Pinter's Jewishness Manifested In The Father-Son-Relationship In The Homecoming

Harold Pinter is widely regarded as one of the foremost contemporary dramatists. His unique style and gift for creating tension and horror through the most economic means have won him the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature.Pinter has remained a mystery to critics,having been a focus for a wide range of critical approaches.Pinter studies at home and abroad have been mainly concerned with such aspects as the absurdity of the theme and language of Pinter's plays,Pinteresque style,the threat outside the "the room",power relationship,female figures,and post-modern features.Relatively speaking,the connection between Pinter and the Jewish tradition,either in terms of his life and his playwriting,has not attracted adequate critical attention. Although Pinter has often denied his Jewish identity,evidenced in many ways,and has seldom mentioned the word "Jew" in his works,he can not deny the fact that he is a Jew both in his real life and his writings.The influence of the Jewish tradition on Pinter is destined and certain.The present author maintains that Pinter has never really freed himself from the influence of the Jewish tradition,just as he can never evade the interwoven hatred and love between his father and himself.Pinter's Jewishness,certainly one of the most significant features of his playwriting,is clearly manifested in the complicated and recurrent father-son-relationship motif in The Homecoming.In Pinter's plays,the playwright mainly deals with the father-son-relationship motif which is based on the profound Jewish tradition,instead of directly describing Jews or Jews' life.His fathers and sons seem to be eternally trapped in a combination of hatred and love.They both hate and love each other so much that they have to resort to a devastating and violent way.On the one hand,fathers always assert their authority,trying their utmost to confine their sons to the family;on the other,the rebellious sons want anything but the control of their fathers.Such love and hatred are then represented in the forms of violence and blood service.Manifested in father's safeguarding his authority and son's rebellion,the complicated relationship between father and son has been a theme of great significance and continuity in the Hebrew Bible,or The Old Testament.The father-son-relationship in Pinter's The Homecoming derives largely from the father-son-relationship motif in Jewish tradition.The theme is,at the same time,also closely related to Pinter's family background,his relationship with his father in particular.The present author of this thesis,through close reading of Pinter's representative play The Homecoming,aims at proving Pinter's Jewishness manifested in his father-son-relationship.The thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One is a general introduction to Pinter's literary achievements,critical responses to his works,and the focus and the structure of the thesis.Chapter Two traces the recurrence of the father-son-relationship in Jewish tradition and summarizes the characteristics of this relationship.Chapter Three discusses the Jewish representations of father-son-relationship in The Homecoming both in content and in form.Chapter Four analyzes Pinter's family background,his relationship with his father,and other Jewish elements of his plays.Chapter Five restates that the theme of Jewishness is of great significance and continuity in Pinter's plays,and draws the conclusion that Pinter's Jewishness is evidently manifested in his Jewish representation of father-son-relationship in The Homecoming.