Power And Politics

Since the late 1950s, Harold Pinter has been a very prominent figure on the European and American stages. The awards he has received include the Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear (1963), the CBE (1966), the BAFTA awards (1965 and 1971), the Hamburg Shakespeare Prize (1970), the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or (1971), European Prize for Literature (Vienna) (1973); and the Commonwealth Award (1981), The David Cohen British Literature Prize (1995); the Laurence Olivier Award for a lifetime's achievement in the theatre (1996); BAFTA Fellowship (1997); Companion of Literature, RSL (1998); Companion of Honor for services to Literature (2002); Wilfred Owen Poetry Prize, 2005; Frank Kafka Prize, 2005. In October 2005, Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, because in his plays he"uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms"(The Swedish Academy, 2008).Harold Pinter has been generally considered as the foremost representative of British drama, after George Bernard Shaw, in the second half of the twentieth century. His name has entered the English language as an adjective used to describe a particular atmosphere and environment in drama: Pinteresque. The Nobel Prize committee praised him for his contribution to the world literature:"He restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of one another and pretense crumbles. With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution.1 Pinter's early plays are usually about a room with two characters who are menaced by intrusion from the outside world. The characters'dialogues are usually unpredictable and full of pauses and silences. They compete with one another for power in the realistic world without any pretence.Pinter's early plays such as The Room(1957), The Birthday Party(1957), The Caretaker(1960), The Homecoming(1965), were deeply influenced by the masters of the Theatre of the Absurd, such as Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco. But late his drama has more aptly been characterized as "comedy of menace," a genre2 of drama which describes the characters'domination and submission over each other in their daily usual conversations. In Pinter's plays, the characters live in a limited and controlled space and defend themselves against intrusion from the outside world.Pinter's works continue the artistic features of the masters of the Theatre of the Absurd in regard to the miserable and lonely characters, isolated and bleak environments and non-communicable language. The characters in Pinter's plays are usually mysterious people beyond our understanding. What is the relationship between Rose and Riley? Where is Stanley from? Who are Goldberg and McCann working for? What is the result of Ben and Gus? Why does Ruth choose to stay in the house? They live in an enclosed environment, feeling menaced by intrusion from the outside. In spite of their efforts to reinforce and secure themselves from menace by using verbal weapons such as pauses and silences, the weak individuals are vulnerable to the powerful forces of the mysterious outside world. Pinter's plays express the failure of human communication, the meaninglessness of human life, and the absurdity of human existence. Yet, Pinter differs from those masters in his use of detailed realistic description which makes his works real and concrete. His plays are based on the issues which can be associated with the reality in contemporary Britain, such as the housing problem, the racial tension, the crimes of assassination, and the house caretaker. Unlike the characters in the Theatre of the Absurd who fail to communicate with others, Pinter's characters choose to avoid communication with others because they are afraid of being hurt in doing so. By combining the abstract menace in life with the concrete reality in society to create a sense of verisimilitude, Pinter's plays produce a resonance and understanding in his audiences.However, Pinter is not only a writer of the Theatre of the Absurd, but also a serious, conscientious and realistic playwright who is concerned with the contemporary society and conditions of human existence. Although in the 1960s he claimed that his early plays are not concerned with politics, his plays actually deal with the political issues from a new perspective very different from the traditional political one. The issues about intrusion from the outside in The Room, the use of violence by assassins in The Dumb Waiter, the kidnapping of Stanley by mysterious agents in The Birthday Part, the control and anti-control between men and the woman in The Homecoming, are actually problems related to authority and power, and they can be considered minimal aspects of politics. In the 1970s, he felt puzzled by his own ideas and troubled by his marriage crisis. He was incapable of writing"comedy of menace"any more. He needed a change in his dramatic creation. From the 1980s, Pinter's political inclination was even clear, so he turned to a new direction—political play-writing. One for the Road condemns the crime of the abuse of power in torturing the disobedient individuals in the name of the state. Mountain Language deals with the issue of the violation of human rights of using one's own language. Party Time criticizes the moral degradation of the social elites and the cruelty of the government in repressing democratic movement. Ashes to Ashes explores the effect of the atrocity of Nazi fascism on people in the post-WWII period. Pinter does not only use his plays to expose the existing social problems, criticize the unjust situations in the modern world, and explore the human psychology that has resulted in such social problems, but also participate in social activities to protest the dishonorable conducts of the western countries and announces that he will give up his dramatic creation and devote himself to the cause of human rights and social progress.This dissertation intends to study Harold Pinter in the literary and social contexts for the exploration of his theme of power and politics, based on the Foucaultian theory of power and politics, by closely analyzing his texts and combining the historical background with Pinter's biographical information and his thinking.The dissertation consists of three chapters, with Chapter Two and Chapter Three focusing on Pinter's conception of power and politics. After an introduction to Harold Pinter and his works, this dissertation conducts a literature review of the major studies on Pinter over the fifty years after his first play, The Room (1957). Pinter has been studied by critics from many perspectives such as linguistic, thematic, gender, psychoanalytical and political. Pinter's dramatic works have always been influenced by his sensitive concerns about the contemporary national and international issues. Some critics have pointed out that Pinter's plays in the early period have shown his political interest, while others consider Pinter a writer who is apolitical. This dissertation argues that Pinter was, is and has always been a political dramatist whose life has been a search for art and truth and his early refusal to be involved in politics was the strategy out of his concerns with politics.Chapter One studies the differences between Harold Pinter's"Comedy of Menace"and the Theatre of the Absurd in the 1950s for the purpose of analyzing his political concerns. Due to his close reading of Samuel Becket and Kafka, Pinter's works have some characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd. His characters and language are similar to those of Beckett and Kafka. But, Pinter is different from those Absurdist writers in that his plays are based on the realities of the world after the 1950s and are more about the universal human anxieties and securities and dignity than about the concerns with problems about human existence in the works of the Theatre of the Absurd. The issues in his plays can be regarded as the reflection of the problems of the contemporary British society and politics.Chapter Two explores Pinter's small letter"p-"politics, i.e. the decentered politics in the form of the struggle for power in the early plays and the important influences on his idea of power. In dealing with each other, his characters are involved in a fight for power to safeguard themselves and meanwhile control and dominate the others. Pinter's idea of the struggle for power is influenced by many sources. The Holocaust of the War, the persecution of the Jewish people, and his personal experiences have contributed to this effect. The analysis of Pinter's conception of power in the early plays is based on Foucault's postmodern theory of power. Power is a relationship, an interlaced network, subjectless and decentered, existing everywhere, related to knowledge and truth and exercised in different ways.Chapter Three discusses Pinter's capital letter Politics, i.e. the centralized Politics by tracing back to his memories of his adolescent years and his artistic breaking-through and personal involvement in the political arena since the 1980s, with a survey of the social conditions of the 1980s and 1990s. His interest in politics can be inferred from a close reading of his early plays, although it is not the politics that is concerned with international wars and political systems. It is about the relationship between individuals, the relationship between an individual and an organization, and the power struggle for security and identity. Political theme is more evident in the late plays because Pinter feels he can no longer suppress his emotions in face of the more and more violent and abusive powers, such as the repression of democracy, the violation of human rights, the wars against innocent people in the contemporary world. Pinter's political concerns are the result of his rebellious personality, his loyalty to his friends, his marriage life with Lady Fraser, and the influences on him from the national and international situations in the contemporary world.The Conclusion chapter studies Pinter's great contribution to the contemporary political world and the literary world as a highly responsible and concerned artist whose life and plays have been closely related to the exploration of power and politics and the general conditions of human existence in the contemporary world. Due to his dislike of politicians since early years, Pinter refuses to write about politics overtly. Pinter's political plays are the result of his life long search for an outlet to express his political concerns in the artistic form. As an outstanding British playwright, his name has entered into the English language as an adjective:"Pinteresque".