“USE OF SYMBOLS IN THE BIRTHDAY PARTY.”
Name:- Neelamba R.
Sarvaiya.
Class:- M.A.
Part - 2
Roll
No :- 19
Semester:- 3rd
Paper no-9:- The Modernist Literature.
Submitted
to :- S.B.Gardi English department
M.K. Bhavnagar University.
M.K. Bhavnagar University.
§ Introduction:-
The Birthday Party (1957) is the second full-length
play by Harold Pinter. This is the one of the best known work and
most-frequently performed plays. In this play Harold Pinter’s dramatic
technique so far published. These are,
1) setting
2) characters
3) use of time
4) situations
5) language
2) characters
3) use of time
4) situations
5) language
1) SETTING :-
Setting in Pinter,
as opposed to other absurdist dramatists, is realistic. When the curtain opens
we are given the impression that we are going to watch a conventional,
realistic play as the settings look like the ones we find in the so-called
‘drawing room’ drama. An example from The Homecoming will
illustrate this point clearly. The stage directions read:‘An old house in
... In the room a window, right. Old table chairs. Two large armchairs. A large sofa, left.
Against the right wall a large sideboard, the upper half of which contains a mirror. Up left, a radiogram.’
As I have mentioned above we are led to believe we will watch a realistic play, yet the action will show something different.
Apart from conventional settings Pinter also presents conventional characters (wife, husband, gangsters, beggars, etc) in conventional situations, using conventional language. But they end up being unconventional characters i9.0n shocking situations, using meaningless language. Very often we come across types, as for example The Nagging Wife (Meg in The Birthday Party); the seemingly Authoritative Father (Max in The Homecoming); The Buxom Girl (Lulu in The Birthday Party), the Intellectual Man (Robert and Jerry in Betrayal), and so forth.
The aim of presenting conventional, typical characters lies in the fact that Pinter wants the audience to be misled into believing that the play is realistic so that when the characters start reacting unexpectedly the impact (shock) is greater.
3) Use of time
Time in Pinter’s plays may be broadly divided into two categories: continuous and discontinuous. The actions of his early plays, such as The Room, The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming unfold along a chronological sequence of events, ie., one event follows the other in an order we may find in the so-called conventional drama. Several periods of time may elapse between scenes, but the action represented on the stage has a forward progressive movement and its duration is relatively equivalent to the time we spend in the theatre watching the play. In this sense, we can say that these plays follow the classical unities (time, place, action) and as a result they conform to naturalistic representation.
However this is not true of time schemes in plays such as Silence, The Basement, Old Times, No Man’s Land, Betrayal, etc. Instead, they show a deliberate distortion of temporal sequence, often giving no account either in the stage directions or in the dialogue of their lack of continuity; sequence of action does not correspond to continuity in time. In these plays, therefore, Pinter breaks away from the afore-mentioned classical unities.
In Silence it is almost impossible to be certain of what time frame the characters are occupying. In The Basement time is circular, we have the impression that the end will start in a similar sequence of events than that presented at the beginning. In Betrayal time goes backwards and forwards and ends in the past.
What’s the purpose behind this deliberate use of time? Pinter seems to mean that the distortion of time does not only affect the continuity of action in the plays but it also affects the minds of the characters.
In other words, the distortion of time sequences mirrors the psychological distortion of the characters themselves.
4) Situations
We cannot speak of a plot in Pinter’s plays. In the construction of his plays he only includes a situation, that’s why it is difficult to retell the stories of his drama. The situations are, in general, very simple.
Basically, there is a reduced number of people (two or three) in a room, and the action takes place entirely in that room. Very seldom do we see characters leaving it.
Pinter makes use of devices that he borrows from comedies or farces. Absurd situations, comic scenes, slapstick, humorous characters are likely to be found in most of his plays. The scene in The Dumb Waiter where Ben and Gus try frantically to comply with the orders of the serving hatch is absurd and as a result we can refer to it as slapstick. We also witness an absurd situation when in The Birthday Party the characters play blind man’s bluff. Anyhow the comic situations in Pinter always end up shocking the audience. There is a reversal from the comic to the violent, or the tragic.
We laugh during humorous scenes, yet this laughter can be defined as hysterical, precisely because it arises out of the tension going on on the stage.
5) Language
As regards the use of language, Pinter’s structures, lexical items, dialogues are very simple, straightforward, clear to understand, something that distinguishes him from other absurdist dramatists such as Beckett, Ionesco or Pirandello, whose language is obscure and therefore too difficult for an audience or readers to follow.
Language in Pinter is closely related to the theme of communication. In order to present this theme the playwright resorts to three different devices mainly:
a) the use of oral language
b) non-verbal devices
c) symbols
a) Use of Language
Dialogue in Pinter is always deceiving. At the beginning of his plays we often find two people in a room, having breakfast, or reading the newspaper. After some minutes they start talking and the conversation sounds casual, yet realistic. But little by little you sense there is something wrong. You realise that there is a shift from casualness to absurdity. An example from The Birthday Party will illustrate this:
‘Meg: (...) What are you reading?
Petey: Someone’s just had a baby.
M: Oh, they haven’t! Who?
P: Some girl.
M: Who, Petey, who?
P: I don’t think you’d know her.
M: What’s her name?
P: Lady Mary Splatt.
M: I don’t know her.
P: No.
M: What is it?
P(studying the paper). Er-a girl.
M: Not a boy?
P: No.
M: Oh, what a shame. I’d be sorry. I’d much rather have a little boy.’
Sometimes dialogues may lack cohesion and coherence, and as a consequence they are absurd, but the absurdity has a well planned objective, as in the case of the conversation in The Birthday Party where Goldberg and McCann crossexamine Stanley so that he should collapse.
‘Goldberg: Webber, what were you doing yesterday?
G: And the day before. What did you do the day before that?
S: What do you mean?
(...)
G: What did you wear last week, Webber? Where do you keep your suits?
McCann: Why did you leave the organization?
G: What would your old mum say, Webber?
McC: Why did you betray us?
(...)
G: Is the number 846 possible or necessary?
S: Neither.
G: Wrong! Is the number 846 possible or necessary?
S: Both.
G: Wrong! It’s necessary but not possible.
S: Both.
G: Wrong! (...)’
By the end of this cross-examination the stage directions read as follows:
‘Silence. They (Goldberg and McCann) stand over him (Stanley). He is crouched in the chair. He looks up slowly and kicks Goldberg in the stomach. Goldberg falls.
It is also characteristic in Pinter that short exchanges should carry more meaning than long speeches. In The Homecoming one of the main themes in ‘the struggle for power’. We see all through the play how each member of Max’s family struggles for power, demanding recognition of status and self. Soon after the play starts there is a short exchange between the father, Max, and one of his sons, Lenny, where a competition seems to be taking place:
‘Lenny (...) (after a pause): What do you think of Second Wind for the three thirty?
Max: Where?
L:
M: Don’t take a chance.
L: Sure he does.
M: Not a chance.
L: He’s the winner.
Lenny ticks the paper.
M: He talks to me about horses’
The conversation about which horse will win the race is definitely superficial. Yet it clearly shows that a power contest is going on. This is just the beginning of the play. By and by the casual verbal struggle will become more aggressive and violent and physical struggle will replace words.
Sometimes we are led to think that statements express deep philosophical ideas, but a closer look will evince their meaninglessness. Again, in The Homecoming seemingly serious exchanges like the following are not infrequent:
‘Lenny: (...) What do you teach?
Teddy: Philosophy.
L: Well, I want to ask you something. Do you detect a certain logical incoherence in the central affirmations of Christian theism?
T: That question doesn’t fall within my province.
L: Well, look at it this way (...) you don’t mind my asking you some questions, do you?
T: If they’re within my province.
L: Well, look at it this way. How can the unknown merit reverence? In other words, how can you revere that of which you’re ignorant? At the same time, it would be ridiculous to propose that what we know merits reverence. What we know merits any one of a number of things, but it stands to reason reverence isn’t one of them. In other words, apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?
Pause’
We ask then, what’s the purpose of this type of conversation? The answer is to be found in the characters and the audience themselves. The effect is one of bafflement, confusion, uncertainty, tension.
Another famous language technique is that of verification. John Russell Taylor in Anger and After: A Guide to New British Drama has defined it as follows:
‘Doubt is cast upon everything by matching each apparently clear and unequivocal statement with an equally clear and unequivocal statement of its contrary.’
In The Birthday Party Meg tells Goldberg and McCann that she is going to organise a party because it is
‘Meg: (...) You mustn’t be sad today. It’s your birthday.
A pause
M: It’s your birthday, Stan. I was going to keep it a secret until tonight.
S: No.
M: It is. I’ve brought you a present. (She goes to the sideboard, picks up the parcel, and places it on the table in front of him.) Go on. Open it.
S: What’s this?
M: It’s your present.
S: This isn’t my birthday, Meg.
M: Of course it is. Open your present.’
The toy drum and
‘McCann: I’m glad to meet you, sir. (He offers his hand.
McC: On your birthday?
S: Yes. Why not?’
In Old Times Pinter uses the technique of verification more constantly than in other plays. As a matter of fact the characters in this play Kate, Anna an Deeley, are all the time remembering the past, and very often what one says is contradicted by what the other says. In Act One Anna says she did not know Deeley. She had heard that her closest friend, Kate, had married, but she never admits she knew it was Deeley:
‘Anna: When I heard that Katey was married my heart leapt with joy.
Deeley: How did the news reach you?
A: From a friend.’
In Act Two Kate talks as if she knew everything about the relationship between Deeley and Anna:
‘Kate: What do you think attracted her (Anna) to you?
Deeley: I don’t know. What?
K: She found your face very sensitive, vulnerable.
D: Did she?
K: She wanted to conform it, in the way only a woman can.
D: Did she?
K: Oh yes.
(...)
K: You were so unlike the others. We knew men who were brutish, crass.
D: There really are such men, then? Crass men?
K: Quite crass.
D: But I was crass, wasn’t I, looking up her skirt?
K: That’s not crass.
D: If it was her skirt. If it was her.
Anna (coldly): Oh, it was my skirt. It was me. I remember your look (...) very well I remember you well.’
So Anna, who had first denied knowing Deeley, now freshly admits to remembering him.
Betrayal is about verification, but as opposed to other plays here we are given the benefit of going back to the past to check what the characters say. In other words, Pinter will dramatise the past. For example in Scene One when Jerry and Emma are discussing the party where he declared his love to her we are told:
‘Jerry: (...) Yes, everyone was there that day, standing around, your husband, my wife, all the kids, I remember.
Emma: What day?
J: When I threw her (Emma’s daughter) up. It was in your kitchen.
E: It was in your kitchen.’
In Scene Six there is the following exchange:
‘Jerry: She (Emma’s daughter) was so light. And there was your husband and my wife and all the kids, all standing and laughing in your kitchen. I can’t get rid of it.
Emma: It was your kitchen, actually.’
It is only in Scene Nine (the last one) where we are allowed to check who is right about the place in which Emma’s daughter was playing with Jerry. The stage directions at the beginning reveal the truth. They read: Robert and Emma’s Rouse.
Very often Pinter pokes fun at the jargon used by politicians, businessmen, professionals in general. In The Birthday Party Goldberg is in charge of delivering one that reads:
‘Goldberg (in a quiet, fluent, official tone): The main issue is a singular issue and quite distinct from your previous work. Certain elements, however, might well approximate in points of procedure to some of your other activities. All is dependent on the attitude of our subject. At all events, McCann, I can assure you that the assignment will be carried out and the mission accomplished with no excessive aggravation to you or myself. Satisfied?’
Evidently Pinter here parodies social language. Goldberg’s formal register may mislead us into thinking that what he is saying is extremely relevant, yet he means nothing.
Another example can be found in The Homecoming when Max wants to read one of Teddy’s critical works and Teddy answers:
‘Teddy: You wouldn’t understand my works. You wouldn’t have the faintest idea of what they were about. You wouldn’t appreciate the points of reference... It’s nothing to do with the question of intelligence. It’s a way of being able to look at the world. It’s a question of how far you can operate on things and not in things. I mean it’s a question of your capacity to ally the two, to relate the two, to balance the two. ... Might do you good... have a look at them... see how see how certain people can view... things... how certain people can maintain... intellectual equilibrium. Intellectual equilibrium...’
Certainly Teddy’s philosophical ramblings smack of meaninglessness. But this is not Teddy’s intention, perhaps, but Pinter’s, who inmost of his plays is distrustful of people talking at length. In Pinter the more you say the less you mean; actions count more than words. That is why he is so fond of non-verbal devices and uses the so frequently.
b) Non-Verbal Devices
The most distinctive non-verbal devices Pinter uses are: pauses, silences, and noises. In his early plays Pinter seems to make a distinction between a pause and a silence, but later on they are used indistinctively to express several things. Pauses and silences are used:
a) to give a character time to think about what he/she is going to say next
b) to avoid conversation
c) to show extreme emotional strain
d) as an answer to a rhetorical question
e) to see the effect of what has been said to the interlocutor.
The list can be extended, and examples abound in Pinter’s plays, therefore I would like to quote one passage from The Homecoming, which shows Pinter at the highest point of the development of pauses and silences. At the end of the play we see that Ruth has taken power and Max realises that he will not stand a chance of being her favourite, so he starts saying things that are accompanied by pauses. But the interesting point is that all the pauses are the answers to whatever he says and the answers in all cases is ‘yes’:
‘Max: I’m too old, I suppose. She thinks I’m an old man.
Pause
I’m not such an old man.
Pause
(To Ruth) You think I’m too old for you?
Pause
Listen. You think you’re just going to get that big slag all the time? You think you’re just going to have him..., you are going to just have him all the time? You’re going to have to work! You’ll have to take them on, you understand?
Pause
Does she realize that?
Pause
Lenny, do you think she understands...
He begins to stammer
What... what... what... we’re getting at? What... we’ve got in mind? Do you think she’s got it clear?
Pause’
And he goes on and on until the curtain falls.
c) Symbols
Some symbols in Pinter are used to substitute oral language. His most recurrent symbol is the newspaper, a means of communication that the dramatist uses ironically. In The Room, The Birthday Party, The Dumb Waiter, A Slight Ache, The Homecoming, etc., the paper, the typical object of news media, which should supposedly fulfil a communicative role, acts as a hindrance to communication. Pinter’s characters hide themselves behind the newspaper in an effort to dodge conversation so, a characteristic Pinteresque scene is a husband (reading the paper) and his wife trying to make conversation unsuccessfully. Sometimes the newspaper is torn to pieces, as in The Birthday Party where McCann menacingly rips a paper sheet into ‘five equal parts’.
Again in The Birthday Party the toy drum that Meg gives
‘(She watches him, uncertainly. He hangs the drum around his neck, taps it gently with the sticks, then marches round the table, beating it regularly. Meg, pleased, watches him. Still beating it regularly, he begins to go round the table a second time. Halfway round the beat becomes erratic, uncontrolled. Meg expresses dismay. He arrives at her chair, banging the drum, his face and the drumbeat now savage and possessed.)’
In The Dumb Waiter the serving hatch acts as a means of communication, whimsically ordering Ben and Gus complicated meals in an effort first to destabilize the gangsters and then to do away with one of them.
It would also be interesting to trace the symbol of the windows in Pinter’s plays because in most of them we find one, and at some point in the action we see different characters casually looking out of a window with no apparent objective. Most probably the playwright uses this symbol as the only escape the characters have, out of their claustrophobic environment into the outside world.
I hope this article can be useful as a starting point for a deeper analysis of Pinter’s dramatic techniques.
Conclusion:-
So, we
can say that Pinter’s symbols appear surreal but actually contain meaning,
highlighting key themes of identity and human existence. There were many
symbols like –
- Toy
drum
-
Stanley’s glasses
Blindness
/ darkness
-
Clothing
-
Newspaper tearing
‘Shock-effects’
Pauses,
Silence, Ellipses.
All this represent very well in this novel.
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