful,
he acknowledges that there is no other woman in the world
who could compare favorably with her (one is reminded of
the type of woman commonly portrayed by Pinter). Sam, a
"wet wick," has little to recommend him and, where Teddy
retreats from a lack of success by denying the value of
success, Sam retreats from any intimate contact with women
by adhering to an idealized figure of Jessie. Being dead,
she cannot test his devotion or ability as a live woman
might.
Lenny's flights into fancy concerning women display
his lack of emotional equilibrium. One of these ladies
"made a certain proposal . . . this proposal wasn't
entirely out of order and normally I would have sub
scribed to it. . . . The only trouble was she was falling
apart with the pox . . . this lady was very insistent and
started taking liberties . . . which by any criterion I
couldn't be expected to tolerate, the facts being what
80
they were, so I clumped her one." The account is far
fetched enough, including the cliches and the ridiculous
practicality (he decided against murder in spite of the
propitious circumstances because he did not want to get
8oIbid., pp. 30-31.
161
into a state of "tension") that it is humorous. Ruth's
question, "How did you know she was diseased?" and Lenny's
81
reply, "I decided she was," make the whole story even
more amusing, but it also introduces a more serious note,
relating it both to Pinter's verification theme and imply
ing Lenny's view of women. It makes no difference what
the "truth" of the matter is, whether the girl did indeed
have the pox, all that is important is how the characters
react to a given statement. Ruth reflects the desire for
verification, even though the fact is insignificant in
terms of the action completed, and Lenny's answer implies
that something can be both true and false simultaneously—
while there is no evidence that his pursuer was diseased,
his actions are the same as If she were. His refusal to
take advantage of her offer, even though she had been
"searching for /him7 for days," tenuously links him with
character types such as Davies in The Caretaker and James
in The Collection, for although the tale is probably
fantasy, it can be seen as symbolic of his subconscious
rejection of women. /Davies was unable to accept atten
tion, either in the guise of approval or affection, in ■
spite of his seeking these things. James’ easy reception
of Stella's tale (aside from such actions being what one
would expect from a woman) in part is due to his recog
nition of both the difficulty of creating a relationship
8lIbid., p. 31.
162
and the fragility of that relationship once formed^
Starting with his own mother, and then by virtue of his
profession, Lenny has been exposed to a low order of
women, and the only woman for whom he has ever felt
affection left him— his mother died. Unable to accept
women because he would be vulnerable to desertion again,
he rejects them violently in a protective reflex, to keep
himself free from emotional entanglements even as he seeks
them. When he entertains Ruth with another fantasy revolv
ing around asserting himself physically regarding a little
old lady, he again exposes himself:
I had a good mind to give her a workover there
and then, but as I was feeling jubilant with
the snow-clearing I just gave her a short-armnp
jab to the belly and jumped on a bus outside.
A clue to Lenny's alleged actions is given when Ruth
refers to him as "Leonard" at the conclusion of the story
and he asks her not to call him that, because "That's the
Oo
name my mother gave me." Jessie has been dead for an
indeterminate number of years, yet her presence is power
fully felt on stage throughout the entire drama as she is
referred to by every member of the family and her memory
affects the actions of each individual in some way or
another. That Lenny finds it difficult to establish a
normal relationship with women is obvious. This may be
82
Ibid., p. 33.
83Ibid. ■ ________________________________________
163
due to the reasons noted above, or It may stem from his
comparison of women to the standard of his mother (like
Sam, he. can find no one who is her equal, so he does not
even want to be called by the name she gave him), or from
his mother’s influence on him similar to Albert's situ
ation in A Night Out (possibly another reason for not
wanting to be called Leonard--his dislike for his mother).
Even Ruth is a threat to him. Lenny is amused that he is
in his pajamas and Ruth is fully clothed when they first
meet, since this is a reversal of his normal working
conditions, and he jokingly calls attention to the fact.
When things start to get serious, he can only retreat in
confusion:
ROTH: If you take the glass . . . I'll take you.
Pause.
LENNY: How about me taking the glass without
you taking me?
ROTH: Why don't I just take you?
Fause-
LENNY: You're joking.
• • • •
ROTH: Have a sip. . . . Sit on my lap. . . .
ETe on the floor
LENNY: What are you doing, making me some
kind of proposal?84
Teddy's actions provide another means of exploring
the theme of need. Like Edward in A Slight Ache whose
failure to fulfill the needs of his wife are paralleled
in the implied lack of success in other areas of his life
^Ibid., p. 34.
164
(as hinted at in his inclusion of the Gobi in a speech
about Africa or seen in his disastrous dealing with the
matchseller), Teddy’s shortcomings are suggested by his
not exhibiting his ability in philosophical matters.
Lenny and Teddy, joined by Ruth, discuss the nature of
the universe, the question of what is true versus what
is not true which Pinter is answering in his plays by
merging the two, as in the figure of Lenny’s girl with
the pox where he creates a debatable, premise and then
acts as though it is confirmed. Again, it is not the
validity of the premise that is important but the actions
stemming from it. The professor's brother (a pimp) and
wife (a former body model) better demonstrate an under
standing of his subject than he does:
LENNY: Eh, Teddy, you haven't told us much
about your Doctorship of Philosophy. What
do you teach?
TEDDY: Philosophy.
LENNY: Well, I want to ask you something.
Do you detect a certain logical incoherence
in the central affirmations of Christian
theism?
TEDDY: That question doesn’t fall within my
province.
• • • •
LENNY: But you're a philosopher. Come on,
be frank. What do you make of all this
business of being and not-being?
TEDDY: What do you make of it?
LENNY: Well, for instance, take a table.’
Philosophically speaking. What is it?
TEDDY: A table.85
85Ibid., pp. 52-53.
165
Lenny is aware of a philosophical question and the words
in which to phrase it: Teddy, does not respond in the same
vein. Ruth enters the fray, introducing a new perspective:
You’ve forgotten something. Look at me.
I . . . move my leg. That’s all it is. But
I wear . . . underwear . . . which moves with
me . . . it captures your attention. Perhaps
you misinterpret. The action is simple. It's
a leg . . . moving. My lips move. Why don't
you restrict . . . your observations to that?
j Perhaps the fact that they move is more sig-
! nifleant . . . than the words which come through
them. You must bear that . . . possibility . . .
in mind.86
Again, it is the philosopher's family rather than the
philosopher which poses a question or an answer demanding
philosophical conjecture as opposed to Teddy's superficial
responses.
Throughout Pinter's works there is a pattern of
individuals' failing in other areas of their lives as a
reflection of their lack of success in creating viable
relationships with their companions (Davies is a prime
example). While he may simply not wish to discuss his
interests with a layman, his chosen profession would be
the one area in which Teddy should be able to exhibit his
proficiency. Teddy proves himself capable of doing little
besides stealing cheese-rolls In the play, however, al
though there are ample instances in which he meets defeat
in the drama (his inability to control his wife earlier,
86Ibid., p. 55.
166
for* example). Teddy may be a material success; he is a
professor who is paid enough to take his wife to Europe,
but Pinter is not interested in material success in any
of his plays. As he has said, there is no point in
writing about such things when we do not even know about
the basics of human communication. The characters in
A Slight Ache, The Collection. , and The Lover are appar
ently in comfortable economic circumstances, yet they all
have emotional problems. It is possible that Teddy is
actually a success as a philosopher, for he faces all
situations with a philosopher's equanimity, while still
not being able to solve essential problems such as meeting
his wife's psychological requirements or maintaining .a
lasting relationship with his father and brothers which
will fulfill his own emotional needs. Hinchcliffe remarks
that it is an "obvious absurdity . . . that Teddy has a
Ph.D. in philosophy" for "Teddy seems to be philosophical
only in the contemptible sense of the word . . . incred-
87
ibly academic and narrow." He goes on to point out that
it is Lenny who is speculative and Ruth who is creative
in the drama, not the brother/husband. Whether or not
Teddy failed in his profession, it is certain that he did
not succeed in his return home. He enters the house full
of hope and leaves without his wife. No emotional ties
^Hinchcliffe, p. 159.
167
have been reestablished— indeed, some have been nullified.
Teddy's failure in returning spills over into his marriage,
and his own family disregards the fact that Ruth is his
wife (Lenny and Max both appear deaf to Teddy's protes
tations that he and Ruth are married), beginning with
Lenny's trouble in being convinced that is her "connec
tion" with his older brother at their first meeting:
RUTH: I'm his wife.
• • • •
We're on a visit to Europe.
LENNY: What, both of you?
RUTH: Yes.
LENNY: What, you sort of live with him over
there, do you?
RUTH: We're married. oo
LENNY: On a visit to Europe, eh? . . .
As the couple is about to depart for America, Teddy's
family demonstrates the overwhelming sense of selfish
motivation they have which is partly responsible for
their alienation:
LENNY (to RUTH): What about one dance before
you go?
TEDDY: We're going.
LENNY: Just one.
« t » »
RUTH stands. They dance, slowly. TEDDY
stands, with RUTH'S caa¥. MAX and JOEY
come in thefront door and into the room.
LENNY kisses RUTH. They stand, kissing.
JOEY: Christ, she's wide open. Dad, look at
^at. Pause. She's a tart. . . . JOEY goes
to them. He takes RUTH'S arm. He smiles at
LENNY. He 'sits with RUTH on the sofa, embraces
and kisses her. . . . LENNY sits on the arm of
the sofa. He caresses RUTH'S hair as JOEY
embraces her. MAX comes forward and looks
at the cases.
oo
Pinter. The Homecoming,_pp. 2J-29. .
168
MAX: You going, Teddy?. . . . Look, next time
you oome over, don't forget to.let us know
beforehand whether you're married or not.
1*11 always be glad to meet the wife. . . .
You thought I'd be annoyed because you
married a. woman beneath you. You should
have known me better. . . . He peers to see
RUTH'S face under JOEY, turns back to TEDDY.
Mind you she's a lovely girl. . . . And a
mother too. . . . JOEY and RUTH roll off the
sofa on to the floor. JOEY clasps her.
LENNY moves to stand above them.89
The hilarious farce taking place in front of the non
objecting husband produces the evidence and at the same
time the expression of Teddy's failure. His reaction to
his wife's performance suggests that he has been led to
expect failure. If he has failed in his relations with
his father and his brothers,there is no reason to expect
success in his marriage, so Ruth's actions come as no
real surprise. The rest of the family's easy acceptance
of the events as entirely natural indicates their attitude
toward one another, for they are too interested in how
events affect them personally to be able to look at a
situation with sympathy for the participants.
The action also provides an opportunity for Ruth's
self-assertion. She finds that she can manipulate the
proceedings, and encountering no resistance, by the end
of,the sequence she has taken control. She also takes
the lead in asking questions:
89Tbid., p. 60.
169
RUTH (to TEDDY): Have your family read your
critical works?
MAX: That’s one thing I've never done. I've
never read one of his critical works.
TEDDY: You wouldn't understand them. . . .
Itf's nothing to dovwith the question of intel
ligence. It's a way of being able to look at
the world. It's a question of how far you
can operate on things and not in things. I
mean it's a question of your capacity to ally
the .two, to relate the two . . . to balance
the two . . . to be able to see. ' I'm the
one who can see. That's why I write my
critical works . . . have a look at them ... .
see how certain people can view . . . things . . .
how certain people can maintain . . . intel
lectual equilibrium. . . . You're just objects.
You just . . . move about . . . I can observe
it. I can see what you do. It's the same as
I do. But you're lost in it.90
The irrelevance of the question in the circumstances is
overshadowed by Teddy's response, which reveals a lack
of communication and an attempt to find refuge or shelter
on an intellectual level, though his failure to answer
Lenny's philosophical questions adequately has already
suggested that he is not merely detached as he claims,
| but possibly is incapable. He cannot even express his
feelings adequately to his brother when they are reunited
| after six years' separation. Ties of affection seem beyond
him, since his connections with his father, brothers,
uncle, and wife are superficial (no one is truly pleased
at his return and Ruth is ready to stay behind), so he
no longer expresses interest in participating, though his
9°Ibld., pp. 61-62.
170
initial reunion with his father implied desire for accept
ance. The contrast in Teddy's attitude at the beginning
of the play and his attitude at its conclusion illustrates
his inability to form lasting bonds as well as reflecting
his recognition of his failure— he returns home eagerly,
yet soon becomes anxious to leave, having established no
relationships within his family, unmoved by his uncle's
collapse, and having lost his wife. Only by removing
himself from the sphere of human emotion can he face his
condition.
Teddy's weakness is that he can feel emotion, but
cannot excite a reciprocal feeling in those about him.
That he was happy to get home was shown in his trying to
convince Ruth that his family would welcome them: he
pointed out his father's chair to his wife, specifically
91
mentioned greeting his father in the morning, seemed
pleased that they would surprise the old man and assured
92
Ruth that she would like him. After he was greeted by
93
Lenny, Teddy asked about his dad. When father and son
finally meet at the end of Act One, Teddy is "ready for
94
the cuddle his father proposed. His talks with the
91Ibid., p. 21.
92Ibid., p. 22.
9^Ibid., p. 26.
94Ibid., p. 44.
1.71
family prove that he cannot communicate and events in the
i
play show that he has no control over anybody. Since he
can control no one, Teddy views people as pieces of ma
chinery so that he will not have to relate to them on a
personal level, a classic example of the defense by with-
95
drawing mechanism. Because he sees everyone as a ma
chine, he feels no emotion toward them and can simply
observe their movements. This is a case of defense by
restructuring the world or autism (the tendency to see
96
things as we want to see them), the type of activity
commonly engaged in by Davies.
The Homecoming is Pinter’s best work. He utilizes
his tools well; the setting concentrating the action; the
humor and irony enhancing the terror involved in the under
lying conflicts; the images of corruption producing vivid
ness (note Max’s description of his wife and Lenny’s
description of the girl "falling apart with the pox" in
Act One, for example); and the realistic language (phrases
I and patterns) which emphasizes the movement from reality
1
1
' to unreality through contrast. Specifically dealing with
interpersonal relationships, in The Homecoming Pinter uses
love and sex more explicitly than in his previous dramas
Q5
■ -^See Harold Chapman, Alvin North, Aaron Sartain,
and Jack Strange, Psychology; Understanding Human Behav
ior (New York, 1§5B), Chapter Six.
96lbid., Chapter Six.
172
as a motive force and a means of delving Into problems
between husband and wife, father and sons, brother and
brother.
The basic structural device in the play is the
framework of power struggle, in which sex turns out to
be the deciding agent. In a series of skirmishes through
out the drama, the characters attempt to gain dominance
over one another, with Ruth using her sex to emerge vic
torious. Through the form of verbal fencing, the weaponry
of the power struggle, Pinter exposes the characters and
their beliefs, thus providing the meaning of the play.
.For example, Teddy and Lenny*s discussion of the dual
nature of reality can in part be considered a battle
for position, but it is also important as a means for
discovering some of the characters' individual problems.
Teddy, the professional philosopher, the representative
of organized thought, fails to solve problems in his own
field. Lenny practices logical thinking on his own to
i devise theoretical answers, establishing his superiority
i
; over his older brother, thereby making more concrete
their personal identities. Ruth begins with Lenny's
assumptions, but rejects them by applying the principle
of practicality, reducing them to an emotional level—
the level on which they actually function anyway.
173
So.It'(is through the play. There is no need for
t
Pinter to deal -with either nature or society, since the
family contains within its makeup the things which are
nature and society. The family unit provides the circum
stances in which variations on several themes may be exper
imented with. A philosopher and a chauffeur do not have
the vitality to stand up to the life forces of a butcher,
a pimp, and a boxer, who in turn fall before a woman’s
97
sexual wiles. Each level of living comes closer to the
primal components of life itself: Teddy and Sam can
exist only in an already created civilization; Max, Lenny,
and Joey represent elements (food, sex, battle) necessary
to forge a society with enough leisure and ease to permit
philosophers and chauffeurs (unessential thought, luxury)
to exist and Ruth is the element out of which life is
created, and is, therefore, the most important and strong
est of all forces, for she is closest to the basic drives
of life (without which the others have no meaning).
The reason for the power struggle is essentially
that which motivates the majority of Pinter characters in
one guise or another. Although Pinter tends to exaggerate
^Ironically, these "vital" elementals are impres
sive only in comparison with Teddy and Sam. The provider
of food has been tricked by a gang of crooks so the family
has to skimp to get by, the procurer is unable to fill his
own demands, and the fighter is not a physical threat to
anybody.
174
when explaining his plays to interviewers, many of his
exaggerated comments are based on a valid core and often
the basic thought is applicable to the play in question.
When asked by Henry Hewes what The Homecoming is about,.
Pinter replied, "It's about love and lack of love. The
people are harsh and cruel, to be sure. Still, they
aren't acting arbitrarily but for very deep-seated
..98
reasons. When applied to The Homecoming this state
ment explains much of why the characters do what they do.
99
The need to love and to be loved, a primary appetite,
is at the core of all the characters' actions. It is
also the caus« of all their troubles. Asked whether
the family represents evil, Pinter contends, "There's no
question that the family does behave very calculatedly
and pretty horribly to each other and to the returning
son. But they do it out of the texture of their lives
and for other reasons which are not evil but slightly
desperate."100 This brings to mind his earlier equation
- of love and need in connection with The Caretaker. If
the people in the drama are desperate in their needs,
then everything they do may be aimed at satisfying them
selves. This would explain how they can do some of the
9^Henry Hewes, "Probing Pinter's Play," Saturday
Review, April 8, 1967, p. 57.
99see Chapman, et al., Chapter Three.
100Hewes, p. 57.
175
things they do to one another. In a family which feels
these needs so vitally, there has been a breakdown in
the ability to communicate emotions between the individual
members, and as a result they have resorted to game-play
ing and rituals in an attempt to get through to one an
other. Unfortunately the game-playing and rituals serve
only to compound the problem and make expression of feel
ings more difficult because the stylized forms get in
the way of the players, somewhat on the line of The Lover,
intensifying the very problems they are meant to alleviate:
"The game is the least of it. What takes place is a mode
of expression, a chosen device. It's the way the char
acters face each other under the game that interests
,,101
me." The game, essentially, is the continual battle
for emotional security.
Max, Sam, Joey, and Lenny are involved in round
about approaches, and the things they do are either aimed
at their goals or grow out of their frustration from lack
of achievement. Max's past was not a particularly happy
one, and he has continually been placed in roles which
demand respect, but not affection, from those he rules:
as demonstrated in his humorously exaggerated account of
his duties (which include the unbelievable claim about
Pinter in an interview with Kathleen Halton,
"Pinter," Vogue, October 1, 1 9 6 7, p. 2 3 9.
176
"leading psychiatrists").
My mother was bedridden, my brothers were
all invalids. I had to earn the money for
the leading psychiatrists. I had to read
books’ I had to study disease, so that I 10p
could cope with an emergency at every stage.
From Jessie’s death he has been both mother (doing the
cooking, for example) and father to his sons and he
admits that there have been no women in his home since
103
his wife died. He does crave affection, though: he
welcomes Teddy back with "a nice cuddle and kiss" after
a shocked outburst— at the beginning of Act Two his
mellow conversation with his family indicates that his
family is important to him; he shows concern when he
finds out that Joey has been teased by his sister-in-law
("My Joey? She did that to my boy? Pause. To my young
est son? Tch, tch, tch, tch. How you feeling, son?
„104x
Are you all right?" ); he is eager to have Ruth stay
to become part of the family; and wonders if Teddy's sons
might not enjoy having a photograph of their grandfather.
It is difficult to tell whether he acts toward his family
as he does because, like Davies and Lenny, he cannot
accept affection, or whether he has foregone that emotion
in order to keep his family together. Possibly his
102Pinter, The Homecoming, p. 47.
1Q3Ibid., p. 75
104Ibid., p. 69
177
original reaction to Teddy's return was an expression of
his anger for his son's having left in the first place.
Besides having been deprived of the attention he desires,
Max is beginning to show the insecurity of old age and
j fears that he may be too old for anyone to be interested
in him— he continually asks Ruth, "you think I'm too old
105
for you?" — so his daughter-in-law can provide the
needed attention, simultaneously proving that he is not
too old. Whatever the reason, he is now ready, for it
is Max who reflects, "Perhaps it's not a bad idea to have
,,106
a woman in the house. . . . Maybe we should keep her,
in the first place.
Sam, in contrast to his brother, is a ne'er-do-well
who apparently has never been able to get close to anyone.
He did not care enough to follow his father's trade as a
butcher and has been unable to produce anything on his
own, for which Max taunts him:
What kind of a son were you, you wet wick?
You spent half your time doing crossword
puzzles! We took you into the butcher's
shop, you couldn't even sweep the dust off
the floor. . . . I gave birth to three grown
men!.... What have you done?107
As a chauffeur, he merely serves the commands of others.
105Ibid., p. 81.
106Ibid., p. 69.
1Q7lbid., pp. 39-40.
178
Sam's Ineffectualness may have grown out of his feelings
for his sister-in-law: "Never get a bride like you had.
. . . Nothing like ^Jessie/7 . . . going about these
days . . . a charming woman . . . a very nice compan-
108
ion." Sam's comments about Jessie throughout the play
indicate that he loved his brother's wife--really the only
simple and sincere expression of love found in The Home
coming. The uncle is tied to his idealized memories of
the dead woman and even though he witnessed her infidel
ity with her husband's best friend, no one could ever
match her in his eyes. Sam's collapse at the end of the
play can be seen as an attempt to protect Jessie even
though he has to tarnish her memory in the process. By
introducing his shocking information he hopes to keep the
family from replacing Jessie with Ruth. At the same time
his "death" demonstrates the selfish orientation of all
the characters in the drama, for they are undisturbed by
his death (his favorite nephew, Teddy, is irritated because
109
he "was going to ask him to drive me to the airport.")
They show no feeling of regret; they continue to pursue
their own separate needs.
Joey is a picture of impotence. He can create
nothing— he is "in demolition in the daytime" and is a
1Q8Ibid,, pp. 15-16.
109Ibid., p. 78.
179
„iio
boxer in "the evenings, after work." As a boxer he is
not an overpowering figure. His father describes his
son's inept character with wonderful accuracy when he
defines Joey's fighting style:
What you've got to do is you've got to learn
to defend yourself, and you've got to learn
how to attack. That's your only trouble as
a boxer. You don't know how to defend your
self, and you don't know how to attack.Ill
As a lover, he is a failure too. He had to be led through
the story of his latest exploit with a "bird" near "the
112
Scrubs" by Lenny and then, although he initiates the
action with Ruth, he "had her up there for two hours and
113
he didn't go the whole hog." Joey does not seem overly
upset by his lack of success. He just does not want
anyone else to get the credit (even Teddy "don't get
„il^
no gravy.' ) Jessie filled many roles in her relations
with the members of the household, and it may well be that
Joey turns to Ruth as a substitute mother, since Jessie is
gone. If so, he would not look to his sister-in-law as
a source of sexual satisfaction. This would explain his
115
lack of concern over not getting "all the way" J and is
110Ibid., p. 51.
i:L1Ibid., p. 17.
112
Ibid., P. 67.
11^Ibid., p. 66.
ll4Ibid., p. 69.
______115lbid. p. 66._____ : ________________________________
180
suggested by his actions as the play concludes when he
"walks slowly across the room. He kneels at /Ruth'b/
chair. She touches his head, lightly. He puts his head
In her lap .... She continues to touch JOEY'S head. ,
1 1 /T
; lightly." He is really only a little child in his
: appetities. j
Lenny has been shown incapable of satisfactorily i
coping with situations in which women are involved. i
Teddy, by his own admission, has withdrawn (because of
I j
| his failures--the only real threat he poses is to cheese- j
| rolls) and inhumanly views his family as "objects." He !
is the furthest removed from the human sphere and cannot
| even take part in the game anymore.
i j
i Ruth, Biblically the faithful wife, has not been j
i i
: satisfied by her husband or children and seeks attention !
| from her husband's family. The realizations fostered by j
! Teddy's "objects" speech in Act Two are foreshadowed in j
! his treatment of Ruth at the beginning of the drama. He j
i i
!
apparently regards her as a child or an object, and I
1 I
j probably has for some time. Ruth asks his permission ;
1 117 i
to sit down, for instance, and he tries to send her i
! I
i ll8
| to bed because she needs "some rest." This manner of
-------------------------------------------------------------
Ibid., pages 80 and 82.
117Ibid., p. 20.
ll8Ibid., p. 22.
181
treatment certainly cannot be satisfactory for a mature
individual, so Ruth is in a position to seek a more ful
filling relationship elsewhere. As a result of her star
vation for acceptance as the person she is (hearkening
back to Davies), a woman with desires and emotions, and
i emotional stimulation on that level, Ruth is forced to
| disregard socially approved sources of these elements. I
; i
Pinter points out that "If this had been a happy |
I marriage it wouldn't have happened. But she didn't want j
: no !
i to go back to America." There is evidence in the play j
i that Ruth has not been happy in her marriage. The first !
; i
clue to this fact is Teddy's attitude toward his wife
, when they are originally introduced, an attitude reflec- [
; i
! ted in his treating her as an object or a young child ’
; rather than a mature woman. It should also be remembered j
i 1 2 0
! that Ruth was a "model for the body" and that by her
I own admission she "was . . . different . . . when /she~ J j
121
I met Teddy . . . first." Teddy apparently has forced
J her into a new and alien role, that of a university pro
fessor's wife. Teddy's description of Ruth's role in
their life in America is attractive:
119Ibid., p. 58.
120
Ibid., p. 57.
121Ibid., p. 50.
L
182
She's a great help to me over there. She's
a wonderful wife and mother. She's a very
popular woman.- She's got lots of friends.
It's a great life, at the University . . .
it's a very good life . . . . It's a very
stimulating environment.122
Ruth's description of America differs markedly, indicat
ing that her life there has not been so rosy:
It's all rock. And sand. It stretches . . .
so far . . . everywhere you look. And there's
lots of insects there. Pause. And there's
; lots of insects there. 123 ,
! i
I
, It is clear from the picture she presents that she has
been living a lonely, barren life. That Teddy misunder- j
stands his wife is demonstrated when he tries to convince :
Ruth to return with him with the appeal, "You can help me
124
with my lectures when we get back."
Her present surroundings are much closer to the j
type of environment she would be at home in than the sit- i
uation existing in the United States. "The woman is not |
a nymphomaniac as some critics have claimed. . . . She's
in a kind of despair which gives her a kind of freedom.
Certain facts like marriage and the family for this woman
125 '
j have clearly ceased to have any meaning." Since mar- j
riage and the family have failed to satisfy her primary
122Ibid.
123Ibid., p. 53.
124Ibid., p. 55.
12^Pinter to Halton, p. 239.
183
appetites, they are not fulfilling their functions and
may be discarded. Pinter would disagree with critics who
call the play absurd or unrealistic, too. The basic
premise of a woman who will turn to anyone in an attempt
to find affection is not absurd in the author's world
j picture. Flora's choice of the matchseller for solace
i in A Slight Ache is a previous example of how desperate
126 '
a person can become. The motivation for the actions
takes them out of the realm of the absurd. Women who are
j driven to this point by their desperation are not harlots
1 in the sense of selling themselves for money or even for j
sexual pleasure--they are driven by a need to fill deep !
emotional voids. Ruth's description of America ("It's j
; all rock. And sand. . . .") has already indicated that !
for the past six years she has been a very lonely woman !
in what are for her sterile surroundings. While the con- ;
j elusion of the play is astonishing if taken out of con-
' text, as in the "comedies of menace," the movement from a ;
! i
j 1
; realistic beginning has been smooth and logical, each !
Chapter Three, "Motivation," in Psychology:
Understanding Human Behavior by Chapman, et al., discusses
the strength of psychological urges such as the drive for
acceptance, and explains the urgency that directs behavior
toward such a goal. B. Von Haller Gilmer in Psychology
(New York, 1970), Chapters 23 and 24, also discusses the
"affiliation system" in which one turns to others because
of anxiety in trying to maximize their self-actualization
(pp. 244-245). He notes that these "social" needs are
"rarely satisfied, partly because they are so difficult
to specify quantitatively" (p. 2 5 1).
184
step being a bit more absurd than the one before it, yet
it is based on its predecessor. Where many people suffer
the same fate as Ruth, few of them handle their problems
as well: she has been "used by this family. But even
tually she comes back at them with a whip. She says, 'if
you want to play this game I can play it as well as you. '
She does not become a harlot. At the end of the play she's
in possession of a certain kind of freedom. She can do
what she wants, and it is not at all certain she will go
off to Greek Street. But even if she did, she would not
be a harlot in her own mind."12^ What Pinter is claiming
is that Ruth has been placed outside traditional boun
daries by the failure of conventions such as marriage
to meet her requirements, so that anything she does to
meet her requirements is acceptable to her if it brings
her closer to satisfaction. This is demonstrated in her
businesslike bargaining over the details of her contract
and place of work--when they are talking about setting
her up as a prostitute:
I would want at least three rooms and a bath
room . . . a dressing-room, a rest-room, and
a bedroom. . . . A personal maid. . . . You
would have to regard your original outlay
simply as a capital investment. . . . You'd
supply my wardrobe. . . . I would naturally
want to draw up an inventory of everything
I would need, which would require your sig
natures in the presence of witnesses. . . .
12^Hewes, p. 58.
185
All aspects of the agreement and conditions
of employment would have to be clarified to
our mutual satisfaction before we finalized
the contract.128
Because of the circumstances and her motivation, Ruth
does not fit the traditional definition of a harlot (no
one in the play ever "gets the gravy" after all). The
whole scene is epitomized in Ruth’s farewell to her
husband. She feels no real affection, antipathy, or
guilt toward him— she has done what she had to do, and
as he moves to the front door to leave for America without
her, she calls to him:
I Eddie.
; TEDDY turns.
Pause. 12<3
Don't become a stranger. y
; In the power struggle Ruth is the strongest; new lines of
attachment are established, and at the end of the play
she sits with her new family arranged about her as in a
traditional family portrait.
; In summary the actions of the characters in The
I
i Homecoming are centered around psychological needs. Sam
i
j treasures the memory of a woman he considers a nonpareil,
the woman he loved and whose position in the household
he fights to maintain because of his love for her. Joey
12®Pinter, The Homecoming, pp. 76-78.
129Ibid., p. 80.
186
takes his father*s advice to "Go and find yourself a
130
mother," literally and is happy with a woman with
whom one need not "go the whole hog," a woman who will
caress his head as if he were a small child. Teddy has
found love unattainable, so he rejects it and acts accord
ingly. Lenny’s attitude toward women was distorted by
his mother to such an extent that he cannot relate to
women in a normal manner. He cannot accept attention
when it is offered to him. Max, on the other hand, is
bothered by his advancing years and seeks reassurance
that he is still worthy of someone's attention in spite
of his old age. The affection of an attractive young
i
: woman provides his needed reassurance and demonstrates
: that he retains his masculine appeal. Ruth is anxious
J
; to take on a new role in which everything revolves about
i her (a state epitomized by the placing of the characters
at the final curtain). She fulfills different needs for ,
the various men in her new family in order to fulfill
her own needs.
The Homecoming is related to the three basic con
cepts and techniques utilized by Pinter in the "comedies
of menace," but the new themes and devices which began
to evolve in A Slight Ache have created a completely
13°Ibid., p. 16.
187
new set in the author's mind, and this play epitomizes
his second period in which psychological needs have
become the prime subject he wishes to explore.
CHAPTER FOUR
CONCLUSION
When Pinter wrote The Room in 1957 he was interested
in exploring the effect of fear, of physical menace, on an
individual. By the time he completed The Homecoming in
1965 the subject of his works had become psychological
need. The movement from menace to need is paralleled in
the change in his use of a room as a metaphor for a place
of security and his very titles provide a clue to the
meaning inherent in this shift. The Room deals with a
physical structure, The Homecoming with abstract thoughts.
As might be expected in a Pinter play, the title of
The Homecoming has a dual application. Obviously it refers
to Teddy who is returning to see his family after a six
year absence. The occasion is not a happy one, though, and
there is little rejoicing. On a subtler level the title
refers to Ruth, although paradoxically she has never been
in the house before, had not even met the family previously.
In this case it is not the physical structure which is im
portant, it is the human relationships which are created
that define a place as home.
For Rose, home is a specific room in which she can
feel secure because of the four walls that surround her.
She is running from something and the room is more impor
tant to her than her husband because it affords her
188
189
protection. This can be seen In Rose's obsession with the
Image of a room. For Ruth, home Is the emotional context
in which she feels secure and is most satisfied. She is
oblivious to her surroundings— it is people who are impor
tant and her attention centers on the people about her.
The actual building is irrelevant. Her homecoming, there
fore, is an emotional one based on sympathetic feeling.
Where Teddy returns to a house that was once his home,
ironically he is rejected in the end. Ruth is welcomed
into the family because she fits into their emotional sit-
: l
uatlon and fulfills their needs. Like Ruth in the Bible,
she adopts her husband's family— "your people shall become
my people."1 The shift in what constitutes a home is indi
cative of the change in Pinter's theme as he moves from the
presentation of menace to a comment on psychological need
as a source of menace. In a Pinter play the characters are
concerned with taking, and the search for a room as a place
of refuge is extended to a search for a home, any place
where psychological needs are fulfilled. As the focus on
need becomes more important, there is a simultaneous de-
emphasis on the requirement for a material sanctuary—
whether it is Harry's posh Belgravia flat or Max's dilapi
dated North London house does not really matter. Pinter's
realization that this is so is the essence of the thematic
change which takes place in his work.
1Ruth, 1. 16.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
190
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Armstrong, William A. Experimental Drama. London, 1 9 6 3.
_____________ "Tradition and Innovation in the London
theatre, I9 6O-I9 6I," Modern Drama, IV, 2 (September,
1 9 6 1), 1 8 4-1 9 5.
Bensky, Lawrence M. "Harold Pinter, An Interview," Paris
Review, X, 39 (Fall, 1 9 6 6), 12-37.
Berkowitz, Gerald M. The Question of Identity in the
Plays of Harold Pinter. (Master's thesis), Columbia
University7 1965.
Berne, Eric. Games People Play. New York, 1964.
Bernhard, P. J. "Beyond Realism: The Plays of Harold
Pinter," Modern Drama, VIII (September. 1965).
185-191.
Boulton, James T. "Harold Pinter: The Caretaker and
Other Plays," Modern Drama, VI (September, 1963),
131-140.
Brustein, Robert. The Theatre of Revolt. Boston, 1964.
Bryden, Ronald. "A Stink of Pinter," The New Statesman
and Nation, 69 (June 11, 1 9 6 5), 9 2 8.
______ . "Three Men in a Room," The New Statesman and
Nation, 67 (June 26, 1964), 100C
Chapman, Harold Martin, Alvin John North, Aaron Quinn
Sartain, and Jack Roy Strange. Psychology: Under
standing Human Behavior. New York, 19587
Cohn, Ruby. "The World of Harold Pinter," Tulane Drama
Review, VI, iii (Spring, 1 9 6 6), 55-68.
Crist, Judith. "A Mystery: Pinter on Pinter," Look,
XXXII, 26 (December 24, 1 9 6 8), 77 ff.
Drake, Carol Dixon. Harold Pinter and the Problem of
Verification. (Master's thesis), University of
Southern California, 1964.
191
192
Dukore, Bernard. "The Theatre of Harold Pinter," Tulane
Drama Review, VI, 111 (Spring, 1 9 6 6), 43-54.
Esslin, Martin. "Godot and His Children: The Theatre of
Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter," Experimental
Drama, ed. William A. Armstrong (London. 1968).
128-146.
____________ . "Pinter and the Absurd," The Twentieth
Century, CXCVI (February, 1 9 6 1), 1 7 6-I8 5.
____________ . The Theatre of the Absurd. New York, 1 9 6 1.
Evans, Sir Ifor. A Short History of English Drama.
Boston, 1 9 6 5.
Franzblau, Abraham N. "A Psychiatrist Looks at The Home
coming," Saturday Review, L (September 8, 1 9 6 7), 5 8.
Frisch, Jack E. Ironic Theatre: The Techniques of Irony
in The Plays of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco,
Harold Pinter, and Jean Genet (Ph.D. dissertation),
University of Wisconsin, 1965.
Giannetti, Louis D. The Drama of the Welfare State (Ph.D.
dissertation), University of Iowa, 1 9 5 7.
Gilmer, B. Von Haller. Psychology. New York, 1970.
Gordon, Lois. Stratagems to Uncover Nakedness. Columbia,
Missouri, 1 9 6 9.
Grotzahn, Martin. Beyond Laughter. New York, 1957.
Guernsey, Otis L., Jr. The Best Plays of 1964-1965.
New York, 1 9 6 5.
The Best Plays of 1 9 6 6-1 9 6 7. New York,
1967.
Halton, Kathleen. "Pinter," Vogue, 150 (October 1, 1 9 6 7),
194-195+.
Hewes, Henry. "Probing Pinter1s Play," Saturday Review,
L (September 8, 1 9 6 7), 56+.
Hinchcliffe, Arnold P. Harold Pinter. New York, 1967,
193
Hoeffer, Jacqueline. "Pinter and Whiting: Two Attitudes
Towards the Alienated Artist," Modern Drama, IV,
4 (May, 1962), 402-408.
Hogan, Robert and Sven Eric Molin. Drama. New York, 1 9 6 7.
Lahr, John. "Pinter the Spaceman," Evergreen (June, 1 9 6 8),
49-52 ff. ---- ----
Leaska, Michell A. The Voice of Tragedy. New York, 1 9 6 3.
Malpas, Edward. A Critical Analysis of the Stage Plays of
Harold Pinter, (jfh.D. dissertation). University of
Wisconsin, 1 9 6 5.
Minogue, Valerie. "Taking Care of the Caretaker," The
Twentieth Century, 168 (September, i9 6 0), 243^48.
Morowitz, Charles. "Theatre Abroad," The Village Voice
(September 1, i9 6 0).
Peacock, Ronald. The Poet in the Theatre. London, 1 9 6 1.
Pinter, Harold. A Night Out. London, 1 9 6 1.
_.. "Between the Lines," The Sunday Times
(London), (March 4, 1 9 6 2), 25.
____________ . Landscape. Ipswich, 1 9 6 8.
The Birthday Party and The Room. New York,
1 9 6 1/“
The Caretaker and The Dumbwaiter. New York,
1960i '
The Dwarfs and Eight Review Sketches. New
York, 1965I----------------- ------------------
____________. The Homecoming. New York, 1 9 6 7.
____________ . The Lover and Other Plays. New York, 1 9 6 6.
____________ . "The Tea Party," Playboy (January, 1 9 6 5),
"1241 ---
________ Three Plays. New York, 1962.
194
Pinter, Harold. "Writing for Myself," The Twentieth
Century, 169 (February, 1961), 1 7 2-1 7 5.
_. "Writing for the Theatre," Evergreen Review,
33 (August-September, 1964), pp. 8 0-8 2.
"Pinterview," anon. Newsweek, (July 23, 1 9 6 2), 6 9.
Smith, Cecil. "Pinter the Compulsion of Playwrighting,"
Los Angeles Times. (December 3, 1 9 6 7), Calendar
section, 1 and 1 9.
_. "Pinter's 'The Homecoming' Opens," Los
Angeles Times. 17, 1 and 9.
Taylor, John Russell. Anger and After. London, 1 9 6 2.
Trilling, Ossia. "The Young British Drama," Modern Drama.
Ill, 2 (September, I9 6 0), 168-177. "
Walker, Augusta. "Messages From Pinter," Modern Drama,
X, 1 (May, 1967), 1-10. ------------
Welland, Dennis. "Some Post-War Experiments in Poetic
Drama," in Experimental Drama, ed. William A.
Armstrong, London, 1 9 6 3.
Wellwarth, George E. The Theatre of Protest and Paradox.
New York, 1 9 6 5. ~ ~
Linked assets
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
Conceptually similar
PDF
The Feminine World View Of Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
PDF
The Discreet And Conspiratorial Convention: The Autobiographical Writings Of Christopher Isherwood
PDF
'Difficult Balance': The Poetry Of Richard Wilbur
PDF
'The History Of The World': Reason In Historiography Of Sir Walter Raleigh
PDF
Chaucerian Narrative And Gothic Style: A Study Of The "Legend Of Good Women," The "Monk'S Tale," And The "House Of Fame."
PDF
Comic Characterization In The Fiction Of Graham Greene
PDF
The Significance Of George Meredith'S Revisions Of 'The Ordeal Of Richardfeverel'
PDF
Drayton And Decorum: A Stylistic Study Of The Relation Of Ornament To Subject In 'Peirs Gaveston' (1593) And 'Englands Heroicall Epistles' (1619)
PDF
Ralph Ellison'S "Invisible Man" As A Repository Of Major Elements From Principal Western Literary Traditions
PDF
The Development Of Method And Meaning In The Fiction Of 'Saki' (H. H. Munro)
PDF
Mexico, Modern Literature, And The Search For Soul
PDF
Organic Wholeness Of Being In Selected Novels Of D.H. Lawrence
PDF
The Dramatic Function Of Comic Elements In Three Shakespearean Love Tragedies
PDF
The Major Religious Poems Of Christopher Smart
PDF
The Relationship Between The Poetry Of T. S. Eliot And Saint-John Perse
PDF
The Function Of The Symbol In The Modern German Kurzgeschichte
PDF
A Descriptive Study Of Form And Purpose In The Surrealist Stage-Setting
PDF
Symbolism And The Rhetoric Of Fiction In Hemingway'S Novels
PDF
The Poetic Imagination Of Colette
PDF
Aldous Huxley: Syncretic Synthesist
Asset Metadata
Creator
Gale, Steven Hershal
(author)
Core Title
Thematic Change In The Stage Plays Of Harold Pinter, 1957-1967
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Degree Program
English
Publisher
University of Southern California
(original),
University of Southern California. Libraries
(digital)
Tag
Literature, Modern,OAI-PMH Harvest
Language
English
Contributor
Digitized by ProQuest
(provenance)
Advisor
Durbin, James H., Jr. (
committee chair
), Armato, Rosario P. (
committee member
), Casson, Allan Perham (
committee member
)
Permanent Link (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c18-440355
Unique identifier
UC11362333
Identifier
7102523.pdf (filename),usctheses-c18-440355 (legacy record id)
Legacy Identifier
7102523
Dmrecord
440355
Document Type
Dissertation
Rights
Gale, Steven Hershal
Type
texts
Source
University of Southern California
(contributing entity),
University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
(collection)
Access Conditions
The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...
Repository Name
University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository Location
USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA
Tags
Literature, Modern