PINTER ESSAY OFFICIAL

This article introduces Pinter as an early practitioner of the Theater of the Absurd as well as an existentialist. In his plays The Dumb Waiter, The Room and Birthday Party absurd is presented in its different aspects and faced by different characters. Sometimes this absurdity is funny but the dramatist's aim is to get into reality. Another aspect of Pinter's plays is existentialism. His Pinteresque characters show his multi-dimensional way of looking at life.

2001

On the basis of a linguistic approach to the study of literature, this paper intends to present an analysis of the characters and their relationship in Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. To do this, concepts and ideas about the system of Modality as presented by Simpson (1993) and Fairclough (1994), are presented. Following a proposed framework, the characters' linguistic choices are studied so as to ascertain the extent to which their assumptions and perspectives differ. The characters' attitudes towards each other as well as towards the events are examined. Ben, the senior partner, apparently secure, and Gus, apparently uncertain, take the same type of role at the end of the play: both of them become victims of an unseen and non-speaking participant. It can be noticed that both Ben and Gus's linguistic choices in terms of modality change as events develop. In short, the linguistic model of modality is proved to be useful for the purpose of uncovering the devices that Pinter uses.

International Journal of Language and Literary Studies

The Silences and pauses, Harold Pinter has employed in his plays, have remarkably encapsulated his mastery of such theatrically effective techniques. It is not just a moment when characters keep silent and the audience cannot hear their utterances; it is a moment so pregnant with meanings that the reader finds it difficult to find his way to the final meaning. Silence in a Pinter play is unexpectedly never silent. When it pervades one has to think deeply of that moment. And when characters stop talking one needs to contemplate their unsaid thoughts. In his paper, I would like to make clear that my intention is to investigate the notions of fear, uncertainty, menace and death evoked when characters pause or keep silent in Pinter’s Silence and The Dumb Waiter. In other words, it is how those moments of silence mark a state of calmness on the one hand and how this state gives way to those of fear and eventually death on the other that I would like to explore and expound in the course o...

2019

The Silences and pauses, Harold Pinter has employed in his plays, have remarkably encapsulated his mastery of such theatrically effective techniques. Silence is not just a moment when characters keep silent and the audience cannot hear their utterances; it is a moment so pregnant with meanings that the readers find it difficult to find their way to the final meaning. Silence in Pinter’s plays are unexpectedly never silent. When it pervades, one has to think deeply of that moment. And when characters stop talking, one needs to contemplate their unsaid thoughts. This paper investigates the notions of fear, uncertainty, menace and death evoked when characters pause or keep silent in Pinter’s Silence and The Dumb Waiter. In other words, it is how those moments of silence mark a state of calmness on the one hand and how this state gives way to that of chaos and death on the other that this paper shall strive to prove with reference to the aforementioned plays.

Golden Research Thoughts, 2014

After the two world wars men were unable to come out of its horrors and disillusionment. The war which was glorified sooner brings forth total confusion and disorderly situation which none can avoid. This era therefore gives birth to a number of dramatists who constructs The Theatre of Absurd. Pinter's early plays are often been attributed as 'comedy of menace' due to their superficial fun, inherent menacing, verbal violence, erotic fantasy, obsession jealousy, family hatred and mental disturbance in terms of wordless language. Language plays an important role in constructing the meaning of any text; it simultaneously can voice or silence any issues that it is dealing with. Pinter, in his several plays has problematised the use of language. His dramas often involve strong conflicts among ambivalent characters who struggle for verbal and territorial dominance and for their own versions of the past. My intention in this paper is to identify how the motif of menace is actualized through verbal violence, uncertain past of characters and sudden unexpected drop from a comic surface to an underlying seriousness and uncanny.

Journal of emerging technologies and innovative research, 2018

Dr. Mangesh R. Adgokar Assistant Professor Department of English G. S. Tompe Arts, Commerce & Science College, Chandur Bazar. Abstract: Harold Pinter is one of the few dramatists of the second half of the twentieth century who has been the most and foremost influential English playwright since Bernard Shaw on English stage. The work of Harold Pinter remains amongst the most respected and authentic representation of modern man not only in British theatre, but in the theatre of the world even today after his death. His place in British Drama was strongly secured after Martin Esslin’s acknowledgement of him in his celebrated book ‘The Theatre of the Absurd’ in 1960. His plays are an image of the emptiness of human relationship and meaningless effort of man to reconcile with the situation. They better represent the unsatisfying desire of man to find the peaceful haven for secluded life where they find everything at their command. The present paper is an elaborate discussion on Pinter’s ...

2008

The article is an attempt at describing the functioning of language in dialogues of Harold Pinter’s plays. The author uses the concepts of sociopragmatics to analyze the utterances of the opening scene of the Homecoming as speech acts. The two characters of the scene, Lenny and Max, hold a seemingly trivial conversation, which turns out to be crucial for establishing the relationship between them and for constructing the framework of the action of the play. Deta­ iled analysis of the conversational implicature of the utterances allows the author to highlight typical elements of “Pinteresque” manner of designing the dramatic dialogue, e.g., the chan­ ging dynamics of the conversational exchange, gradually increasing emotional tension between the characters, as well as the abundance of subtextual meanings of the dialogic utterances.

This paper is a study on the absurdity underneath the realistic factors in Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. Through analyzing the realistic elements in The Dumb Waiter's setting, plot and characterization respectively, this paper attempts to prove that despite these realistic aspects, the overall effect of the play is one of uncertainty and absurdity.

2020

Harold Pinter is one of the most accomplished dramatists of the Theatre of the Absurd. The Theatre of the Absurd is the Western phenomenon. The absurd in life, art and literature arose due to several reasons. The West with this kind of socio-political changes has viewed art and literature quite differently. The industrialization has changed man's social nature. The Birthday Party can be understood easily yet it has elements which make it unique and absurd. The features of absurdity such as un-clarity of scenes, dialogues, language and plot are reflected. The lack of communication is used so strongly that even a pause and silence describe much more which makes the play unique and special. The play has the usual setting as of the contemporary style but uniqueness is seen when surprise awaits in the form of imagery unusual circumstances and lack of dialogue or some time strange approaches. The Birthday Party has adhered to the Aristotelian concept of a drama having a well-defined beginning, middle, and an end. Stanley's state of being has become a representation of the condition of man who is struggling against the threat of a sudden reduction from being to non-being. In the play, Pinter seems to be fascinated by the way in which people communicate, or fail to communicate, with each other, by their use of language. This paper explores the elements of absurdity and its uniqueness of characterization and alien world of the modern man in the play The Birthday Party. INTRODUCTION Harold Pinter is one of the most accomplished dramatists of the Theatre of the Absurd. He was born on October 10, 1930 in Hackney, a section of metropolitan London, England. He was a great manipulator of language, which he has seen not as a bridge that brings people together but as a barrier that has kept them apart. Ideas and notions in the larger sense are not his province; he plays with words, and he plays on our nerves, and it is thus that he grips us. He is an influential dramatist of the contemporary English stage. Pinter attended the Hackney Downs Grammar School between the years 1941 and 1947, where he had begun writing poetry and prose. He also took an interest in theatre, taking roles as both Macbeth and Romeo in school productions of Shakespeare. Pinter, as a dramatist of the absurd, invariably prefers the tense, symbolic manner of Samuel Beckett. A large part of his accomplishment is his ability to persuade us that he is presenting lifelike situations in traditionally realistic terms, and at the same time jolting us into an awareness of utter absurdity. Isolated elements in his plays are intensely realistic, and the combination of elements is utterly absurd.