A language becomes inhuman, generic and systematised when the power of the identity that wields that language becomes inordinate to the identity itself. As such, “the more power an identity carries, the less likely its carrier is to be aware of it as an identity at all.” The dissolution of identity and, by extension, of the individual, is explored in Pinter’s later plays through the shift in the uses and execution of language to achieve tangible acts of suppression through violence and murder.
The semantics of language change as the use for language changes. In these later plays Pinter demonstrates how language shifts from being used as a means for individual expression, to a weapon for the control and suppression of the individual. This language is epitomised in what Pinter terms the “language of politicians,” which is characterised by “meaningless, hypocritical expressions,” that perpetuate the noble lie that ensures a continuation of their own power and control through instigating fear and horror.
The problem of official language for Pinter, is semantics, which is the need to definitively control terms and meanings in order to ensure an appearance of competency and consistency. The intent of official language does not change from the intent of the naked aggressive outbursts of A Slight Ache’s Edward, but rather the expression of the intent changes. Thus, “I’ll ram this stinking battering ram…all the way through her lousy lefty body,” becomes “we’re keeping the world clean for democracy.” Not only does the desire of a potentially singular individual “I” become the intent of a collective “we,” but the emphasis shifts from attack to protection. This is explained by No Man’s Land’s (1975) Foster who insists that he and Briggs are occupying Spooner’s house in order “to protect this gentleman from corruption, against men of craft, against men of evil.” This exclusionary statement is not in essence difference to the social philosophy of Davies, however, the deliberate rhetoric here transforms the intention into an official strategy of defence. Consequently, the qualities of ‘us’ are exalted over the faults of ‘them.’ The necessity to promote a sense of the collectivism of ‘us’ persists in One for the Road (1984) as a method of exclusion. Nicolas, an agent of the unidentified state, promotes a sense of jingoistic belonging, “we are all patriots, we are as one, we all share a common heritage,” which makes identifying and excluding the targets of his torture easier since they are those who do not belong.
The premise of these politics has not changed, but rather the scale and the accompanying aggrandising language most certainly has. Pinter contextual inspiration is the rhetoric at the centre of American political administrations, in speeches that emphasise the collectivism of “we the American people.” The need to belong has not changed;- Nicolas insists, “I am not alone,” since he shares a “commonwealth of interest” with others of the state, however, the desire to belong becomes a necessity to belong since the means of ensuring conformity and the penalty for non-conformity have increased in proportion to the scale from local setting to global context. As with The Room, One for the Road can be located within a specific historical locale, namely Pinter’s experiences of the Turkish persecution of the Kurds. However, the fundamental shift is from the specifically political to the broadly human. The mood of the time is located within the context of humanity.
Though Nicolas functions as a state torturer, an agent of state power, Pinter insists on an essential necessity to preserve his individual identity and self-importance in order to ensure that he functions better in his role as a state agent. Nicolas, instilled with pride by- “the man who runs this country,” believes he has been singled out as an important element in the execution of state decisions. The logic here is to preserve the individual so as to ensure a strong atomistic collective composed of trusting elements, which is achieved through prescribing Nicolas with a Hobbesian contract between himself and the state. Nicolas, and others such as Des and Lionel, is equipped with the official state language which ensures control and uniformity in the execution of procedure. The definition of terms through the use of language is paramount to establishing the “full spectrum dominance” and façade of capability and control. As such, Lionel is reprimanded by Des for first calling the Blindfolded Man a “cunt” and then calling him a “prick.” Des recognises the necessity “to learn to define terms and stick to them,” in order to maintain and execute perfect control of one uniform and consistent discourse. Irregularities of diction, phrasing and style of language are eradicated since they are not consistent with the official discourse of the state.
Pinter demonstrates how this precision in the use of language is essential to maintaining the clean, ordered and bureaucratic torture that is executed by Nicolas. The extent of this bureaucratic and systematised torture is explored in Precisely, (1983) where two businessmen, Stephen and Roger, meet for drinks to discuss the precise number of people that are to be killed. The business-like transaction of lives is achieved through a fusion of meaningless political jargon, “the citizens of this country are behind us,” with parodic middle-class inflections such as “old boy,” that render the characters of city-bankers appropriate for a 1980’s context of the Thatcherite importance of trade and business. However, this clean, detached approach to mass murder is appropriately evocative of the Cold War era, with mass extermination achieved through the push of a button. Though Pinter may have expressed a particular, contextually specific catalyst for the composition of these plays and “responds to the political temper of his time,” as with his earlier work, the content is relevant to the general context of humanity.
This bureaucracy of death is epitomised by the poem ‘Death,’ which consists of a number of questions concerning a dead body which accumulatively strip the body of any sense of individuality and personal identity. The questions asked are those of official forms and documentation, “where was the dead body found?” that seek answers which ignore any personal detail concerning the identity of the individual. The body is accounted for in factual terms, consisting of location, state and position, with the most pertinent question, “who was the dead body?” singled out, to resonate, without being answered. Pinter then seeks to restore the identity and humanity of the dead body in statements that do not seek answers, but simply reinstate the personal dignity of the body through acts of washing, closing the eyes, burying and kissing. This personal corporeal contact contrasts with the cold administrative processing of death of Precisely, which devalues the identity of an individual life.
This bureaucracy of death however is preceded by the sanitization of murder, which is first explored by Pinter in the 1957 play The Dumb Waiter. Here, two contracted killers discuss their next assassination, which they refer to as a “job.” This establishment of terms serves to sanitize their actions and validate them as part of an occupation. The process that leads up to the assassination follows a routine, “I like to have [a cup of tea] first,” and as such becomes both normalised and ritualised. The ritual element is echoed in One for the Road, with Nicolas’ sustained and routine drinking during his interrogations. A correlation is drawn between the two plays when the “organisation” of The Dumb Waiter becomes “this country” of One for the Road;- with the business of murder becoming the policy of murder. Ben’s etiquette in procedure, his “instructions and movement,” which are “precise and scripted,” further contributes to sense of his actions being official and valid.
The importance of establishing the validity of actions is emphasised in The Hothouse, (1964) where the sexual abuse of patients is condoned and justified “if a member of staff decides that for the good of the patient, some degree of copulation is necessary.” An act of rape becomes legitimized as medical treatment if it follows a rigorous code of regulation, “never ride barebacked…always send in a report,” and is executed by sanctioned professionals. This sense of sanitization is expressed in the notion of “keeping the world clean,” whether for “generations to come,” for “democracy” or “God.” Though the diction changes slightly, in each case “keeping the world clean” ironically amounts to the eradication and murder of someone for an abstracted someone else. The word “democracy” becomes so abstracted, as with previous notions such as “love” and “rights,” that is has no real applied relevance other than being a desirable and recognisable objective. This sense of abstraction, of withholding the identity of a specified intended recipient of this clean world, increases in gravity, from the faceless “generations to come,” to a “god” which simply comes to designate an ultimate and overwhelming power. Consistently, as the gravity increases to the pinnacle of “god,” the sense of validity becomes a sense of righteousness.
This sense of the official and valid nature of Nicolas and Ben and Gus’ activities has to be maintained and upheld in the use of language and procedure. Given that the regularisation of language has such a huge impact on the way power is disseminated and utilised “one has to be so scrupulous about language,” in order to control what it comes to signify. This civilised and articulate policy is revealed as a façade when the mask of “keeping the world clean” falls to reveal “piss on a few rugs.” The reality behind the mandate is thus a reality of “excrement, vomit, urine, blood, mutilation, horror, deprivation, poverty,” made palatable and justified by a language of jargon and rhetoric.
The masquerading of the offensive in the garb of civility is emphasised in No Man’s Land where the sexually deviant activities of Hirst and Spooner are presented in eloquent and elaborate language in order to conceal the grubbiness of their behaviour. The inclination to “peep on sex” is presented as “when my twigs happen to shall I say rest their peep on sexual conjugations, however periphrastic, I see only white of eyes,” in order to civilise their vulgar and disreputable behaviour. Spooner’s admission, that “all we have left is the English language,” articulates a front of civility and refinement that dignifies vulgar truths. The language is the language of spin, the same language that Pinter finds in contemporary American foreign policy, a language that presents causing death and destruction as striving for peace. It is this same simulation of civility in the midst of rape, torture and murder that Pinter presents in ‘After Lunch,’ where the “well-dressed creatures come/To sniff among the dead/And have their lunch.” Images of fine dining are stirred with stark motifs of death that tinge the civility of lunch with the inconvenient reminder of murder. The necessity to dress well and behave in conventionally civilised ways has developed from Albert’s donning of his party clothes to abuse young women, to the requirement of “the odour of order to sweeten their murders.” It is this scenario that Pinter revisits in Party Time (1991) where the event of a party upstairs hides the reality of “soldiers,” “round-ups” and “roadblocks,” downstairs, which is guarded by a “society of beautifully dressed people.” This society is the select few who “don’t do vulgar and offensive things,” yet are prepared to deal with those to do not adhere to this procedure of civility by “kick[ing] them in the balls and chuck[ing] them down the stairs.” Controlled violence is therefore prescribed as a means to control unchecked violence, the cure being a more menacing and malignant form of the disease.
Pinter’s retention of the individuality of the agent of the state is achieved through punctuating the official jargon of dignified menace with idiosyncratic outbursts of “fuckpig” and “shithouses.” Pinter’s “anti-torture tracts” are consequently not “straightforward documentary” since characters do not simply perform perfunctory roles, but rather retain depth and independence outside of their official function. These idiosyncrasies in language also serve to highlight the discord between the official discourse of procedure and the barbarity of “we blew the shit right back up their own ass/And out their fucking ears.” This discrepancy between the presentation of procedure and the intent of the procedure is not simply a feature of overt political policy but also Aston’s electroshock therapy in Pinter’s earlier social play, The Caretaker. This procedure, determined by an “examination” and the presentation of “a pile of papers,” and carried out by a doctor is validated since the doctor is an official person of qualifications. The reality of “electric current on your genitals,” or in this case, “the pincers…on either side of the man’s skull,” is presented as medical treatment. The intent of the treatment is not to cure some medical condition, but to cure Aston since he has “talked too much.” As a result, Aston has been straightened out in every way and cannot “look to the right or to the left,” but has to “look straight in front of me.” There are obvious implications of looking straight ahead and not to the left or to the right, however the essential intention of the treatment is to silence Aston’s talking. His particular political view, whether “left or right,” or whatever in particular he has been saying, is not divulged since it is not strictly important. The fundamental reason for his treatment is to silence him, to ensure that “I don’t talk to anyone…like that.” It is his individual voice, a voice that made others “listen” and “understand” that is problematic and as such must be classified and represented as a deviance, or in this case, illness, in order for it to be discredited.
A direct correlation is drawn between the systematisation of Aston’s voice and the interrogation of Victor and Gila, since the intent is the same but the particular circumstances and scale of the situation have changed. The overt political content of these plays, which differs to the content of plays such as The Birthday Party or The Caretaker, that has caused them to be classified as political plays is clear. However, Pinter presents the intent and execution of both Aston’s electroshock therapy and the state torture of political prisoners as the same. Both are validated and made justified, both are designed to silence, however global political sympathies, ratified by various declarations, such as the ‘Declaration of Human Rights’- “the major article of faith of a secular culture,” automatically designates torture as bad, but electroshock therapy and the death penalty as compassionate treatment, “compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection.”
Pinter’s parodic use of “compassionate lethal injection” highlights that the language used to describe an act and an act itself do not correspond. What “the language does is debase itself:” the act of injecting poison into a vein to cause death has nothing to do with compassion, any more than Roger and Stephen’s decision to order “twenty million dead” has to do with preventing “these bastards [from] a deliberate attempt to subvert and undermine their security.”
This debasement of language is achieved through manipulating a language beyond recognition. Political discourse, which is the product of this sustained debasement of language, creates a Baudrillardan hyperreality alongside physical events. By this token, “I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people” is consistent with “we blew the shit right back up their own ass/And out their fucking ears.” This postmodernist consequence whereby, “there are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal,” is rejected by Pinter the citizen, who feels a social imperative to ask and seek answers to “what is true? What is false?” Pinter’s later work makes a claim for this search for truth, which he believes is the obligation of the citizen. As a playwright, Pinter believes he can stand by the dichotomy that something can be both true and false but cannot accept this stance as a citizen. Though Pinter’s earlier plays are the product of Pinter the playwright, his imperative as a citizen is fulfilled by characters within his plays. Party Time’s Dusty is upheld as Pinter’s ideal citizen- an individual who asks questions, who, like Gila of One for the Road, or the Blindfolded Man of New World Order, (1991) or Petey, in his monumental protest “Stan, don’t let them tell you what to do,” has not “stopped questioning received ideas.” Dusty’s continual questions, “did you hear what’s happened to Jimmy? What’s happened to Jimmy?” are the markers of individuality in a group that chooses not to question or discuss.Continued on Next Page »
1.) This term is the product of “superficial journalistic opinion,” used broadly before the 1970’s in reference to the emergent young playwrights of Pinter’s generation. See Martin Esslin. Pinter The Playwright. 6th Rev. ed. London: Methuen, 2000. Rpt. of Pinter: A Study of his Plays. 1973. Rpt. of The People Wound: The Plays of Harold Pinter. 1970 vii However it pursued Pinter as an epithet throughout his career, most notably, in the careless journalism that caused Pinter’s ‘Open Letter to The Prime Minister to be prefaced with “writer outraged.” See Michael Billington and Samuel West. “A Tribute to Harold Pinter.” Marxism 2009. The Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, London. 5 July. 2009.
2.) Michael Billington and Samuel West. “A Tribute to Harold Pinter.”
3.) Mel Gussow. Conversations with Pinter. (London: Nick Hern Books Ltd., 1994) 40
4.) Pinter’s non-fiction writing is collected in Various Voices: Sixty years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008, and on his website www.haroldpinter.org, under the heading ‘Politics.’
5.) Gussow 62
6.) Writing in 1970, Martin Esslin acknowledged the disparity between Pinter and his contemporaries, by stating that he “seemed to be at variance with the then prevailing strongly political trend in theatre exemplified by other young dramatists like Osbourne, Wesker or Arden.” However, Esslin’s statement serves both the separate Pinter from these political playwrights, as he saw them, and to introduce Pinter as an existential playwright in the tradition of Beckett and Kafka. Esslin’s reading of Pinter focuses on the existentialism of his characters, which “precedes their going into the world to confront society, its politics, its ideas and issues.” According to Esslin’s reading, Pinter’s characters have no essential connection to their context, which enables characters to become allegorical figures, and voids the plays of vital realism. See Esslin 27
7.) Gussow 30
8.) The phrase ‘comedy of menace’ was first used in relation to Pinter by Irving Wardle in a review of the first production of The Birthday Party at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, on 28 April 1958. For the history of the usage of this phrase in relation to Pinter see Susan Hollis Merritt. Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter. 1990. Durham NC: Duke UP, 1995 225-6
9.) The quoted phrases surrounding the “terror” of Pinter’s plays are taken from contemporary reviews of The Birthday Party in 1960, A Night Out in 1960 and The Collection in 1961, by The Times. See “A Simple Play: The Birthday Party on Television.” Rev. of The Birthday Party, by Harold Pinter. Times 54727. 23 Mar. 1960: 16. 3 June 2010. “Pinter Play on Television.” Rev. A Night Out, by Harold Pinter. Times. 54754. 25 Apr. 1960: 16. 3 June 2010. “Lightweight But Lively Pinter.” Rev. The Collection, by Harold Pinter. Times. 55079. 12 May 1961: 19. 3 June 2010.
10.) Ronald Knowles. Understanding Harold Pinter. South Carolina: U of South Carolina P, 1995 18
11.) Billington and West
12.) Though Pinter’s works are primarily dramas, the focus of this exploration will be on the textuality of Pinter’s work as opposed to an analysis of dramatic performances. References to dramatic techniques such as pauses and silences are essential to this emphasis, however, they will be explored as elements of language, as opposed to dramatic techniques.
13.) For history of the usage of ‘memory plays’ see Billington The Life and Work of Harold Pinter. London: Faber, 1996 388-430
14.) The Room was first presented at the Hampstead Theatre Club on 21st January, 1960. The Homecoming was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre on 3, June 1965.
15.) Martin Esslin. Pinter The Playwright. 6th Rev. ed. (London: Methuen, 2000. Rpt. of Pinter: A Study of his Plays. 1973. Rpt. of The People Wound: The Plays of Harold Pinter. 1970) 51
16.) The Caretaker was first presented by the Arts Theatre Club on 27, April 1960.
17.) A Slight Ache was first performed on the BBC Third Programme on 9, July 1959.
18.) The Basement was first presented by B.B.C. Television on 20, February 1967.
19.) Harold Pinter. ‘The Basement.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Three. 1991. Expanded. ed. (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1997) 153
20.) Pinter. ‘The Room.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One. 1976. (London: Eyre Methuen Ltd.; London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1996) 107
21.) Pinter. The Room. 99
22.) Pinter. The Room. 87
23.) The initial introduction of the British Nationality Act of 1948 was not marked with particular concern or fear, with two thirds of British people supporting the principle of unrestricted entry in 1956. However, by 1961 a Gallup Poll found that 67% of people supported Government immigration restriction with a further 6% believing that all immigrants barred, in a complete reversal of attitude. See Sandbrook Never Had it So Good: a History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles. (London: Little Brown, 2005) 308-26
24.) Sandbrook 307
25.) Pinter. The Room. 106
26.) Pinter. The Room. 107
27.) Pinter. The Room. 107
28.) The social realism of Osbourne’s Look Back in Anger is achieved through contextually specific details and references such as Colonel Renfrew’s lament on the end of Empire, “At the time, it looked like going on for ever. When I think of it now, it seems like a dream. If only it could have gone on for ever. Those long, cool evenings in the hills, everything purple and golden. Your mother and I were so happy then. It seemed as though we could have everything we could ever want. I think the last day the sun shone was when that dirty little train steamed out of the crowded, suffocating Indian station, and the battalion band playing for all it was worth. I knew in my heart it was all over then. Everything,” that could not be in reference to any other historical situation. See Osbourne quoted in Sandbrook 283
29.) Pinter. The Room. 107
30.) See Esslin- Introduction
31.) Pinter. ‘The Birthday Party.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One. 54
32.) Pinter. The Birthday Party 42
33.) Gussow 71
34.) Pinter. ‘A Slight Ache.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One. 167
35.) Pinter. A Slight Ache 179
36.) Pinter. A Slight Ache 161
37.) The loss of Belgian control of The Congo became symbolic of swift de-colonialisation which instigated fear amongst other colonialist countries about the rate of de-colonialisation as a whole. See Sandbrook 271
38.) Pinter. A Slight Ache 161
39.) Pinter. A Slight Ache 177
40.) Chinue Achebe. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'" Massachusetts Review. 18. 1977. Rpt. in Heart of Darkness, An Authoritative Text, background and Sources Criticism. 1961. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough, London: Norton, 1988. 251-261
41.) Pinter.‘Writing for the Theatre.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One. xiii
42.) Pinter. A Slight Ache 163
43.) A Night Out was first performed on the B.B.C. Third Programme on 1, March 1960.
44.) Pinter. ‘A Night Out.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One. 1976. 331
45.) Pinter. A Night Out. 335
46.) Pinter. A Night Out. 335
47.) Pinter. A Night Out. 359
48.) Pinter. A Night Out. 369
49.) The Collection was first presented by Association Rediffusion Television, London, on 11, May 1961.
50.) Indian independence and the Suez crisis of 1956 were “powerful blows to the old dreams of national pre-eminence and imperial dominion.” However, it was the loss of Empire that confirmed the impression that British identity and dominance was under serious threat. Though Dominic Sandbrook argues that the loss of Empire had no immediate impact on the general consciousness of the ordinary British citizen and was met with nothing but “cold pessimism,” it was the Right, characterised by conservative journalist Peregrine Worsthorne, that was “actutely aware that the kind of Britain it wishes to preserve very largely depend(ed) on Britain remaining a great power.” However, Sandbrook argues that since Empire was part of the foundation of British identity, its dissolution “made a difference to the way the British saw themselves and their place in the world,” and signalled “invariable repercussions at home.” See Sandbrook 282-9
51.) Pinter.‘The Collection.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Two. 1977. (London: Eyre Methuen Ltd.; London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1996) 143
52.) Pinter The Collection 143
53.) Pinter The Collection 143
54.) Pinter The Collection 142
55.) Pinter. ‘The Old Days.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008. 1998. Rev. ed. (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 2009) 190
56.) Orwell’s observations also consider the use of adjectives such as “epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, veritable” that are used for similar purposes, archaic language to glorify war and foreign words and expression to “give an air of culture and elegance.” See Orwell,‘Politics and the English Language.’131
57.) Pinter The Room 110
58.) The Lover was presented by Association-Rediffusion Television, London, 28, March 1963.
59.) Pinter The Lover 155
60.) Pinter The Lover 150-63
61.) Pinter The Lover 150
62.) Pinter The Lover 162
63.) Pinter The Lover 155
64.) Harman 551
65.) Pinter’s treatment of feminist issues such as sexual liberation anticipates the feminist movement which was ushered in in the late 1960’s, with radical feminist groups meeting for the first time and the term “women’s liberation” being used for the first time in 1967. Women’s writing, manifest in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex which was first published in 1952 without making much impact, was strengthened by other feminist publication such as Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963) which sold a million copies in the USA and UK by 1970. By the 1970’s “a succession of feminist analyses has appeared, including Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1971), Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics (1971), Betty Friedan’s It Changed My Life (1976), and Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex (1980).” However, the less-didactic writing of more mainstream novelists “may have been as important in preparing the way for women’s liberation as the more obvious feminist tracts and manifestos,” and in this respect Pinter’s plays can be considered alongside the work of novelist such as Iris Murdoch Margaret Drabble, Doris Lessing and D.H. Lawrence. See Pugh. Women and the Women’s Movement in Britain 1914-1999 322-23 Pinter’s prescient treatment of the sex-industry (further explored in the motivations of The Homecoming’s Ruth) can even be said to coincide with the sex-positivism of third-wave feminism. See Johnson, ed. Jane Sexes It Up: True Confessions of Feminist Desire.
66.) Pinter The Lover 174
67.) The Homecoming was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre on 3, June 1965.
68.) Gussow 71
69.) Pinter. ‘The Homecoming.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Three. 58
70.) Pinter The Homecoming 85
71.) Christopher Innes. Modern British Drama 1890-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995 280
72.) Innes 280
73.) The proliferation of the Pill in the 1960’s, after its introduction in 1961, was “perceived and experienced as liberating, emancipatory and exciting.” This new form of female-controlled contraception signalled an end to the “narrative of women’s desperate attempts to control their own bodies and divorce sex from reproduction,” and represented a form of female resistance in the sexual and social sphere. See Fisher Birth Control, Sex and Marriage 8, 238-9
74.) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seam and Helen R. Lane. (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983) 105
75.) Pinter The Lover 177
76.) Michel Foucault. “An Introduction to the Non-Fascist Life.” Preface. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. By Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seam and Helen R. Lane. (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983) xiii
77.) Pinter. 'The Caretaker.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Two. 21
78.) Pinter The Caretaker 6
79.) Pinter The Caretaker 13
80.) Pinter The Caretaker 11
81.) Pinter The Caretaker 18
82.) Pinter The Caretaker 19
83.) Pinter The Caretaker 30
84.) Pinter The Caretaker 30
85.) Gary Younge. Who Are We- And Should it Matter in the 21st Century. New York: Viking, 2010
86.) Pinter The Caretaker 31
87.) Pinter The Caretaker 6
88.) Pinter The Caretaker 62
89.) Harman, Chris. A People’s History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium. London: Verso, 2008 548
90.) Pinter The Caretaker 25
91.) Of the aspects of British life that were influenced by post-war immigration, “none was so quickly or visibly transformed as the nation’s diet.” During the 1950’s and 1960’s hundreds of new establishments were set up throughout Britain, creating a culinary integration which one was of cases of successful multi-racial co-operation during this period.
92.) Pinter The Caretaker 25
93.) Pinter The Caretaker 57
94.) Pinter The Caretaker 6
95.) Pinter The Caretaker 71
96.) Pinter The Caretaker 18s
97.) Baudrillard’s statement that “any culture that becomes universal loses its singularity and dies,” is premised on the conflict between the positive intentions of universalisation, including genuine democratization and visibly equal human rights and the process of globalisation that creates a levelling, not in terms of equality but in terms uniformity. See Baudrillard “The Violence of the Global.” This is consistent with Orwell’s observation on the usage of the word democracy, that “not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides,” since the more abstracted a word becomes, the more generally and deceptively it can be applied. See Orwell 132
98.) According to Ronald Knowles, Pinter’s ‘memory plays’ mark a disjunction between character and environment that highlights a disparity between the social and existential identities of characters. This interpretation invalidates most of Duff’s testimony, which would otherwise serve to explain the quality and particulars of Beth’s dialogue. See Knowles Understanding Harold Pinter.15
99.) Pinter. ‘Landscape.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Three. 166
100.) Landscape was first presented on radio by the B.B.C. on 25, April 1968.
101.) Pinter Landscape 183
102.) Pinter Landscape 166
103.) Silence was first presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre on 2, July 1969.
104.) Gussow 28-9
105.) Ann C. Hall. A Kind of Alaska: Women in the Plays of O’Neill, Pinter, and Shepard. (Illinois: Southern Illinois UP, 1993) 57
106.) In this sense there is a correlation between these plays and Beckett’s ‘That Time’ in terms of voices and dialogue that do not correspond or relate. However, Pinter’s plays are placed within settings and as such pertain to a “denotative and specific” realism that is not visible in Beckett’s “metaphysical and universal” plays. See Knowles “Pinter and Twentieth-Century Drama.” The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter. Ed. Peter Raby. Cambridge Companions to Lit. 2001. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 74-88
107.) Pinter Landscape 173
108.) Pinter Landscape 170
109.) It is Pinter’s commitment to language that, for John Stokes, mistakenly allowed critics to ignore “the reality of the social experience that produced it.” Stokes, however, acknowledges that beneath language, and indeed through language, a political reality can be revealed. See Stokes “Pinter and the 1950’s.” The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter. Ed. Peter Raby. Cambridge Companions to Lit. 2001. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 31
110.) Pinter Landscape 171
111.) Pinter Landscape 188
112.) Pinter Landscape 177
113.) Samuel West. “Remembering Mahmoud Darwish.” Marxism 2010. Upper Hall. University of London Union, London. 4 July. 2010
114.) Pinter Landscape 187
115.) Old Times was first presented by the Shakespeare Company at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 1, June 1971. Night was first presented at the Comedy Theatre on 9, April 1969.
116.) Pinter ‘Writing for the Theatre.’ ix-x
117.) Pinter. ‘A View of the Party.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008 164
118.) Pinter’s poetic depiction of The Birthday Party in ‘A View of the Party’ necessarily strips away dialogue and focuses on crucial aspects of the situation which are the loss of memory, dislocation of time and impotent of will. See Pinter ‘A View of the Party’ 164
119.) Pinter.‘Writing for the Theatre.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One. ix
120.) Charles Grimes interprets one of the principal themes of Pinter’s politics as being the notion of “individual freedom from arbitrary power.” See Grimes, 2005.
121.) Victoria Station was presented as part of a triple bill, Other Places, first performed at the National Theatre, London on 14, October 1982.
122.) Pinter. ‘Victoria Station.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four. 1993. Expanded. ed. (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 2005) 205
123.) Pinter Victoria Station 203
124.) Family Voices was first broadcast on B.B.C. Radio 3 on 22, January 1981.
125.) Pinter. ‘Family Voices.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four. 132
126.) A Kind of Alaska was presented with Victoria Station and Family Voices as part of the triple bill, Other Places, first performed at the National Theatre, London, 14, October 1982.
127.) Pinter. ‘A Kind of Alaska.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four 151
128.) Pinter. ‘Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008 293
129.) “Civil servants of Truth” is quoted from Michel Foucault. “An Introduction to the Non-Fascist Life.” xii
130.) Gary Younge. Who Are We- And Should it Matter in the 21st Century. New York: Viking, 2010
131.) Gussow 40
132.) Pinter ‘The Old Days’ 190
133.) Pinter The New World Order 277
134.) No Man’s Land was first presented by the National Theatre at the Old Vic, Waterloo, London, 23, April 1975.
135.) Pinter. ‘No Man’s Land.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Three 355
136.) One for the Road was first presented at the Lyric Theatre Studio, Hammersmith, in March 1984.
137.) Pinter. ‘One for the Road.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four 232
138.) Pinter Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture 293
139.) Pinter One for the Road 232
140.) For further information on Pinter’s visit to Turkey see Gussow 68
141.) Pinter One for the Road 227
142.) The term “full spectrum dominance” is used US military doctrine which seeks control over all areas of battlefield, that is land, air, sea and space. See Pinter. ‘Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture.’ 298 Pinter’s acknowledgement of the shift from ‘low intensity conflict’ to “full spectrum dominance” is paralleled in his work from the societal concentration of the early works, to the global scales invokes in his later plays.
143.) Pinter. ‘The New World Order.’ 275
144.) Precisely was first performed in The Big One at the Apollo Theatre, London, on 18, December 1983.
145.) Harold Pinter. ‘Precisely.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four 218
146.) Pinter Precisely 219
147.) This is exemplified in ‘Latest Report from the Stock Exchange’, which reports chronic world events in terms of bulletins on the stock exchange reports. “All quiet on Wall Street,” is hauntingly reminiscent of “all quiet on the Western front,” which serves to unify the notion of warfare and death being understood in monetary terms. See Pinter. ‘Latest Report from the Stock Exchange’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008 92
148.) Patricia Waugh. The Harvest of the Sixties: English Literature and its Background 1960-1990. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1995 84
149.) Pinter. ‘Death.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008 282
150.) Pinter ‘Death’ 282
151.) The Dumb Waiter was first presented at the Hampstead Theatre Club on 21, January 1960.
152.) Pinter. ‘The Dumb Waiter.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One 129
153.) Pinter The Dumb Waiter 137
154.) The Hothouse was first presented at Hampstead Theatre, London, 24, April 1980 however Pinter wrote The Hothouse in the winter of 1958. Pinter’s note on the play reads “I put it aside for further deliberation and made no attempt to have it produced at the time. I then went on to write The Caretaker. In 1979 I re-read The Hothouse and decided it was worth presenting on the stage. I made a few changes during the rehearsal, mainly cuts.” See Pinter ‘The Hothouse.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One 186
155.) Pinter. The Hothouse 219
156.) Pinter The Hothouse 219
157.) Pinter The Hothouse 272
158.) Pinter ‘The New World Order’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four 277
159.) Pinter One for the Road 246. The progression from “generations to come” to “God” can be traced chronologically through Pinter’s work and reinforces the Orwellian concern for the abstraction of meaning in words so that they no longer function demonstratively, but rather denotatively.
160.) Orwell concludes his analysis of the atrophy of the word democracy by surmising “It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it.” See Orwell 132
161.) Pinter One for the Road 227
162.) Pinter One for the Road 228
163.) Gussow 73
164.) Pinter No Man’s Land 325
165.) Pinter No Man’s Land 324
166.) Pinter. ‘After Lunch.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008 275
167.) Party Time was first performed by the Almeida Theatre Company on 31, October 1991.
168.) Pinter. ‘Party Time.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four 299
169.) Pinter Party Time 310
170.) Pinter recalls having been reprimanded for his use of the word ‘genitals’ at the US Embassy in Ankara in March 1985. His observation follows the argument that the Ambassador was more offended by Pinter’s use of a particular word than of the reality of the situation, whereby electric current on genitals is used as a form of torture. See Pinter ‘Blowing up the Media.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008. 223
171.) Susan Hollis Merritt. Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter 1990. Durham NC: Duke UP, 1995. 179
172.) Pinter. ‘American Football.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008 280
173.) Pinter The Caretaker 53
174.) Pinter ‘Blowing up the Media’ 223
175.) Pinter The Caretaker 53
176.) Pinter The Caretaker 52
177.) Pinter The Caretaker 53
178.) Pinter The Caretaker 53
179.) In the 1980’s Pinter’s political position became more widely known through his involvement in PEN, Amnesty International and the 20 June Group and a growing concern for censorship and civil liberties. See Gussow 65. As a consequence, those plays that have become definitively contextualised by events that Pinter has commented on publicly. Though these plays have been openly aligned to events such as the visit to Turkey by Pinter himself, this should not detract from “what’s happening in England today, the suppression of ideas, speech and though,” that reaffirm One for the Road’s continuity with The Birthday Party. See Gussow 68.
180.) Michael Ignatieff quoted in William H. Thornton. “Back to Basics: Human Rights and Power Politics in the New Moral Realism.” International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 14.2 (Winter 2000): 315-32. 316
181.) Pinter. ‘Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture.’ 299
182.) Gussow 85
183.) Pinter Precisely 219
184.) Pinter. ‘Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture.’ 293
185.) Pinter ‘American Football’ 280
186.) Pinter ‘Writing for Theatre’ xiii
187.) New World Order was first performed on 19, July 1991.
188.) Pinter The Birthday Party 80
189.) Pinter One for the Road 240
190.) Pinter Party Time 284
191.) In contrast, the ideal citizen of the state of One for the Road is Gila’s father, since he is deceased. The dead are without a voice and are lauded as men of “iron and gold,” the same iron and gold that can be awarded posthumously, in the form of military decoration.
192.) Pinter Party Time 280
193.) Thatcherism in Britain signalled a period in which the disjunction between realities become even more pronounced, with “champagne imports double, while it was discovered that in economically blighted areas of the country scavengers picked on rubbish heaps for a living.” See Knowles 198
194.) Pinter Party Time 313
195.) Pinter Party Time 314
196.) Mountain Language was first performed at the National Theatre on 20, October 1988.
197.) Pinter. ‘Mountain Language.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four 256
198.) Pinter Mountain Language 256
199.) Pinter Mountain Language 256
200.) Pinter. ‘It Never Happened.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008 234
201.) Pinter The New World Order 278
202.) Pinter ‘Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture’ 300
203.) Pinter. ‘The Bombs.’ Various Voices: Sixty Years of Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2008 277
204.) Pinter ‘Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture’ 293
205.) Celebration was first presented in a double bill with The Room at the Almeida Theatre, London, on 16, March 2000.
206.) Waugh 3
207.) Pinter. ‘Celebration.’ Harold Pinter: Plays Four 300
208.) Pinter Celebration 482
209.) Pinter Celebration 500
210.) Pinter Celebration 454
211.) Pinter Celebration 460
212.) Pinter Celebration 477
213.) Pinter Celebration 478
214.) Pinter Celebration 475
215.) Pinter Celebration 475
216.) Pinter Celebration 497
217.) Pinter Party Time 292
218.) Knowles. Understanding Harold Pinter. South Carolina: U of South Carolina P, 1995 198
219.) As such, Celebration becomes “a microcosm of post-Thatcherite Britain, a society dominated by greed and dumbed-down educational and intellectual standards,” and heralds the betrayal of the Blair government which perpetuated the divide between rich and poor under the iconic, and now deeply ironic banner, ‘Things Can Only Get Better.’
220.) Pinter Celebration 464
221.) Pinter Celebration 444
222.) Pinter Celebration 443
223.) Pinter Celebration 443
224.) This contrasts sharply with the “kind of vitality in the world” that Pinter grew up in, which has now become “sullen, bewildered, secret, aggressive and alarming.” See Gussow 116. The activisim of Ruth has become the amusement of Suki which is in keeping with the general atmosphere of the times is “nobody’s interested anymore…this is the world, there’s nothing to be done about it and anyway, fuck it, who cares.” See Pinter ‘It Never Happened’ 237
225.) Pinter Celebration 478
226.) Pinter Celebration 466
227.) Pinter Celebration 471
228.) Pinter Celebration 472
229.) Pinter Celebration 468
230.) Harold Pinter.‘Writing for the Theatre.’ Harold Pinter: Plays One. xiii
231.) Pinter Celebration 502
232.) Pinter Celebration 450
233.) Pinter Celebration 459
234.) Pinter Celebration 451
235.) Pinter. ‘Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture.’300
236.) Pinter. ‘Art, Truth, Politics: The Nobel Lecture.’300
