Tekstanalyse og –historie (Spring 2011) Session Three: Harold Pinter, The Dumb Waiter

Agenda Harold Pinter, The Dumb Waiter The Absurd American fiction 20th century British fiction (Tom Stoppard, Arcadia)

The Dumb Waiter Staging Characters and characterization Plot, action, and dialogue

Staging Make a drawing of the stage Realism or symbolism?

Characters and characterization How does Pinter characterise the men in the play? How does he control our response to them? With whom do we sympathise in the play? How are we made to sympathise with them? Motivation: What does the play tell us about why the characters act and speak in the way they do? How? What does the play tell us about the relations between the characters, for instance, the relation of power? How?

Plot, action, and dialogue What is signified by the actions and speech (also the writing) of the characters? Outline significant events, reversals, shifts in the action.

Theme What is the play about? Does the play have a message or point?

The Absurd The human condition is absurd (no truth, value, and meaning) Is Pinter’s play an example of the theatre of the absurd?

20th century British fiction Modernism Anti-modernism (realism) Postmodernism Postcolonialism