The Interpretation Of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land From Perspective Of Postmodernism

Harold Pinter (1930-2008), is a celebrated master of British theatre, who almost acquires all awards relating with British and European literature. Especially in2005, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Although he is famous in the field of literature, Pinter has still been regarded as a controversial playwright. Meanwhile, the postmodernism aroused the attention of European scholars in the field of literature in the early1960s. Those postmodernists hold the idea that the important role of instability, uncertainty, fragmentation, chaos and so on has aroused much attention of today’s people. What’s more, all these thoughts correspond to the features of Pinter’s memory plays. Therefore, the applied theory approach is employed in this thesis in order to apply the techniques of fragmentation, indeterminacy and collage into interpreting Harold Pinter’s memory play No Man’s Land.This thesis contains six chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces the research background and its significance and then elaborates the innovation of this thesis. Then, it introduces how Harold Pinter’s personal life affects his creation of drama. The second chapter is a literature review, firstly it analyzes the literature review of No Man’s Land from both China and abroad, and then by comparison, we can dig out that the study for Pinter’s memory play is urgently to be proceeded. Then, it goes to the literature review of postmodern theory. The third chapter analyzes the application of fragmentation in No Man’s Land, which detailedly interprets the discontinuous structure and fragmented images of characters. The fourth chapter begins with the analysis of uncertain memories and diversified themes. The fifth chapter interprets how Pinter collages the whole drama in a way of pasting the past with present and fantasy with reality. The sixth chapter is the conclusion which summarizes the significance and application of fragmentation, indeterminacy and collage in No Man’s Land.