Game Images And Micro Power Struggle In Harold Pinter’s Plays

The British playwright Harold Pinter（1930-2008）is prominent in modern literature for his “comedy of absurdity”,and he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005.As one of the representatives of the Theatre of Absurdity,Pinter is good at using various absurd images to manifest micro power struggle in the British society.Game images are abundant in Pinter’s plays.Pinter is good at integrating micro power struggle into game image,which makes it disengage from its original function for entertaining to the tools for exercising power by characters.The Birthday Party is the representative play of Pinter’s “comedy of menace” in the early stage,which is full of micro power struggle among ordinary people.The Lover is the production of “memory play” in the middle stage,and games between male and female in the play imply power struggle in marriage.Moonlight is the represent of “political play” in the late stage,which keeps the theme of father-son contradiction in Pinter’s plays.Pinter constantly integrates parental power struggle into the tense father-son relationship.Game images in these three plays are quite affluent,however,few scholars have paid enough attention to them so far.Based on Michel Foucault’s theory of micro power,this thesis selects Pinter’s The Birthday Party,The Lover and Moonlight,which are full of game images as contexts to do research.It analyzes game images in these three plays,presents implications of micro power struggle contained in those game images,and further explores motivations of Pinter’s writing of game images.The thesis is divided into six parts: the introduction illustrates life experience and dramatic achievements of Harold Pinter,research reviews at home and abroad,as well as game image and Michel Foucault’s micro power theory;The second chapter analyzes game images of “drum beating”,“question ＆ answer” and “blind man’s buff” in The Birthday Party,which shows struggle for personal control among ordinary people in the modern society;The third chapter describes games of “role-play”,“dress-up” and “African drum” in The Lover,and presents struggle between men and women;The fourth chapter portrays games of “father”,“names” and “telephone” in Moonlight,and depicts struggle for domination between parents and children;The fifth chapter investigates Pinter’s motivations of game writing;The sixth chapter is the conclusion of the thesis.Through the research,it can be found that Pinter has his unique characteristics in showing the theme and performing the play.He is good at depicting the common images in daily life and creating the effect of defamiliarization through the familiar images,so as to achieve the aim of expressing the theme of the play.The theme of micro power struggle is skillfully embedded in the game images,which makes the game images show the characteristics of “Pinteresque” absurdity and threat.At the same time,game images in Pinter’s plays are veils employed by characters to conceal power struggle.They are not only tools to protect their own rights and interests,but also powerful weapons for the controller to oppress the controlled and the controlled to override the controller.Game images enrich the dramatic images in Pinter’s plays,increase pleasure to the plots,and bring a sense of indescribable threat to audiences.Actually,it is exactly because of the alienation of British society after World War Ⅱ,the rise of feminist movement and Pinter’s marriage experience,and Pinter’s father-son relationships that inspire Pinter to associates micro power struggle with game images.He makes use of games in the plays to expose the extensive micro power struggle among ordinary people,and to express his worries about the development of modern society and the fate of human beings.Then it reveals the social problems of western society at that time,such as trust crisis,ethical confusion and absence of family love,which inspire readers to think about the underlying reasons,thus providing lessons and cautions for the people.