The Pinteresque features of The
Birthday Party
Inroduction:-
Two of the notable facts about Harold
Pinter were, first , that he was a Jew, born of Jewish parents, and , second,
that
he worked as an actor for some time
before he became a playwright. Pinter was born on the 10th October,
1930 in Hackney , a London borough. By
the time of his birth the Jewish population of North London had risen from
about 5000 in 1880 to about 40,000. The North London Jewry was known for its
solid middle class respectability and religious conformity.
In view of the economic insecurity
which the family felt, Pinter’s father worked very hard, working twelve hours a
day, making clothes. Eventually, however the old man lost his business and had
to work for somebody else. Pinter never forgot this situation in his early life
– the combination of calm and unrest beauty and ugliness; and these qualities
permeate his work. Personal history had deeply influenced all Pinter’s writing.
His childhood and his youthful experience have left a deep marked on him. For
instance , it is Hackney which provided the characters in his played with their
ambitions, hopes, desires, and occupations and the actual attitudes prevalent
in Hackney coincide with those which infuse his work. In the Hackney of
Pinter’s youth were the dichotomies which had made their way into his plays:
the brooding sense of danger under the surface calm, the sense of unreal
gentility, the cockney intermingled with ordinary speech.
An Entertaining and Thought Provoking
play
Pinter was not a conventional or traditional
dramatist. His played mark a complete break with the past, and a completed
departure from the practice of the dramatists of the old school. He belonged
rather to the group of dramatists of whom Samuel Beckett was the leading
spirit. In respected of plot, in respect of characterization, in respect of
dialogue , and even in respect of themes,
Pinter was a great innovator in the field of drama. Two questions here
arise : Do his plays provide enough entertainment? And do his plays have enough
social significance? The birthday party
proved a complete failure when it was performed first. The performances lasted
only for a week and brought only a small monetary return. In course of time,
however, Pinter’s work received more and more recognition till he is now
regarded as one of the greatest British playwright. Of course, he had his
detractors and censors, one of whom had gone to the length of saying that
Pinter’s work was a theatrical fraud. This adverse remark was, however, absurd.
The popularity which Pinter now enjoyed was a proof of the fact that his played
had considerable entertainment value. That his played were also thought
provoking, cannot be doubted. His plays had provoked abundant discussion and
debate, which in itself shown the richness and complexity of his work.
The Mystery and the Ambiguity, Pinteresque features
A Pinteresque played did not have a
well defined or clear cut plot. There was always an atmosphere of mystery in a
played by Pinter, and certain questions
remain unanswered till the very end.
There was a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity in Pinter’s played, and the
unanswered questions baffle us greatly . The Birthday Party illustrated these
points. Here we did not know who Goldberg and McCann really were. Nor did we know what Stanley had done to
incur their wrath. Goldberg and McCann seem to be the agents of some
organization which had sent them in pursuit of Stanley; but what kind of organization
is that? Why had Stanley developed a
sense of guilt, and why had he been staying in this boarding house, away from
society? Why was he no longer playing the piano as he used to do formerly? What was the meaning of the brain – washing
sessions which were held by the two outsiders?
Why were the two men themselves feeling badly shaken on the following
day, after the events of the previous night? Where did the two men finally take
Stanley, and what will happen to him next?
No explicit answers to these questions are available. The author leaves
it all to the audiences and the readers to answer these questions themselves.
The result was a feeling of bewilderment. In the case of certain other
situations, we are faced with two alternatives, and we had to choose one. Is it
really Stanley’s birthday, or has Meg invented birthday just to please Stanley?
Stanley himself gave us no clue in this respect. In fact, he denied that it is
his birthday . Has Stanley really got an
offer of a new job or has he merely invented a story about it? Here we have
only his own word, but no confirmation of it.
It is not even certain whether his account of a concert which he claims
to have given was authentic and whether his account of a concert which did not
materialize is true or imaginary. What exactly was the relationship between
Stanley and Meg? was she already his mistress, apart from being a mother to
him, or is it as yet a mere flirtation
which might have led to a regular sexual relationship between the two in case
Stanley had not been taken away by the two men? The mystery, the uncertainty,
and the ambiguity in this play are typical of Pinter. They produce an impression in our minds that
the play is very obscure and hard to understand or appreciate. A play by Pinter
thus becomes a kind of riddle.
Inadequate Or Unreliable Information
about the Characters
Conventional drama gave the readers
and the audiences enough background information which was lacking in a play by
Pinter. In The Birthday Party we did not have much reliable information about
the three major characters Stanley, Goldberg
and McCann. We had already noted the unanswered questions in respect of
these men. Stanley himself did tell McCann something about his past life,
naming the town or towns where he had lived. But we did not know whether
Stanley is giving a correct account or is trying to throw dust into McCann’s
eyes. In any case, Stanley’s own version of events and situations was not
always reliable. When, for instance, he tells Goldberg that he was the manager
of this boarding house, he was telling an obvious lie which even Goldberg can
see through, while we definitely know that he was not the manager. What was it
that turned some people bitterly hostile to Stanley on the eve of his
giving his second concert? He tells Meg
that those people wanted to see him
“crawling on his banded knees”
but he gives no reason why they had turned hostile to him .
Why should Pinter keep back the reason which led those people to turn against
his chief character in this play? Similarly , Pinter dose not give us adequate
information about the past life of Goldberg and McCann. Goldberg has much to
say about himself in the course of the play. Becoming reminiscent, he speaks
about a generous uncle, a loving mother , a devoted wife,and a wise
father,a part from talking about a girl
with whom he used to go for walks on Fridays. Here,again,there in no
confirmation of these memories. Normally we would have accepted Goldberg’s
reminiscences as true and reliable; but when we discover that Goldberg is a
gangster, brutal and hypocritical,we begin to doubt whether his accounts of his
past life are true. Nor dose it become clear what job has brought Goldberg and
McCann to this place, and what jobs they have been doing in the past. Goldberg
made only an oblique reference to the kind of activities which McCann has been
previously occupied with, but the nature of
these is not specified. We can only guess that these activities were of
a criminal nature. It must be pointed out also that, despite the draw-backs
mentioned above, the character-portrayal in this play is most successful. Each
of the six characters had been made to
live before us and each convinces us of his or her reality.The characterization
is realistic, despite the mystery surrounding some of the persons.
A
Gripping Comedy of Menace,
Another Pinteresque Quality
Pinter’s plays had been
called “comedies of menace”.
The birthday party fully deserved this lable. In this kind of play
, comedy is accompanied
by or mingled with a feeling of menace which is produced through direct
or indirect means by the author in the minds of the readers and the audiences.The
feeling of menace may arise from actual violence, from potential violence ,from a mere hint of violence, or
from a combination of all these. There was ample comedy in The Birthday Party
and there was an abundance of menace in it. The very opening dialogue between
Meg and Petey, inconsequential and trivial as it was, amuses us much. Stanley’s
fooling with Meg and his sarcastic comments on the tea and the cornflakes were
amusing also. Meg amuses us when she gets frightened by Stanley’s references to
a van and wheel-barrow, when she misapplies the word “succulent”
to herself , when she gave a garbled version of Stanley’s concerts to
Goldberg, and when at the end of the play, she told Petey that she was “the belle of the ball”. Meg is,indeed
, a comic figure and perhaps the source of the richest comedy in this play . Stanley is a witty man whose
remarks in the course of his conversation with Lulu in Act I amused us
considerably , and some of whose answers
to the questions put by Goldberg and McCann were also quite amusing . Goldberg
himself is a very witty man too. His sarcastic answers to Lulu’s charges
against him , after he has seduced her, are also a source of comedy. But
everywhere in the play we also
experience a sense of the coming danger. A feeling of apprehension is ever-present in
our minds.
Pinter himself said that
danger lurks for everybody at every corner. Pinter was a believer in the
existential view that danger is present everywhere and always and he gives
expression to this feeling of apprehension and danger in almost each of his
important plays . In the Birthday Party, Stanley feels perturbed when he learns
that two gentlemen are coming to stay in this boarding-house. He asks Meg all
sorts of questions about them . He
himself created a scare in Meg’s mind by
telling her about the people who were expected to come in a van , bringing a
wheel-barrow with them in order to take away a certain individual from here.
This warning by Stanley to Meg may be a projection of Stanley’s own fear of some danger to his personal
security. He may be apprehending the possibility of some people coming and
taking him away from here, alive or dead. When the two visitors arrive and talk
to each other about the job which they have come to execute, the sense of
menace is heightened for us.There are other menacing situations also in the
play : Stanley’s beating the drum wildly and savagely; McCann’s threats to
Stanley; Staniey’s kicking Goldberg in the stomach , and McCann’s picking up a
chair to hit Stanley in retaliation; the grueling interrogation
to which Stanley is subjected by the two men; Stanley attempts to
strangle Meg and to rape Lulu; the mysterious, physical and mental torture to
which Stanley is subjected during the night after the party is over ; and the action of the two
men in forcibly taking Stanley away indeed the element of menace in the play is
as conspicuous as is the comedy in it, and the combination of the two
ingredients produces a gripping play . Who says that The Birthday Party is
deficient in entertainment value?
Rich in Meanings, But
Without a Specific Theme
Another Pinteresque feature of The Birthday Party is that it dose not have a
well-defined theme . What dose Pinter really wish to convey to us through this
play? The criticism that a play by Pinter dose not have a specific theme which
can be pin-pointed is largely true. But this criticism does not necessarily go
against Pinter as a creative artist . The Birthday Party is so rich in meanings
that we can draw our own inferences and reach our own conclusions as to its
theme or themes. In the first place,we can treat this play merely as a thriller
with ample comedy in it. There is plenty of suspense in the play . Till the end
we wait almost breathlessly to know who these two men are and what they are
going to do to Stanley . Of course ,the suspense is relieved again and again by
the humour and the comedy, but the suspense is recurrent , as is the comedy . As
a mystery cum thriller cum comedy, The Birthday Party provides plenty of
entertainment and offers much that can be later discussed like any detective
story in which Sherlock Homes figures. But the play also has a good deal of
intellectual appeal and social significance for those who wish to go deep into
the matter. The play is so rich in meanings that it has been interpreted in
various ways. There are several ideas with which the play deals directly or
symbolically. These ideas include the difficulty of communication between
individuals; people’s longing for security; the feeling of loneliness which
afflicts the individual; the place of the artist in society and the pressures
to which the afflicts the individuals; people’s longing for security; the
feeling of loneliness which afflicts the individual the place of the artist in
society and the pressures to which the artist is subjected the nature of
reality and the nature of human personality and death.
Pinteresque Technique and
Dialogue
In respect of technique and dialogue
also, The Birthday Party is a typical pinteresque play. There are not many
stage directions, and Pinter does not gives us any physical description of the
characters except a couple of brief hints about the dialogue , and these are
intended to convey much meaning. There is a blackout when the lights go out,
and this blackout has great visual impact which contributes to the atmosphere
of confusion, uncertainty, and terror in the play. As for the dialogue, it is
colloquial and perfectly realistic. Each
of the characters speaks in his or her own peculiar manner. Pinter’s skill in
the use of language has greatly been admired. His tape recorder ear has in this
respect stood him in good stead. The dialogue in The Birthday Party is
economical and tightly controlled. Every
syllable, every inflection, the succession of long and short sounds, words, and
sentences are calculated to a nicety. Pinter uses language in a most dramatic
way as a vehicle and instruments of dramatic action.
Conclusion
An atmosphere of hidden menace and
tension, lending an exceptional dramatic quality to the whole play, realistic
characterization despite the lack of information about their physical
appearance and their background; the rich comedy which sometimes follows the
menace and sometimes is mingles with it the colloquial and realistic dialogue
and the rich entertainment value of the play. (THE BIRTHDAY PARTY)
Works Cited
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY. n.d.
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