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Pancakes and Soap Suds: A Study of Childishness in Pinter's Plays

HAROLD PINTER'S CHARACTERS frequently resemble children in the manner in which he presents them to us, in their behavior, which is either distinctly juvenile or manifests the conditioning associated with childhood, and in the way in which we react to them. They almost always exist in a room, threatened by imminent expulsion. The security they derive from their rooms and their reluctance to be dispossessed find a parallel in the state of irresponsible well-being of the unborn child and in his instinctive protest when forced by life to trade the protection of his private world for the insecurity of whatever lies beyond. In response to Kenneth Tynan's question about what his characters feared, Pinter explained, ~'Obviously they are scared of what is outside the room. Outside the room there is a world bearing upon them which is frightening."l In confining his dramatic action to events taking place exclusively or primarily in one room, Pinter accomplishes several striking effects. One of these is the creation of history-less characters. Like a teacher entering a classroom for the first time, audiences simply find the actors on stage when the curtain goes up. The tantalizing ambiguities that surround Pinter's people derive not so much from the, modicum of information concerning where and what they have been before we meet them, as from the desultory manner in which they tell probably apocryphal stories about their pasts, and from our difficulty in reconciling what they tell us with what they seem to do and to be. Their stories are often blurted out with an urgency which belies their lack of suitability to the situation at hand. In The Homecoming, Lenny, having made a promising start in the seduction of Ruth, abruptly veers off into a tale of brutality. Goldberg, just introduced to the man he's come to terrorize in The Birthday Party, launches into an account of the pure days of childhood.