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ENG210 LECTURE NOTES - HAROLD PINTER'S BETRAYAL
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English 210Pinter’s Betrayal
Lecture 1:
Harold Pinter:
- 1930-2008
- British Jewish family
- Criticized human & political interaction
- Felt need to unpack unpleasant aspects of life
Structure of play:
- Motif: love triangle
- Sequence is important in plays: Pinter inverts sequence in this play (ending of story is revealed
& then unfolds details leading up to this event)
- Settings vary between public & private spaces
- Confrontation in scene 5 between Robert & Emma
- Character groupings are mirrored on each side of this confrontational scene
- Usual structure = exposition, development, climax, resolution
- Pinter makes use of an unusual structuring of play
Scene 1:
- Jerry & Emma are walking on eggshells in each other’s company
- Haven’t seen each other privately for 2 years: due to affair they had
- Jerry & Robert = publishers
- Emma = works @ art gallery
- Places characters in upper middle class
- Their families are well acquainted with each other
- Robert expects Emma to follow sort of scripted conversation
- Scene touches on issue of memory: by reference to Jerry throwing Emma’s child up in air
(opens up gateway for other memories they shared)
- Irony in fact that Emma is shocked by Robert having affairs as she did likewise
- Jerry claims that he was unaware of Robert’s affairs
- Jerry becomes upset upon Emma discussing intimate conversation with Robert
1
, Features of dialogue:
- Sparseness
- Triviality
- Circular discussion
- Lots of pauses
- Underlying fear, secrecy, aggression
- Evasiveness
- Audience is required to piece together information
Types of silences in play:
1. No words
2. What we hear is an indication of we don’t hear
- Silence = menacing, space of uncertainty
- Leaves characters & audience uncomfortable
Important theatre traditions relevant to Betrayal:
- Theatre of ideas
- Dialogue in civilized setting
- Dealing with expectations on way characters will behave
- Realist theatre
- Naturalist theatre
- Theatre of Absurd: dark comedy, meaningless & absurdity of everyday life
(Features of Theatre of Absurd: circularity, essential meaninglessness of life, failure to communicate,
power games, victim/ victimizer)
Scene 2:
- Robert dominates conversation & space (refuses to sit down)
- Both men are standing: indicates power struggle
- Jerry’s house conversation takes place @, yet he is more flustered than Robert (it is assumed
that 1 would feel more comfortable in their own house)
- Knowledge is key source of power in human interchanges
- Robert asserts his knowledge & position on Jerry
- Jerry is disadvantaged being guilty party
- Robert can afford to sit down because he is clearly in position of power: he’s known about affair
for several years
- Each man tries to take hold of that position of power in relation to Emma
- Friendship continues despite secrets that accompany them
Lecture 2:
2
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