Dominance And Anti-Dominance In Harold Pinter's Early Plays

Harold Pinter, the winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature, is one of the most important British playwrights of the last half of the 20th century. The adjective "pinteresque" has been incorporated into the Oxford English Dictionary. Many critics put emphasis on his perfect unity of realism and absurdity, some paid much attention to the theme of menace, and others concerned the women characters in his plays.This thesis aims to track and explore the dominance and anti-dominance theme in Pinter's early plays, which have been called "comedies of menace". In his plays, there are always confrontations between man and his environment, among strangers and even among family members. Who is the victor and who is the victim are often ambiguous in the dominant and anti-dominant conflicts. In his plays, language is not merely a vehicle of expression but a weapon in the battle for dominance and security. Silence and pause, visual devices and blackout are also employed to show the dominance and anti-dominance theme.Beneath the dominant and anti-dominant conflicts, Pinter conveys the absurdity of the human condition and the alienation of the human relationship. Pinter's plays are of great social significance in reflecting the western world after the Second World War.