Dominating The Space

Harold Pinter is generally known as the foremost representative ofBritish drama in the second half of the twentieth century. Living in thetransitional period from the post-war world to the post-modern age,Pinter has blazed out a dramatic world with his own features. Unlike hiscontemporary working-class realistic playwrights, Pinter elevates thecontemporary realistic theatre to a poetic level by probing into mystery,uncertainty and poetic ambiguity behind the seemingly naturalisticcharacters and their colloquial speeches. His innovation of writingtechniques and in-depth exploration of humanity assure him a solidposition in the classics of world drama. His name is incorporated in theOxford English Dictionary as the adjective “Pinteresque” whichdescribes the specific atmosphere and circumstance in Pinter’s plays.Beneath the absurdity, Pinter presents the real lives of people from thelower class of England after the Second World War. The Homecoming, premiered in1965, is acknowledged by mostcritics as one of Harold Pinter’s most important works, a triumph ofcraftsmanship and artistic image. It is one of the major productions of theTheatre of the Absurd. Beneath the seeming absurdity of the characters’conversations and actions exist their expectations of power and theirconstant struggles for it. The power struggles in the whole family andbetween family members are faithful reflections of the social post-warera. Without the female family member, Teddy’s all-male family is notintegral at all. The power struggles between the male family membersare also very vicious. Ruth comes to this patriarchal family as the wife ofthe eldest son Teddy. All of her struggles are undertaken within themale-dominant patriarchal society. Hence, whatever efforts she makes,she is unable to break the already formed patriarchal social system.Teddy’s escape from his big family is attributable to the confinement ofthe familial circumstances and the social class identity. With unyieldingefforts, he becomes a university professor teaching philosophy andestablishes hisown family which seems to be filled with happiness. However, because of hisindifference, Ruth and other family members leave him one after another,leaving him alone in this brutal world.In the light of Michel Foucault’s discourse of power, space, andbody, in The Homecoming, Pinter explores the reasons of the powerstruggles, the methods employed by the characters to struggle for power,and the result of the power struggles in the end of the play. Haunted bythe menace and fear of the society after the Second World War anddriven by the desire for power, people struggle for the changeable powerconstantly and eventually fall into the deep abyss of the game of power.