Images Of Identity In Harold Pinter's Early Plays

Harold Pinter is one of the most important British playwrights after the World War II. His plays have much to do with the post-war social situation. The decades of 1950's and 1960's following World War II is a time when Britain passed from an era of rationing and hardship to a country of affluence and relative economic security. There was also greater security stemming from the welfare state , which provided benefits covering life's risks "from the cradle to the grave". However, the trauma left by the war still remained in people's mind. People began to reflect on issues of faith and values. Under such situation arose the Existentialism which emphasized the meaninglessness of life and the absurdity of the world. Although Existentialism has no direct connection with the Theatre of Absurd, its impact on the theatre is unavoidable. The ground breaking thinking paves the way for the breakthrough in the theatre creation.Harold Pinter is one of the most important playwrights in contemporary British theatre. His winning of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005 is the best proof. As an established playwright after the World War II, Pinter is greatly influenced by Beckett in the theatricality which is best exemplified in his early plays. With his creating skills maturing, his plays take on his own distinctive features. In his Nobel Lecture in 2005, he pointed out that his plays were always engendered by images.As a form of stage performance, the major feature of theatre is its presentation. Images are of great importance in theatre. As a playwright who started as an actor, Pinter is distinctive in his own stage presentation. In his plays, the menace, isolation and anxiety endured by the characters are represented by the striking images on stage. For Harold Pinter, images not only engender his plays, but also symbolize the themes in the plays. From the trivial stuff like knife or cheese rolls to something bigger like a home or a house, or to something more abstract like the variation in the use of names or to a more concrete one like a solitary man or woman on the stage, Pinter uses the images concrete or abstract adeptly out of his theatrical maneuvering. Pinter's characters never declare their anxiety, fears and loss of identity publicly but often infuse them in the repetition, redundancy and even deviation in their dialogue. Pinter's creation is closely related with his career as an actor and screen writer later.The issue of identity has always been central in literature. Pinter's exploration of this theme is not direct but through the various images.The major plays discussed in this thesis include The Room, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Collection and The Homecoming.In this thesis, the issue of identity is discussed from the perspective of Pinter's use of images in his plays. Chapter I will give a general view of the British social background as well as the theatre development after World War II. It is generally accepted that the devastation of the Second World War exerts a great impact on Pinter's creation. The retrospect for the meaning of life is a trend in the fields of philosophy and literature after the war. However, the recovering of the economy and British's relocating status in the world in 1950's and 1960's provide a fundamental base for the re-booming in theatre. The classification of The theatre of the Absurd by Martin Esslin is an important issue. However, Esslin's including Pinter as the playwright of the theatre of Absurd can not completely represent Pinter's features.Chapter II will focus on the concrete images and theme in Pinter's early plays. Room, as the metaphor of one's security is related closely to the identity of the characters. The image of resisting victim is another representative of the theme of one's identity from presumption to loss. Name is no doubt the carrier of one's most outward identity. Pinter is a playwright who intentionally focuses on the use of the names in each characters. The third section of this chapter will compare the different versions of names used in his early major plays to discuss the underlined connection between the different names of the same persons and the abstract symbol of one's identity.Chapter III is devoted to the discussion of the two types of female images in his early plays. One is in solitariness, the other is the duality embodied in women. The paradoxical images of women is just the presentation of the universal themes of struggle for power and dominance in Pinter's early plays.