The Memory Writing And Ethical Predicaments In Pinter’s Memory Dramas

Harold Pinter(1930-2008)is a famous contemporary British writer and representative of the absurd theatre.Pinter wrote a lot of works in his life,covering poetry,drama,film and other fields,especially famous for the achievements in the field of drama,and he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005.He respectively created the comedy of menace,the family drama,the memory drama,the political drama.Among them,the memory drama is particularly special.Pinter turned his attention from the external world to the inner world of people,and took memory as the writing content and clues to explore the irrational force deep inside individual.This paper will take three dramas of different period of the Pinter’s memory dramas,"Landscape" "Old Times""Betrayal",as the research object,using the theory and method of ethical literary criticism combined with relevant memory theory,to analyze the memory writing in these three dramas.From the perspective of memory writing,this paper tries to find the existence and function of the irrational will and then to summarize the resulting ethical predicament and the ethical values of Pinter’s memory dramas.The first chapter takes Landscape,a memory drama in the period of style transformation,as the research object to analyze the memory writing and the discovery of irrational will inside the characters in this drama.Landscape consists of two memory monologues of the couple Duff and Beth,in which two memory clues are parallel and not communicated with each other.The juxtsition of the two memory clues reveals the different pursuits of Duff and Beth about life and love.Duff pays more attention to material and sensual enjoyment,while Beth is inclined to emotional and spiritual pursuit.On the basis of the different pursuits and under the guidance of irrational will,Duff betrayed his wife physically and Beth betrayed her husband spiritually.The affection of the couple grows apart gradually,only remaining the marital form.In this drama,Pinter focuses on the different pursuits of men and women in marriage and love,and also finds the threat of irrational will to marriage and love.The second chapter takes Old Times as the research object,and analyzes the relationship between memory and identity in this drama,and the influence of irrational will on marriage.The relationship between memory and identity is a common problem in Pinter’s dramas.Memory can not only construct but also deconstruct character identity.Anna is the image constructed by Kate’s memory and the embodiment of Kate’s irrational will.Memory also deconstructs the previously established identities of Deeley and Kate.They are no longer responsible husband and docile wife,but the man who attaches importance to material senses and the woman who hides her individual desire.The cognitive dislocation defamilializes the relationship of the couple.Their marriage has also been re-thought.Their original union is mainly impulsed by the irrational will.The third chapter takes Betrayal as the research object,and analyzes the memory writing and the further expression of irrational will inside the characters.In this drama,memory not only forms the story of the dramatic text,but also forms the narrative mode of the dramatic text.As the story-level memory,it shows us multiple betrayals such as betrayal between couple and betrayal between friends,thus revealing the common theme of betrayal in Pinter’s dramas.In terms of narration,Betrayal adopts the narration of both the whole flashback and the external flashback,omitting the subject of memory,making the whole drama like an individual’s recall process,which is constantly retroactive in time.Such a narrative mode enables each scene to form an interpretation of the previous scene,bringing the revealing effect to the drama.At the same time,because of the external flashback narration,the external readers and audiences have already known the ending of the plot,which has a certain alienation effect,making the audience always keep rational thinking.Such narration places the beginning of the story at the end of the plot and leads people to focus on the cause of the betrayal,namely the irrational will.In the fourth chapter,through the analysis of the three memory dramas,Pinter’s memory dramas about family are taken as a whole.The explicit marriage ethical predicament and implicit parent-child ethical predicament brought by irrational will are analyzed.Facing these ethical predicaments,the dramatic characters either do not make a choice,maintain the status quo,or end the marriage relationship and get rid of the predicament temporarily.Pinter’s memory dramas convey their ethical value in two aspects.From the individual level,they embody the ethical appeal of people who pursue integrity and authenticity.From the social aspect,Pinter’s memory dramas also place his hope for the reconstruction of social ethical order,which also reflect his social responsibility as a writer.At the same time,Pinter’s memory dramas also show the value of thinking about the ethical challenges faced by people at the present.The conclusion part reviews the memory writing in Pinter’s memory dramas on the whole.In Pinter’s seven memory dramas,memory is not only an important part of drama,but also the narrative strategy of those dramas.In terms of content,Pinter’s writing of personal memory and his presentation of the predicament of marriage and family ethics were his review and re-thought of his own life experience.In the ethical environment at that time,it also included Pinter’s responsibility as a writer.In the aspect of memory narration,from the early stage to the late stage of the creation of memory dramas,Pinter’s memory writing style changed from simple to rich and innovative,which to some extent enriched the connotation of Pinter’s memory dramas and realized the ethical narrative effect of his works.Through the writing of the ethical dilemma and the analysis of the ethical choice,Pinter’s memory drama conveys two aspects of ethical values.On the individual level,it reflects the individual pursuit of integrity of the individual’s ethical appeals.On the social level,it contains the hope of rebuilding the social ethical order.In a broader sense,Pinter’s memory drama reflects the existential dilemma of human beings.As for how to get out of trouble,Pinter did not offer his choice.