Themes

Question 1

Bill Naismith on Pinter’s use of traditional children’s tales

Answer 1

‘the original bogeyman story…made real’

Question 2

Irving Wardle on the conflicting genres in the play

Answer 2

‘comedy of menace’

Question 3

Bill Naismith on Pinter’s subversion of the audience’s expectations

Answer 3

‘The language and action are in stark contrast to the surface naturalism and the conventional stage setting’

Question 4

Harold Hobson on the sense of threat in the play

Answer 4

‘Mr Pinter has got hold of a primary fact of existence. We live on the verge of disaster’

Question 5

Harold Hobson on the threat of the past

Answer 5

Pinter shows ‘there is something in your past – it does not matter what – which will catch up with you’

Question 6

Peter Zadek on the mixing of genres

Answer 6

‘A mixture of Agatha Christie and Kafka’

Question 7

P. Hope Wallace on the theatre of the Absurd

Answer 7

Pinter relies on ‘language device’ rather than more conventional ‘ritualistic visual devices’ to create the character of Absurdist theatre

Question 8

Martin Esslin on the lack of explanation

Answer 8

‘a metaphor for the inexplicable uncertainties and mysteries of the human condition itself’

Question 9

R.F. Storch on the lack of explanation

Answer 9

‘the irrationality is a major part of the meaning’

Question 10

R.A. Buck on how the text compels the audience to search for answers

Answer 10

‘the language of the text demands that we participate in a probe for meaning’

Question 11

Pinter on the past

Answer 11

‘We are faced with the immense difficulty, if not the impossibility, of verifying the past’

Question 12

Michael Billington on the past

Answer 12

‘it is a private, obsessive work about time past; about some vanished world, either real or idealised’

Question 13

R.F. Storch on the menace being intensified by the family setting

Answer 13

Emerges from ‘this all-enveloping cosiness, the family culture served up in a heavy syrup of sentimentality’

Question 14

Martin Esslin on childhood

Answer 14

‘a metaphor for the process of growing up, of expulsion from the warm cosy world of childhood’
However - TBP actually sees Stanley regress into an overtly infantile state (giggling at the party, whilst potentially assaulting Lulu)

Question 15

R.F. Storch on the oppressive nature of the family (2)

Answer 15

‘many-tentacled monster strangling its victim’

‘Pinter’s plays are largely about running away from certain family situations’

Question 16

Lloyd Evans on the dramatic structure

Answer 16

‘It deconstructs the conventions of repertory thriller but doesn’t bother to reassemble them’

Question 17

Paul Rodgers on the naturalistic elements of the play

Answer 17

Pinter ‘really writes about people. And the extraordinary way in which ordinary people’s minds work. Ordinary people don’t behave like people in a well-made play, where you follow one line of direction’ - Pinter does not care for the through line of action which propels most well-made plays

Question 18

Bill Naismith on Pinter’s use of conventional theatrical techniques

Answer 18

‘What distinguishes Pinter is the extent to which he stylises all the most familiar conventions of the stage’

Question 19

Pinter on structure

Answer 19

‘I can say I pay meticulous attention to the shape of things, from the shape of a sentence to the overall structure of the play’

Question 20

Pinter on humour

Answer 20

‘the laughter goes out of any play I’ve written before it’s finished’

Question 21

Pinter on speech

Answer 21

Speech is a ‘a constant stratagem to cover nakedness’

Question 22

Pinter on silence (2)

Answer 22

‘I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is left unsaid’

Silence means that ‘something has happened to create the impossibility of anyone speaking for a certain amount of time’

Question 23

Pinter on pauses

Answer 23

Pauses are ‘not formal conveniences or stresses but part of the body of the action’

Question 24

Light and darkness imagery in A View of the Party

Answer 24

‘And by morning Petey saw / The light begin to dim / (That daylight full of sun) / Though nothing could be done.’

Question 25

Pinter on the pathway of meaning

Answer 25

‘Meaning begins in the words, in the action, continues in your head and ends nowhere’

Question 26

Pinter on conclusive meaning

Answer 26

‘Meaning which is resolved, parcelled, labelled and ready for export is dead, impertinent – and meaningless’

Question 27

Pinter on the need to explore

Answer 27

Below ‘the ambiguity of what they say lies a territory which…is compulsory to explore’ (speech in 1962)

Question 28

Pinter’s writing process

Answer 28

Pinter’s writing as a process of ‘finding out’ about his characters and seeing where they lead him from his initial ideas – organic process rather than a planned one

Question 29

Pinter on communication

Answer 29

‘Communication is a fearful matter’

Question 30

Pinter on comedy and absurdity

Answer 30

‘The play is a comedy because the whole state of affairs is absurd and inglorious. It is however…a very serious piece of work’

Question 31

Pinter on the visual nature of the play

Answer 31

The play ‘will possess a potent dramatic image and a great deal of this will be visual’

Question 32

Two contrasting critical interpretations

Answer 32

1. Socio-psychological – the play as a snapshot of the culture in which invaders can arrive
2. Psychopathological – the play as a projection of Stanley’s paranoid mind