The Birthday Party by Pinter as a Comedy of Manner :: essays research papers

AS COMEDY OF MANNEROnce asked what his plays are about, Pinter lobbed back a phrase the weasel under the cocktail cabinet, which he declension has been taken seriously and applied in popular criticism. Despite Pinters protestations to the contrary, many reviewers and other critics still find that Pinters remark, though facetious(teasing), is still an apt description of his plays. Now the Phrase drollery of menace is often applied to it and suggests that although they are funny, they are also frightening or menacing in a vague and undefined way. Even as they laugh, the audience is unsettled, ill at ease and uncomfortable. Pinter?s own comment clarifies it much often than not the public lecture only seems to be funny - the man in question is actually fighting a battle for his life.(What situations appear funny to us? moreover in fact for the character concerned is a terrifying experience.)Now the question arises that does Pinter?s work really go in accordance to the ?comedy of ma nners. A critic saysPinter restored theatre to its basic elements an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue, where people are at the mercy of each other and pretence crumbles. With a minimum of plot, drama emerges from the power struggle and hide-and-seek of interlocution. Pinters drama was first perceived as a variation of absurd theatre, but has later more aptly been characterized as comedy of menace, a genre where the writer allows us to eavesdrop (spy) on the play of domination and submission hidden in the most everyday of conversations. In a typical Pinter play we meet people defending themselves against intrusion or their own impulses by establishing themselves in a reduced and controlled existence. another(prenominal) principal theme is the unpredictability and elusiveness (ambiguity) of the past. The general setting of the play is naturalistic and mundane, involving no menace. However oneness of Pinter?s greatest skills is his ability to make an evidently normal and tr ivial object, like a toy drum, appear strange and threatening. Pinter can summon forth an cash machine of menace from ordinary everyday objects and events, and one way in which this is done is by combining two apparently opposed moods, such as terror and amusement.Another technique that Pinter uses to create an atmosphere of menace is to cast doubt on almost everything in the play. One method of doing this is to have a character give a clear and decisive statement and then have him flatly deny it later on.