Literary Criticism 2

 

                  Assignment

Name: Rupa Bambhaniya

Paper No: 9 The modernists literature

Enrollment no: 2069108420200002

Class: M.A sem 3

Submitted by: Smt.S.B.Gardhi, Department of English

Email I'd: rupabambhniya166@gmail.com

 

    Introduction Harold Pinter : 

    Born 10 October 1930 in East London, playwright, director, actor, poet and political activist. He died 24 December 2008.

 

He wrote twenty-nine plays including The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming, and Betrayal, twenty-one screenplays including The Servant, The Go-Between and The French Lieutenant's Woman, and directed twenty-seven theatre productions, including James Joyce's Exiles, David Mamet's Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray and many of his own plays including his latest, Celebration, paired with his first, The Room at The Almeida Theatre, London in the spring of 2000.

"My second play, The Birthday Party, I wrote in 1958 - or 1957. It was totally destroyed by the critics of the day, who called it an absolute load of rubbish."

 

He was awarded the Shakespeare Prize (Hamburg), the European Prize for Literature (Vienna), the Pirandello Prize (Palermo), the David Cohen British Literature Prize, the Laurence Olivier Award, the Legion d’Honneur and the Moliere D'Honneur for lifetime achievement. In 1999 he was made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. He received honorary degrees from eighteen universities.

 

Pinter's interest in politics was a very public one. Over the years he spoke out forcefully about the abuse of state power around the world, including, recently, NATO's bombing of Serbia. 

 Characters : 

Stanley Webber ,

Meg Boles,

 Lulu ,

Monty ,

Nat Goldberg,

Dermont McCann.

  After examining the dramatic action of the characters and their relation to the principal character, studying the title of the play, and uncovering the philosophical statements, a final summary 

of the idea can be made about The Birthday Party. Mankind is in control of its destiny by the decisions

it makes in life. When bad decisions are made, we often wish we had a second chance to turn our life

around. Fate has called upon Stanley on this special day of celebration, his birthday, and has given

him that second chance. The opportunity to face his fearful realities of the past and move on to a

better, more hope filled life has come. The past is just that. It is gone. Let's enjoy the present and

seek a bright future with many birthday celebrations of life to come.

                

"What's happened to the love, the bonhomie, the unashamed expression of affection of the day

before yesterday, that our mums taught us in the nursery?" This statement not only reflects the idea

of The Birthday Party, but it relates directly to our ordinary lives as human beings. Every person is

faced, at some time in their life with a chance to re-evaluate life; to question their past, to look at the

present and to hope for a better future. In The Birthday Party, the main character, Stanley, is given a

chance to do just this. He is approached by two men who force him to examine his past and present

by evaluating his decisions in life, and give him a chance to hope for a better future.

In order to uncover the idea of The Birthday Party, it is necessary to first search within the

dramatic action of the principal character,

  Stanley Webber.

 Stanley represents mankind; the total

existance of all human beings. Therefore, the result of his actions and those around him, reflect how

not only Stanley sees himself, but how mankind sees itself. We learn that Stanley was once a

pianist in a concert party on the pier, who left his job and came to live in the boarding house. He has

been a resident for about a year. Stanley finally came to live here as a result of the concert hall

shutting down and the lack of love between him and his parents. This is significant because it not

only justifies Stanley's actions in the play, but it parallels society. Unfortunately when people run into

trouble and are faced with disaster or grief, like death or divorce, or must deal with major changes in

life, like losing a job, many people run away from that situation. People run away to avoid the

situation, to find something better, or to hide from what is troubling them. In Stanley's case, he is

running from betrayal and the lack of acceptance. He runs far away to a boarding house near the

sea. A place where he can be secluded from others outside the house and nurtured by those inside.

Yet when someone or something disrupts that sanctuary that you have created, you feel violated and

threatened, which is what happens to Stanley through the course of the play.