Pseudo-communication

As the rich treasure among the contemporary drama, the Theatre of the Absurd has been widely acclaimed across the Continent and US theatres. The absurdists tend to employ absurd means instead of traditional literary methods to demonstrate the absurdity. As the theatrical master for his various styles, Harold Pinter is best known as one of the most influential dramatists worldwide, whose early works are often categorized as absurd dramas for its monotonous plots and ambiguous characters.This thesis attempts to go beyond the traditional contextual analysis of The Birthday Party, one of Pinter's most famous plays in his early career, and explore its absurd elements in a pragmatic-stylistic approach. After a detailed literature review of the Theatre of the Absurd and The Birthday Party as the introduction, an overview of pragmatic-stylistic approaches, including discourse analysis, conversational analysis and conversational implicature will be offered as the theoretical framework. The major part is divided into three chapters. Chapter Three reveals the false participation in Act I. Chapter Four discloses the absurd evasion of communication in Act II. Chapter Five demonstrates the overwhelming manipulation in Act III. The final part of this thesis covers the pseudo-communication over the preceding three aspects and arrives at the conclusion.