The Caretaker

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From the very first, Davies appears quite fixated on race. He refers often to other racial groups, all in denigrating ways. He is suspicious of their position in society, clearly nervous that they are supplanting him or giving themselves airs that they are better than him. His racial prejudice is tied up with his perception that he is a victim, always unfairly shunted aside. It is also part of his defense mechanism, for if he can blame others for his lowly status, then he never has to question himself as to why he cannot hold a job or why he is so unpleasant. Pinter's decision to make Davies a veritable racist is not just in terms of character, but also a manifestation of historical and social realities of the time in which the play was written. Lower-class whites in 1950s Britain were fearful of foreigners usurping their already precarious position in society, and Pinter captures that fear in Davies. Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. 1961. 3rd ed. New York: Vintage Books, 2004. ISBN 1-4000-7523-8 (10). ISBN 978-1-4000-7523-2 (13). Print. There’s no real closure or objective in sight. I think this could be a snap shot into the communication issues amongst the homeless and mentally unwell people (the civic guy in this case). It’s also a little sad how nice people get used or taken advantage of but then you can understand their rationale for doing so. You've got...this thing. That's your complaint. And we've decided, he said, that in your interests there's only one course we can take. He said...he said, we're going to do something to your brain. Aston, 42 Composer Ron Grainer was tasked to produce not a score but a sequence of sound effects, often metallic in nature, but which also include the sound of a drip which occasionally falls from the attic ceiling and a squeak as Aston uses a screwdriver. Grainer used his previous experiences working with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the creation of the sound picture. [5] Reception [ edit ]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Naismith, Bill. Harold Pinter. Faber Critical Guides. London: Faber and Faber, 2000. ISBN 0-571-19781-7. Print.

Galens, David M., ed. (2000). "Overview: The Caretaker." in Drama for Students, Vol. 7 . Detroit: Gale. Literature Resource Center . Retrieved 4 September 2012.

Brian Richardson, Performance review of The Caretaker, Studio Theatre (Washington D.C.), 12 September 1993, The Pinter Review: Annual Essays 1994, ed. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale (Tampa: U of Tampa P, 1994) 109-10: "Here, real objects and stylized representations alternate and the three vertical structures [of the set] though not symmetrical, balance each other in a rough though pleasing harmony." The play's staccato language and rhythms are musically balanced through strategically placed pauses. Pinter toys with silence, where it is used in the play and what emphasis it places on the words when they are at last spoken.I would like to say this is a funny play – but it isn’t, even though I did smile quite a few times. There is an underlying nastiness and aggression to the play that is all too masculine and all too disturbing. And Pinter has an unfailing eye for cognitive dissonance and for the lies we tell ourselves so as to reduce the torments of this dissonance. He has ways of holding a mirror up to ourselves, well, if we are brave enough to look, brave enough to see beyond what is actually being shown. Arden, John. Book review of The Caretaker, by Harold Pinter. New Theatre Mag. 1.4 (July 1960): 29–30. Yeah, it's very very very deep. Who am I to say it but whatever the author showed or conveyed in his work could've been done in a less literal way. He made the entire story absurd to prove his point. He made all his characters retards to show the 'stutter' of his time. The civic-minded fellow’s brother owns the place and hassles the old homeless man not realising he was invited.