onal, Challenging andDisturbing to the Values and Assumptions of An Audience. Discuss With closeReferenceThe Caretaker, written by the British playwright Harold Pinter in the late1950’s and early 1960’s disrupts the audiences perceptions of existence andtheir understandings of it.
The play deconstructs perceived notions andconceptions of reality, and disturbs the audiences perception of their ownidentity and place within a world which is primarily concerned with the searchand need for identity. Pinter was clearly influenced by the fashionablephilosophic review of human condition that was prominent in the 1950’s and1960’s existentialism. The play attacks the notion that there are no absolutetruths or realities. Pinter is therefore concerned with what exists as unknownand intangible to humanity. His theatre interrogates the truth of nature andrealities of language and demonstrates that much of what the audience regards asfact is fiction as he explores the uncertainty of human existence. When an audience of the 1960’s went to the theatre, it can generally be assumedthat they had preconceived ideas about what they expected and what they aregoing to gain from the theatrical experience.
The traditional attitudes towardstheatre and the conventions of realist drama are disrupted by Pinter. Thisconfronts the assumptions and values of the audience, an experience which wouldbe disconcerting and frightening to many. Pinter divorces and exposes society’s codes, institutions and human relations. Throughout the play the audience is rarely comfortable.
This disruption isestablished from the outset of the play when Mick, a character who at this stageof the play the audience knows nothing about, sits on the bed and stares at theaudience in silence for 30 seconds’. Traditionally in realist drama such asHenrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler characters use simple exposition through languageand non-verbal elements to let the audience in’ and enlighten them on what ishappening on the stage and the results and reasons for and behind actions. Pinter disrupts this tradition and this in itself would have been a disturbingphenomena to the conservative audiences of post-war Britain. Mick’s arrival onstage generates unease within the audience and the tension would only increaseas Pinter provides the audience with no explanation for him being there. Mickleaves the stage in a state of maintained silence, hence the first imagespresented in the play confront many of the assumptions of a traditionaltheatrical experience. Mick is alone in the room, sitting on the bed.
He wears a leather jacket Heslowly looks about the room, looking at each object in turn. He looks up at theceiling, and stares at the bucket Silence for thirty seconds. Mick turns hishead. He stands, moves silently to the door, goes out, and closes the doorquietly. It is not until the Act two that this character becomes known to the audience asMick. This deferral of information is quite confrontational as it opposesaccepted and naturalised preconceptions of power and right.
Mick’s position onthe bed and his costuming – wearing a leather jacket places him in thetraditionally accepted position of power. However this idea is problematisedwhen Mick leaves the room and Aston enters with the key, thus demonstrating theillusory and ambiguous nature of power. Mick not re-entering until later in theplay confronts traditional notion that as he was introduced first, he is in aposition of power. The opening scene defamiliarises the Audience withtraditional notions of power and establishes a precedent for the remainder ofthe play.
Pinter does not adhere to the accepted use of dramatic conventions. There is notraditional relation of character histories within the opening scenes and lackof revelation is maintained throughout the play as relatively little is exposedabout the characters backgrounds. This makes events within the room conditionalphenomena, which are dependent on the individuals involved and what the audienceis able to interpret. Pinter denies meaning in traditional places of discovery and appears to provideit by means and in situations that are not socially acceptable or considered asbeing the norm. An example of this is the obvious exposition in Aston’s longmonologue about his time within a mental institution.
The discussion of suchtopics with practically a complete stranger and in social conversationdefinitely oversteps the mark of social acceptability. The discussion of suchtopics is very in your face’ and would be very disturbing and confrontationalto the original audience and modern audiences. Pinter is able to create realisation of the inadequacies of the rules thatgovern polite behaviour. This monologue disrupts the traditional notions of good’ and evil’, and in effect reverses these roles. Within this speech, Astonpresents a doctor in negative images, and this figure who is traditionally seenas the wielder of power, status and security is presented as an repressive agentof an oppressive institution who uses physical and brutal means to deal with patients’.
The affirmed ideas of hospitals being a place of safety and refuge,and doctors as good’ is also deconstructed by Pinter. Aston’s monologue servesto shock the audience as he talks about something that the conservative societywas not open with, oversteps the mark of acceptability. Hence the audience wouldhave been confronted with ideas that were previously ignored or swept under thecarpet’, ideas that to many would be quite disturbing;ASTON: Then one day they took me to a hospital, right outside London. They gotme there.
I didn’t want to go. Anyway I tried to get out quite a few time. Butit wasn’t very easy. They asked me questions, in there.
Got me in and asked meall sorts of questions. Well, I told them when they wanted to know what mythoughts were. Hmmnn. Then one day this man doctor, I suppose the head onehe was quite a man of distinction.
Aston’s monologue also disrupts the audiences concept of civil rights. In ademocratic nation it is generally expected that what people are thinking istheir right. However this passage suggests that this notion is not true as Astonwas forced to reveal his thoughts. This is a very disturbing idea, as itdemonstrates that powerful institutions are able to force individuals intosubmission and minimise their individuality. Especially after World War Two thepresentation of such ideas would be particularly disturbing as after this warthe rights of a individual were strongly valued to a greater extent to everbefore. The Caretaker discusses the illusory nature of security and challenges theaudiences traditional notions of safety and the home as a place of refuge.
Davies refusal to be caretaker because he could be buggered as easy as that’ ifhe opened the door is clearly juxtaposed with the scene were Davies is pursuedby an electrolux controlled by Mick. The original Audiences of the late 1950’sand 1960’s would have been only too well aware of the terror and fear that wasgenerated by the knock at the door, because of the possibility of bearing badnews as a result of World War Two. Hence this idea of the home as not being asecure refuge may have been very disturbing to the audiences of this time, andthis coupled with the idea that the apparently mundane holds elements of powerand hazard would have threatened many audiences values and assumptions;ASTON: You see, what we could do, we could I could fit a bell at the bottom,outside the front door, with “Caretaker” on it. And you could answer any queries. DAVIES: Oh, I don’t know about that.
ASTON: Why not?DAVIES: Well, I mean, you don’t know who might come up them front steps, do you?I got to be a bit carefulA few minutes laterSuddenly the electrolux starts to hum. A figure moves with it, guiding it. Thenozzle moves along the floor after DAVIES, who skips, dives away from it andfalls, breathlesslyBefore Pinter and other existential playwrights, language was used primarily toprovide the audience with a means of understanding, by which they were able tocome away with some knowledge and insight at the end of the play. Within TheCaretaker, language is not used in this way, instead its use is extended tobeing a weapon and a form of interrogation, not only of characters within theplay but also to interrogate the values of the largely conservative post-warBritain. It exposes the use of our language to construct fictions about ourlives and for the purpose of self-deception.
The play produces a loss of faithin language to unproblematically represent realities in the world and a loss offaith in humanity to know what reality is. The constant silences and pauses within characters conversation makes clear thesub-text of all human interaction. Pinter himself said that one way of lookingat speech is to say it is a constant stratagem to cover silence’ this view andthe presentation of this view within the play would be very disturbing to anaudience, as it disrupts the traditional notions that language, the basis of allhuman interaction is one-layered and can be defined, classified and understood. The speech patterns of characters within The Caretaker helps to present theexistential viewpoint of problems of identity and classification. Davies’frequent rhetorical questions pose the key existential questions of theuncertainty of existence.
The character of Mick does not subscribe to society’sconventional codes. His verbal gymnastics and the punctuation of verbalinterrogation with polite social conversation decontextualises ordinaryconversation. After attacking Davies, Mick says;MICK: You sleep here last night?DAVIES: YesMICK: Sleep Well?DAVIES: Yes. MICK: I’m awfully glad. It’s awfully nice to meet you.
Pinter uses language as a shield, to mask truths and present perceived realitiesand to evade or disclose revelation. Traditionally language was not used in suchways and the deviation from the traditional and conservative by Pinter createsthe need within the audience to reassess and reposition themselves in terms ofthe language that they use and the meanings it does or can possibly generate. Action is frequently deferred within the play, and at the end of The Caretakerthere is no resolution or revelation and instead the audience is left withlimited insight and knowledge. Instead existence has been problematised, leavingmany of the audience disturbed and unsure of their own identity and thestructure of society. This deferral of action is primarily indicated by Daviesand Aston.
The prime example of this is in Davies constant references to hisplanned trip to Sidcup and in Aston’s references to the shed that he is planningto build. Through the representation of these possible future activities, itappears that it gives purpose to their current actions and to some extent areason for living. It allows these characters to suggest that they are in factworthwhile human beings with a purpose and a life’. Pinter suggests throughthis deferral of actions that people’s lives hold no worthwhile meaning andultimately there is nothing gained at the point of death.
The Caretaker is a subversive play that demythologises many of an audiencesassumptions and values. Pinter makes the audience experience paranoia andfeelings of menace and by disrupting conventions of social behaviour andignoring traditional dramatic realist’ protocol, Pinter confronts andchallenges the values and assumptions of an audience. He successfullydeconstructs notions of power and security, and problematises the conservativebelief that there are in fact absolute truths and realities. Category: English
