SUST Journal of Humanities (2015) Vol.16.No. 1

ISSN (text): 1858-6724 e-ISSN (online): 1858-6732

Harold Pinter’s Celebration:Alterity and Public Level

1 2 Ansam Riyadh A. Almaaroof ،Yousif Omer Babiker 1 Lecturer-College of Education for Humanities- English Department Tikrit University – Republic of Iraq 2 English Department- College of Languages- Sudan University of Science and TechnologyRepublic of Sudan ABSTRACT : This paper tackles the concept of alterity and the relation with "the other" in Harold Pinter's last written play, Celebration(2000). The paper hypothesizes that Pinter combines modernism and postmodernism in his plays by using modernist and postmodernist characters together, and he has implied that the private level predisposed the public one. The paper divides the characters in a Pinter play into modernist limited → controlled and postmodernist controlled → controlling characters. The paper takes the character analysis as a method of discussion. Using the concept of alterity as the German philosopher, Emanuel Livenas puts it will help understand the construction of each of the aforementioned characters. The paper is limited to Pinter's Celebration as a representative of his final stage of writing. The paper ends with the conclusion that sums up the results that support the previously put hypothesis. Key Words: Modernism, Postmodernism, Alterity, The Other اﻟﻤﺴﺘﺨﻠﺺ : ﺘﻘﺩﻡ ﻫﺫﻩ ﺍﻟﻭﺭﻗﺔ ﻤﻔﻬﻭﻡ ﺍﻵﺨﺭ ﻋﻨﺩ ﻫﺎﺭﻭﻟﺩ ﺒﻨﺘﺭ ﻭ ﻜﻤﺎ ﻴﻅﻬﺭ ﻓﻲ ﺍﺨﺭ ﻤﺴﺭﺤﻴﺔ ﻜﺘﺒﻬﺎ ، "ﺍﺤﺘﻔﺎل" (2000). ﺘﻔﺘﺭﻀﺎﻟﻭﺭﻗﺔ ﺍﻥ ﺒﻨﺘﺭ ﻴﺠﻤﻊ ﺍﻟﺤﺩﺍﺜﺔ ﻭﻤﺎ ﺒﻌﺩ ﺍﻟﺤﺩﺍﺜﺔ ﻓﻲ ﻤﺴﺭﺤﻴﺎﺘﻪ ﻋﻥ ﻁﺭﻴﻕ ﻭﻀﻊ ﺸﺨﻭﺹ ﺤﺩﺍﺜﻴﻴﻥ ﺠﻨﺒﺎ ﺍﻟﻰ ﺠﻨﺏ ﻤﻌﺸﺨﻭﺹ ﻤﺎ ﺒﻌﺩ ﺤﺩﺍﺜﻴﻴﻥ، ﻭﺍﻥ ﻤﻔﻬﻭﻡ ﺍﻵﺨﺭ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﺘﻭﻯ ﺍﻟﺸﺨﺼﻲ ﻴﺅﺜﺭ ﻋﻠﻰ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﺘﻭﻯ ﺍﻟﻌﺎﻡ. ﺘﻘﺴﻡ ﺍﻟﻭﺭﻗﺔ ﺍﻟﺸﺨﺼﻴﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻰ ﻤﺠﻤﻭﻋﺘﻴﻥ ﺍﻻﻭﻟﻰ ﻫﻲ ﺍﻟﺸﺨﺼﻴﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﺤﺩﺍﺜﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﺤﺩﺩﺓ← ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﻁﺭ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﺎ. ﻭﺍﻟﻤﺠﻤﻭﻋﺔ ﺍﻟﺜﺎﻨﻴﺔ ﻫﻲ ﺍﻟﺸﺨﺼﻴﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﺎ ﺒﻌﺩ ﺤﺩﺍﺜﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﻁﺭ ﻋﻠﻴﻬﺎ← ﺍﻟﻤﺴﻴﻁﺭﺓ. ﻜﻤﺎ ﺘﻔﺘﺭﺽ ﺍﻟﺩﺭﺍﺴﺔ ﺍﻥ ﺍﺴﺘﻌﻤﺎل ﻤﻔﻬﻭﻡ "ﺍﻟﻐﻴﺭﻴﺔ" ﻭﺍﻟﻌﻼﻗﺔ ﺒﺎﻵﺨﺭ ﻜﻤﺎ ﻭﻀﻌﻪ ﺍﻟﻔﻴﻠﺴﻭﻑ ﺍﻻﻟﻤﺎﻨﻲ ﺍﻴﻤﺎﻨﻭﻴل ﻟﻴﻔﻴﻨﺎﺱ ﺴﻴﻜﻭﻥ ﺫﺍ ﻓﺎﺌﺩﺓ ﻟﻔﻬﻡ ﺍﻟﺸﺨﺼﻴﺎﺕ ﻓﻲ ﺍﻋﻤﺎل ﺒﻨﺘﺭ. ﺘﺘﺨﺫ ﺍﻟﻭﺭﻗﺔ ﻤﻥ ﺘﺤﻠﻴل ﺍﻟﺸﺨﻭﺹ ﻭﺴﻴﻠﺔ ﻟﻠﻤﻨﺎﻗﺸﺔ .. ﺍﻟﻭﺭﻗﺔ ﻤﺤﺩﺩﺓ ﺒﻤﺴﺭﺤﻴﺔ "ﺍﺤﺘﻔﺎل" ﻟﻬﺎﺭﻭﻟﺩ ﺒﻨﺘﺭ ﻭﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺘﻤﺜل ﺍﻟﻤﺭﺤﻠﺔ ﺍﻻﺨﻴﺭﺓ ﻤﻥ ﻜﺘﺎﺒﺎﺘﻪ. ﺘﻨﺘﻬﻲ ﺍﻟﻭﺭﻗﺔ ﺒﺎﻟﺨﻼﺼﺔ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺘﺠﻤﻊ ﺍﻟﻨﺘﺎﺌﺞ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺘﺅﻴﺩ ﺍﻟﻔﺭﻀﻴﺔ ﺍﻟﺘﻲ ﺴﺒﻕ ﻭﻭﻀﻌﺘﻬﺎ ﺍﻟﻭﺭﻗﺔ. ﺍﻟﻜﻠﻤﺎﺕ ﺍﻟﻤﻔﺘﺎﺤﻴﺔ: ﺍﻟﺤﺩﺍﺜﺔ، ﻤﺎ ﺒﻌﺩ ﺍﻟﺤﺩﺍﺜﺔ، ﺍﻟﻐﻴﺭﻴﺔ، ﺍﻻﺨﺭ INTRODUCTION : Harold Pinter has wined the Nobel film scripts, one novel, and numerous Award for Literature in 2005. He is poems. Besides being a prolific writer, he known world-wide as one of the greatest has been a director, an actor, and a writers of a body of literary work that political activist in the second half of the includes thirty-two plays, twenty-one twentieth century. Pinter's contribution is

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of such a distinctive quality that he was in the public level though it noticeably described by Brigitte Gauthier, in her deals with a private affairs. Unlike the preface to Viva Pinter, as ‘Harold Pinter first and the second stages, Pinter's third was the Shakespeare of our stage which is represented by century’(2007, N.P.) Her opinion is Celebration in this paper is obviously definitely correct as Gussow (1994, 123) devoted for reflecting the idea that the rightly observed, ‘is essentially private and the public levels could not be exploratory. […] theatre has always been separated. Some people think that they a critical act’. One important element in can be safe if they keep themselves far Pinter's plays is the construction of from any open or public view. identity. Pinter’s world has frequently Nevertheless, they cannot be safe been described as profoundly ambiguous, because of the fact that the public side full of uncertainty, and menace. From the influences the private one and vise versa. first his characters are isolated, This idea can be regarded as a core of withdrawn, vulnerable, and passive Pinter's concern with public level. This victims in retreat from communication paper is devoted for handling and human connection, they are wary, Celebration, which is regarded by edgy, and unpredictable. All of them are Sheridan Morely (2000, N.P.) as "Pinter's obscurely anguished, suffering, from funniest and also perhaps his most personal psychic wounds. They are often accessible script". Celebration’s title not only friendless but identity-less. echoes the dramatic irony of other Anxiety surrounds them. They are sarcastically congratulatory titles creatures caught in what is certainly the throughout Pinter’s catalog from The uneasy amber of the moment, but they Birthday Party(1957) and are still suffering, still writhing, because Homecoming(1974) to New World of some imprisonment of the spirit Order(1991), and Party Time (1991), all which, it turns out, took place long ago dramatizing characters’ qualities (Johnson, 1958, 2) This could be valid if contradict the titles to shed light on those one sees the Pinter-ish character without opposites as superseding truth. For connecting them to the concept of alterity examples: The Birthday Party ends with and otherness. It is Pinter's presentation the deconstructionist birthday, Stanley’s of the importance of encounters with seemingly psychological destruction.The alterity and "the other" as fundamental to play starts with a list of characters that any character's identity and subjectivity shows names without any details. This that may give a different view for Pinter's sort of characterization gives the readers characters . In this regard, it is useful to the impression that the relation these consider the ethical philosophy of people have are not clearly defined. This Emmanuel Levinas whose centre is a is postmodernist way of characterization similar recognition. Celebration (2000) helps create open suggestions for the is Pinter's last full-length play. It is relations. The scene begins as an chronologically falls in postmodern era. apparently ordinary celebratory meal for Following the appearance of public and the diners developing into a complex the private levels, it discloses a concern weaving of more menacing premise,

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including undercurrents of love/hate recourse to anything further .... When, in relationships and incest. The play ends the philosophical life that realizes this with a mysterious, and incomplete freedom, there arises a term foreign to speech from the waiter, which hints at a the philosophical life, other .. .it becomes possible way to escape the pain of an obstacle; it has to be surmounted and everyday life which may reflects every integrated into this life ... truth is just this ordinary man's pain. victory and this integration. ( 94) . In Methodology this sense, realizing the truth as "the This paper takes character analyses as the other", accepting it and dealing with it in method of discussion. It is the most the correct way is regarded as a success suitable approach since the aim of the for the character. By accepting "the paper is to distinguish the characters by other", the character can protect dividing them into two groups. These him\herself. The foreign being, instead of groups are: modernist limited→ supporting itself in the secure stronghold controlled and postmodernist of its singularity ... becomes a theme and controlled→ controlling characters. an object...It falls into the network of a Following Levinas's concept of alterity prior ideas, which I bring to bear so as to and "the other" will be of great benefit capture it. (97)Ethically, Levinas thinks for this study. In an essay written in "the other" is superior or prior to the self; 1957, a few years before the publication the mere presence of "the Other" makes of the work which was to gain him demands before one can respond by international recognition, Totality and helping them or ignoring them. This idea Infinity (1961), Levinas describes and that of the face-to-face encounter philosophy as a search for truth (Levinas, were re-written later, taking on Derrida's 1961, 88). This search, he continues, has points which he made about the two implications for the philosopher: impossibility of a pure presence of "the firstly, the truth is considered by the Other" ("the Other" could be other than thinker as a reality, something other, this pure alterity first encountered), and separate and distinct from himself (Ibid., so the issues of language and 88-89); secondly, the thinker seeks to representation arose. This "re-write" was protect his own identity despite his accomplished in part with Levinas' investigation of this otherness, "despite analysis of the distinction between the the unknown lands into which thought saying and the said but still maintaining a seems to lead" (Ibid., 91). Philosophy priority of ethics over metaphysics. thus conceived, Levinas asserts, is Levinas talks of "the other" in terms of "engaged in reducing to the Same all that 'insomnia' and 'wakefulness'. It is an is opposed to it as other" (ibid.), and ecstasy, or exteriority toward "the other" consequently neglects "the other" and the that forever remains beyond any attempt notion of responsibility to alterity. at full capture. This otherness is Autonomy, the philosophy which aims to everlasting (or infinite); even in ensure the freedom, or the identity of murdering another, the otherness beings, presupposes that freedom itself is remains, it has not been negated or sure of its right, is justified without controlled. This infiniteness of "the

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other" will allow Levinas to derive other modernist characters use to be their aspects of philosophy and science as choices. Levinas's thought developed in secondary to this ethic. Thus, response to a study of and eventual Levinas(1984,1) expresses his point of disaffection with the work of Edmund view:"The others that obsess me in the Husserl and Martin Heidegger. Levinas other do not affect me as examples of the was instrumental in introducing their same genus united with my neighbor by phenomenology into France; his La resemblance or common nature, Theorie de l'intuition dans la individuations of the human race, or phenomenologie de Husserl (1930) being chips off the old block... The others the first complete work on Husserl in concern me from the first. Here fraternity French (Levinas,1981, 52). Husserl had precedes the commonness of a genus. sought to examine the role of a My relationship with the Other as perceiving consciousness in the neighbor gives meaning to my relations constitution of the perceived world: "The with all the others". The "other", as a equivalence of thought and knowledge in general term in philosophy, can also be relation to being is ... formulated by used to mean the unconscious, silence, Husserl in the most direct manner" (Ibid., insanity, the other of language i.e., what 78). Husserl developed the notion of it refers to and what is unsaid. These "intentionality", adopting a method of representations for "the other" are quite phenomenological reduction to reveal a obviously used in Pinter's plays. transcendental Ego constituting the Following "the other" and the concept of knowable through its intentional alterity in a formalist, psychological and acts.(Davis, 1996, 10-13)Levinas post-structural ways will help give explains that "Husserl...describes Pinter's characters and Pinter himself [knowing] as intentionality, which is their right position between modernism understood as 'consciousness of and postmodernism. For Levinas, something', and so is inseparable from its however, "the other" is precisely 'intentional object'" (1981, 77).In 'impregnable', irreducibly strange and Husserlian 'intentionality', the idea that utterly beyond one's comprehension. He meaning is completely given by the seeks to analyze the possibilities and subject in its intentional engagement conditions of its appearance in one's life, with the world implies to Levinas that and to formulate the ethical significance what is engaged with is completely of the encounter with it, and the response within consciousness. Husserl "continues which it demands. In this sense, to base his theory on representation, the presenting the postmodernist controlled- objectivizing act", which "suspends all controlling character side by side with independence in the world other than that the modernist limited→ controlling of consciousness itself' (Livenas, 78-9). character throughout the Pinter-ish text Nothing truly other can be encountered will help demonstrate the confrontation by the Husserlian subject, because between the self and "the other". The everything encountered is already within confrontation exposes the ethical consciousness.What Levinas (Ibid., 79- formulation the postmodernist and the 80) calls the "non-intentional", "non-

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reflective" or "pre-reflective" attention to the fact that, in Being and consciousness-that which, in its passivity Time, Heidegger describes the concept of "precedes the formulation of any "mineness" as one of the chief metaphysical ideas on the subject" (Ibid., characteristics of Dasein. He interprets 82) - threatens Husserl's 'intentionality' this as implying that regarding others "I idea. The problem is primarily (and become I only because I possess my own stated here simplistically) that if Being as primary". On the other hand, intentionality presents to the subject a Levinas (Ibid., 62-63)claims that in world already the subject's own regard "to myself, I am defined as a possession, that world cannot be shared subjectivity, as a singular person, as an with anyone else. Husserl sees "the 'I', precisely because I am exposed to the Other" as a reflection of the self, for other. It is my inescapable and whom the existence of others is incontrovertible answerability to the ascertained by analogy: if the world is other that makes me an individual '1' .... constituted for someone by Ethical subjectivity dispenses with the intentionality, it must be so for others idealizing subjectivity of ontology which too. So, Husserl would claim, "[a]lthough reduces everything to itself. The the Other is never fully present to me, he "supremacy of "the Same" over "the or she is known by empathy and other" seems to be integrally maintained assimilated because it is conceived as a in the philosophy of Heidegger" reflection of myself' (Davis,1996, 28). (Levinas, 1993, 99-100). Levinas While Levinas(1981, 52) gained several increasingly sees subjectivity as important insights from Heidegger's demanding an engagement with "the phenomenology, which he credits with Other" which does not seek to absorb it showing him the temporal and historical into some category of knowledge or situatedness of the phenomenological representation. This requires a encounters, similar problems presented redefinition of intentionality through themselves. Heidegger continues to which consciousness encounters an consider meaning being obtainable unknowable, rather than transparent, completely through an intentional world. Having drawn attention to the engagement with the world, an idea implication of intentionality in the which Levinas increasingly disagrees possessive, totalizing imperative of with. Levinas (Ibid., 62)thinks that Western philosophy, in which things are Heidegger's attempts are to overcome the conceived of as ideas to be "conquered, solipsism of Husserl's phenomenology by dominated, possessed" (Ibid., 95), introducing the notion of a shared world, Levinas (Ibid., 109) concedes that this and though Heidegger's concept of may be the case with objects, but the Dasein or (being here) is qualified by the encounter with "the other" - which he term Mitsein or 'Being-with', he is but likens to the concept of an infinity - is an ultimately making the same mistake as encounter with something the nature of Husserl, because an actual encounter which cannot be grasped in such a with "the other" is not important for his manner: "the alterity of the infinite is not concept of Mitsein. Levinas draws cancelled, is not extinguished in the

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thought that thinks it. .. The infinite does textuality Pinter uses of Celebration's not enter into the idea of the infinite, is two brothers who work as "strategy not grasped; this idea is not a concept. consultants" with his early works, such The infinite is the radically, absolutely, as Precisely's two strategy consultant's other. (Ibid., 107) discussion. Their discussion is about the Discussion number of the civilian deaths following a Celebration is centered on three couples nuclear bombing. On the other hand, dining in the most expensive restaurant another inter-textuality occurs in calling in town. At one table are sat two these two criminals as peace-speakers as brothers, Lambert and Matt, and two Party Time 's peace-speakers. Yet these sisters, Prue and Julie. Lambert and Julie people hardly seem evil embodied. are married, as are Matt and Prue. They Nobody dies in the end. And the are celebrating Lambert and Julie's audience grin and laugh all the way up to wedding anniversary. They are at their the final Slow Fade—“not…a bang but a forties. Seated at another table are whimper.” Yet what happens before their Russell and Suki, who later join the other eyes is not funny but horrifying, at depth, party of diners. The diners' conversations only if audiences allow themselves to are intersected by: the existential look beneath the surface. These, the thoughts of Richard, the restaurateur, power-brokers of the world, grocery Sonia the mattresses d', and an unnamed clerk bureaucrats who deliver the guns Waiter. The plot revolves around these and design strategies of destruction in things. In Celebration nothing seems to exchange for millions, scarcely hint at happen. The play is distinctive in that it their work. And for good reason, like is empty of any action except almost Goldberg and McCann in The Birthday every statement is edged with a rapier Party, their “job” is conducted secretly. wit designed to destroy a previous Celebration, apparently celebrating a speaker and slash others with a wedding anniversary as social continuous tension. The play brilliantly commitment to marriage, reveals human dramatizes how the loveless destruct. In relationships to be a facade, commitment destroying what they cannot create, they to community, country, even to self, as destroy others, community and almost nonexistent except as practiced at the unnoticeably the self. Alterity, or primal edges of power among the otherness in this play is shifted by Pinter recently moneyed privileged: those who to the public level. He tries to create a run the guns, drugs and money of the play that seems to be of private relation world. Power, as the raw assertion of the of couples of the same family, two sisters self when money as power replaces whose husbands are brothers. However, desire for all else, dramatizes the as Miclael Billington(2007, 27) argues invasive destruction that results when "no one ever gets a Pinter play on a such power asserts itself for its own sake single viewing or reading" In this sense, with no ethical basis, no real power over it is the public affair that matters for the self. In this case, all the characters Pinter. As the play continues, the become modernist limited→ controlled audiences are able to find out the inter- characters. All the characters try to get

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control over the other. nobody accepts to characters, begun among outcasts in The loss the battle, because there is only the Room, have steadily risen out of the emptiness of ethics and values. "The lowest classes to the comfortable middle other" is an enemy who must be class in Betrayal and, beginning with destroyed.These modernist limited→ Party Time, to power-brokers. But as controlled characters exceed the their fortunes continued to rise, here destructive limits of fanatics driven by soaring to unimagined heights, the personal vision. As David Mamet(1999, characters have declined in virtue. They N.P.) said, “Political corruption in increase only in absolute malicious pursuit of a personal vision of the public intent. But they have great fun along the good is limited by nothing at all and ends way, can make the audience join them in in murder and chaos.” These are people, their laughter. Psychologically however, who have no vision aside from speaking, their motives remain the same a reflexive response to support power. as that of Pinter’s earliest characters: to Without consciousness of that lack of maintain their status and what they vision they are without conscience. As possess. These characters cling fiercely such, they are extremely dangerous, to position and possession. Prentice(371) perhaps the most dangerous of all claims that Pinter’s work wields a comic Pinter’s modernist limited→ controlled tone, but he unmasks more than characters. They can destroy, just like hypocrisy, foibles and corruption. she robots, the whole world.The American continues to say that:"He shows the critic, Penelope Prentice (2000, 370) audiences the faces of complete discusses that the sexually brutal destructors, laughing at their deals in the language of Pinter’s recent torturers has name of “peace-keeping.” He shows the assimilated itself into the largely upper- audiences how comedy in recent time bureaucratic classes in the play: "men can be more deadly serious than tragedy. and women calling one another fuck- Pinter's modernist limited→ controlled pigs, men calling each other cunts—this characters are caught not in the act of from the writer who once insisted "we irresistible destruction but of playing. use such words sparingly because we Pinter’s comedy remains in the service of have so few vivid intensifiers". This making the terror bearable: to expose evil decline mirrors the wedding of the erotic as annihilation committed by quite with destruction among these characters ordinary people, not so different from the and parallels, but in a reverse-out, the audiences. To talk about the public divine descent in the epic over centuries, level again, Celebration implies that the the fall from the earliest heroes as gods audiences as people are more likely to to the most recent ordinary men: from cling steadfastly like these celebrants to Gilgamesh, two-thirds a god, through their familiar room, restaurant or estate, Achilles, immortal save for his heel, to getting news of the outside world at Odysseus, offered immortality, down to second hand, or remaining ignorant. Yet, Joyce’s Leopold Bloom, mere ordinary even with his many insights into why mortal". Any simple reader for Pinter's characters act as they do, at a larger level work can conclude that Pinter’s puzzling questions of this play for the

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first time knock against the mystery of And among those three, only the Waiter, life, a phrase that the audience are to to keep from being invisible, interjects raise at the end of the play: " What do into conversations his own brand of self: these characters want?" Pinter focuses “recollections” of his grandfather’s on inspiring implicitly and explicitly that acquaintance/ friendship with early- question which remains central to all else twentieth-century household-name greats and in the course of the play becomes the in literature, Hollywood, the arts and audiences': What do we as audiences politics. Although the Waiter here is want? among these characters, a clear, brushed aside as an annoying insect by dominant desire remains trivial. misused this restaurant’s customers, who all hint from productive ends, power is diverted at or disturbingly recount violently to destruction. But without consciousness abusive families, only the Waiter and of that desire, every act becomes a brutal Richard register fond recollections of exercise of power to put down "the family: a grandfather and father. Clearly other". The modernist limited→ apparent that these characters do not controlled characters of Celebration are intend any harm to anybody. Their quest- all unconscious of their lack of self- line is to keep peace and calmness by knowledge. They run an ordinary life, accepting "the other" in spite of the their lives. This is the very dangerous other's bad behaviours. The thing about this play. It reflects the postmodernist controlled→ controlling condition under which people live in characters, as Celebration exposes, are of recent time. Committing crimes as a two types: the ethical and the non ethical. matter of ordinary life is unbearably Only the waiter keeps to behave happens in recent time. Pinter presents a according to the ethics of alterity and plea to stop this sort of living. His plea accepting "the other" without causing for the play characters as well as for the them any harm. Whereas Richard and audience is to get self-knowledge by Sonia have changed their attitude as they giving enough space for "the other" in find something that serves their self- the life. These characters represent the indulgence. They are non ethical, so that modernist limited→ controlled they are worse than the modernist characters of the play whose quest-line is limited→ controlled. They accept their to destroy "the other". Power for power’s surrounding, unlike the modernist sake becomes each character’s main characters, rather than trying to change it. objective. On the other hand, the But there is a difference between the postmodernist controlled→ controlling ethical and the non-ethical in that the characters in this play are: Richard, the ethical accept the surrounding and "the restaurant owner in his fifties, the other" without changing, because they hostess, in her thirties, and the Waiter promote "the other" a great value. acquiesce to assuming subservient Whereas, the non ethical accepts "the positions. They consistently return other" because they have certain voracity lackey politeness to shocking proposal, that might be achieved by "the other", taking on the chin barbs aimed at them, thus, their only valid ethics is or running from confrontation altogether. pragmatism and expediency. Among

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the diners, however, even the most one-up "the other'. This statement ordinary exchange deepens character and becomes a central statement in the play delightfully drives the audiences to that reflects the concept of alterity as darker corners of illuminated insight and Pinter tries to show. These characters do always forwards conflict. But they go not have good relation with each other, nowhere. And that seems to be the point. because they do not care about each other Pinter exposes the idea that without an nor about anyone else. All of them are overarching desire, a purpose aimed at a limited→ controlled characters means productive end, people stroll toward that they are only copies of other modern destruction. And they take everything in characters in the society whose only their wake. But no one seems to notice, valid ethics is power and it is the only perhaps, at first glance, not even the thing all the modernist limited→ audience. But for an audience the controlled characters have been trying to cumulative effect permanently writes gain all the time throughout the play. powerful messages in the soul. Pinter Aside from temporary alliances formed has portrayed a foggy image about by the men against the women, the two memory for these characters. The Waiter women in self-defense and vengeance, opens with a simple, familiar, it’s everyone for the self. As Dilek Inan The Waiter: “Who’s having duck?” (2011, N.P.) suggests," Almost every Lambert: “The duck’s for me,” exchange suggests more than what it Julie: No it isn't. really pronounces." When Prue, Julie’s Lambert: No it isn't. Who's it for? sister, says Lambert ordered “Osso Julie: Me (5; all references are to this Bucco” [sic], Lambert asks, “Osso version)This conversation reveals that what?”(6) Matt, the straight man, the men running the show may not Lambert’s brother, explains, “It’s an old remember what they ordered for dinner Italian dish.” Lambert sets the tone for less than hour ago. Nor does the Waiter the rest of the play by introducing the remember what his customers ordered, literal translation of “osso buco” as although that’s his job. When Matt “bone with a hole,” to freely associate to announces, “Chicken for my wife, steak “arsehole”: “Well I knew Osso was for me,” the Waiter no sooner serves the Italian but I know bugger all about chicken than he asks, “And who’s having bucco.” (7) When Matt translates, “I steak?” (5) It’s funny and scary, faulty didn’t know arsehole was Italian,” memory, inattention, not listening, only Lambert asks, “Yes but on the other hand the first of many failings, as dialogue what’s the Italian for arsehole?” Prue’s quickly sharpens itself to weaponry to “Julie, Lambert” zeugmas as both an target several at once. answer to Lambert’s What’s the Italian Lambert: “What did I order?”Julie: “Who for arsehole? and a breakup of the cares?” (6) This dialogue brings to impending conflict with a “peacekeeper” surface Celebration’s central theme and toast: “Happy anniversary.” (7) The technique. Who cares? for anyone, self opening conflict promises fireworks and or other, is played out at an accelerating violence. The most important motive for pitch by each character attempting to the promised destruction to come

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announces itself at the other table in just a secretary. That’s all.” (8) She has Russell’s opening gambit to Suki: “They him on the defensive. His “just a believe in me.” (8) Russell’s declaration secretary” intended to proclaim his own of confidence, like Pinter’s earlier power and innocence, merely in a very character’s self-referential assertions, deconstructionist way reveals, in the refutes what’s asserted by dramatizing destructive links between sex and power, the opposite: his desperate need to be his powerlessness. “She was a believed in by others because he does not scrubber…. They’re all the same, these believe in himself. That pervasive lack of secretaries, these scrubbers. They’re like belief in the self in all the characters politicians. They love power,” he says, reveals itself in the bullying of the others. pleading innocence in terms of his Lack of self-trust, self-respect, self- powerlessness. (9) He blames the acceptance and self-love discloses yet secretary for her power over him! When again how dangerous is a little insecurity. Suki attempts to disarm him with, “Like (8) Russell’s requiring respect from Suki, me,” admitting she was once a secretary, a woman he can’t respect bespeaks Russell denies her equation, Russell’s basic insecurity that Suki twists Russell : “You don’t know what these to her advantage. She plays up to girls are like,” Russell, setting him up only to tear him Suki: “I’ve been behind a few filing down. “I’m sure they believe in you,” cabinets.” (9) she says, then takes deadly aim at his Here, Suki counters his insult by prizing weakness that she uses as her hold on in herself the lust he depreciates, him. Candidly expressing the flaunting her knowledge of her way love/money equation that bonds all these around beds.Celebration shows that in a couples, she uses her knowledge that he world where money is power, and needs (not wants or loves or even women remain without power except as accepts) her, and wants what she adjuncts to men, Suki’s task is bolstering wants—an assured, secure, comfortable Russell’s confidence: “Listen. I would financial future—to get what else she invest in you myself if I had any money wants: “I mean, listen, I want you to be [….] Because I believe in you.” (10) But rich, believe me, I want you to be rich so with sex as her primary currency, Russell that you can buy me houses and panties wants but cannot demand assurances of and I’ll know that you really love me.” her fidelity: “What’s all this about filing (8)lovelessness quickly links with lust, cabinets?” Suki’s sexual prowess, her and with revenge, joining the destructive ability to incite jealousy, is also largely quest for power. “Panties” sounds in her past, driven by former hormonal vulnerably innocent enough to play Suki excitability: “Their excitement,” she as straight, innocent of deliberate, says, “made me so excited, sometimes I calculated, malicious intent but could hardly walk from one filing cabinet consciously sense. Russell returns fire, to another, I was so excited, I was so registering his knowledge of her plump and wobbly it was terrible, men jealousy, anger and pain, the real reason simply couldn’t keep their hands off me, for her malicious joke: “Listen, she was their demands were outrageous

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but,”(10)she says, returning Russell to she’s walking up the street./She’s got a center stage, “coming back to more lovely bubbly pair of tits/And soft leather important things, they’re right to believe seat,”(13) signals his and Lambert’s in you.” Her candor and vulnerability, desires as elsewhere engaged. And they tacit acknowledgment that she too needs are out of wine. Russell, at the other him, allow the audiences some sympathy table, invites more ego-inflating with, for her. Her repeating, “why shouldn’t Russell : “Do you think I have a nice they believe in you,” echoes at the next character?” table. (10) “I tell him all the time. But he Suki: “I think you do,” “but the trouble doesn’t listen” could be a continuation of is that when you come down to it you Suki’s ego-bolstering speech but is haven’t actually got any character to Julie’s complaint to Prue in a crosscut begin with—I mean as such, that’s the that reiterates and underscores the thing.” (14)Little she could have said marginalized position of all the women: could be more devastating or provoke his their required buttressing of a male full frontal assault. Although she softens partner’s sense of self goes unheeded. her candid appraisal by admitting she’s (11) How is it possible to fill a the same, Suki: “But I wouldn’t worry…, bottomless well? Yet, Pinter’s characters look at me. I don’t have any character can always be counted on to rise to rather either. I'm just a reed. I;m just a reed in than neutralize, mediate or ignore the wind. Aren'tI? You know I provocative comments. Billington (169) am.”Rusell: “You’re a whore,” he lashes notes in the biography that nobody ever out, “with the wind blowing up your registers a blow. True, but they almost skirt.” (14)Taking no comfort in the always retaliate. When Prue castigates downgrade to her class or sex. All the Lambert for not listening to Julie, women here have in common the ability “You’ve got a loyal wife there and never to stay their ground. Not one shies away, forget it,” (11)Lambert subverts Prue’s backs off, freezes or breaks down in compliment to diminish Julie and keep tears. Undaunted, Suki replies, “How did her in her place as a sex toy, “She’s you know the sensation…? Men don’t really loyal under the table.” Julie slams wear skirts,” reducing Russell to name back, “Why don’t you go and buy a new calling: “You’re a prick.” (15) The car and drive it into a brick wall.” assault on women continues at the first Unflappable, Lambert exclaims, “She table on a more generalized level with loves me.” (11) With this second Matt’s singing, “Wash me in the mention of “love,” Matt’s reading of water/Where you washed your dirty Julie nicely parallel’s Suki’s assessment daughter.” (15) Asked if she knows the of her relationship with Russell, that a song, Julie recognizes the insult to man’s sexual prowess is in his assets— women: “It’s not in my repertoire, for what they purchase her: Matt: “No, darling.” (16) “Darling,” throughout is she loves new cars,” Lambert :“with soft hardly a term of endearment. Lambert, leather seats.” (12) The sexually infused having scored his hit, terminates the language rarely strays far from vulgar topic announcing, “This is the best intent. Matt’s ditty, “Ain’t she neat?/As restaurant in town.” Best, equated with

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most expensive, registers in his next, “Do fucked by their mother,” says Lambert. you know how much money I made last “Or by themselves,”(18) year?” (16) Where Lambert expresses Yet some embedded truth abides, akin to pride in his identity that rests in his Jocasta’s assurance to Oedipus that all money-making prowess, Prue conversely boys have desired to marry their airs her self-loathing by airing grievances mother’s—in dreams. against her mother-in-law’s disapproval The men's polite replies to Richard’s of her: “She never gave me one present obligatory, rhetorical inquiries, “Good in the whole of her life. Nothing. She dinner?” halt when Lambert, flexing his wouldn’t give me the drippings off her power, gets in a double dig at his wife nose.” (16) Pinter, here, has inter- and at Richard with, “My wife wasn’t textalized Prue with her short on caution impressed.” Julie counters with a thrust with Miss Prue in William Congreve’s to both her husband and Richard: “I liked Love for Love, and recalls perhaps the waiter.” When Richard asks: “Which Thomas D’Urfey’s more obviously one?” she says: “The one with the fur- aristocratic play Love for Money. lined jockstrap.” Lambert holds his Celebration shares Restoration comedy’s ground, “He takes it off for breakfast.” guiding trinity of power, sex and money But Julie turns it to her advantage, conjoined on the marriage market, a attacking his sexuality, “Which is more comedy that exposes lies, disguises and than you do.” (21) Richard clings to his deception by dissolving them in laughter. professional charm, “Well how nice to (ibid, )But as in all Pinter plays, the see you all.” (21) But not to deflect the laughter ends—at the deep hole—where point, Prue enters to defend her sister and the audiences stand facing themselves defeat the men. Although she opens with nakedly. For the men to maintain such fact, “She wasn’t impressed with her full power the women are diminished to food,” she quickly slips into the inconsequence. Inter-textuality appears outrageous, “She said […] she’s my again when Julie sides with Prue, joining sister […] she said she could cook better her self-deprecating complaint, which than that with one hand stuffed between she transforms into weaponry targeting her legs […]. She said she could make a both the mother and her sons: their own better sauce than the one on the plate if husbands. Julie sympathizes and then she pissed into it.” (22) She vouches for with a dollop of sex on a barb mounts a her sister’s veracity by saying, “I’ve counterattack equally at both their men. known her all my life […] since we were Julie : “All mothers-in-law are like that. little innocent girls [….]” “when we used They love their sons…, their boys. They to lie in the nursery and hear mummy don’t want their sons to be fucked by beating the shit out of daddy.” “We saw other girls.” Prue: “All mothers want the blood on the sheets,” (22). There is a their sons to be fucked by themselves,” reminder that no innocence remains, and (17) an intimation that these women have The men join together to top the women been trained in abuse from childhood, with assertions that exhaust the having also learned how to “dis” at their ridiculous. Matt: “All mothers want to be mother’s knee. The slot-slipping comic

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tirade “one hand stuffed between her (24) Suki picks up her recitative on her legs” for “hand tied behind her back”, usual male bolstering note, “I’m so proud aimed at an underling, only registers her of you,” and Russell’s encouraging, own impotence and ends unregistered by “Yes?” registers his need to be proud of. Matt: “Well, it’s lovely to be here, I’ll (26) there is always a hint that these say that.” (22) characters are in great need for positive Prue, undeterred and not to be dismissed support. They need to be accepted by the by her husband, walks to Richard to other for their good virtues. The problem thank him personally, then cuts all the is that they, in fact, have lost all their men by announcing, “I’d like to kiss you virtues as they lead a modernist style of on the mouth.” Her forward move, like living by using power to get comfort. Lenny’s, intertextuality continues: “Do The deconstruction occurs here in that as you mind if I hold your hand?” (22) to these characters seek to get a full-options Ruth in The Homecoming, is intended to respectable life, they missed the life as send him reeling back. Julie, too, would respectable human beings. Suki wonders like to kiss him, “Because I never said I if the unspecified they are “good people. didn’t like your sauce. I love your […] And when I meet them, when you sauce.” (23) But when Prue complains, introduce me to them, they’ll treat me “We can’t both kiss him on the mouth at with respect, won’t they? They won’t the same time,” (23) Lambert meets her want to fuck me behind a filing cabinet?” thrust with his parry to end the match, (26) “You could tickle his arse with a The audiences soon learn that they feather.”(23) Richard, ever professionally already have fucked her behind the filing charming, takes the subservient, cabinet, yet, it is she who introduces coward’s way, and ducks out, “Well I’m Russell to more of them. She seeks for so glad [....] See you later I hope.” (23) respectable life. Sonia, as a good hostess, Lambert and Matt solidify their male comes to chat them up and recognize bond by heaping praise on Richard as a: their existence as she pushes “Charming man who [....] insists […] dessert,Sonia: “Are you going to try our [t]hat standards are maintained up to the bread and butter pudding?” highest standards, up to the very highest Russell: “Did I ever tell you about my fucking standards—,”(23) reintroducing mother’s bread and butter pudding?” the question of values where the highest (28)Sonia is one of the postmodernist standards equate merely with the most controlled→ controlling characters of the expensive. These modernist limited→ play. She is echoing the sons-and- controlled characters are all arrested by mothers’ lover talk at the other table. In their deceptive life. Their own vicious their most intimate moment Suki says: values continue to drive the conflict as “Darling. Give me your hand […]. Please Prue scores the final point of this round tell me about your mother’s bread and with, “I knew him in the old days.” butter pudding. What was it like?” (29) Suggestive of a connection that parallel’s His faintly sexual response, “It was like Suki’s behind-the-filing-cabinet past, she drowning in an ocean of richness,” elicits scores again with, “When he was a chef.” Suki’s praise, “How beautiful. You’re a

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poet.” But Russell chooses to counter her know—that whole vivid Chicago gang— compliment with complaint; he blames not to mention John Steinbeck, Erskine parental rejection as the source that Caldwell, Carson McCullers and other justifies his ongoing, wound-licking members of the old Deep south insecurity. “I wanted to be a poet once. conglomerate,” he ends with a wonderful But I got no encouragement from my impossibility: “he was James Joyce’s dad. He thought I was an arsehole.” (29) godmother.” His secondhand and The seeming compliments and invented self-importance by association, compassion flow in only one direction, the power of the powerless, reveals, in from female to male, as Suki, seemingly this context, fame as another species of entrained with the other table’s power. Inan(2011,N.P.) suggests that conversation echoes, “He was jealous of "Here the Waiter’s phantasmagoria of you, that’s all. He saw you as a threat. He grand literary names and the British thought you wanted to steal his heritage in fact romanticizes Englishness wife.”(29) and reminds the audience of lost values The Waiter, one of the postmodernist at the dawn of a new millennium." in this controlled→ controlling characters of the sense, the waiter is the ethical play, enters to ask “if I may make an postmodernist controlled→ controlling interjection,” and commenting that he character of the play.Russell brushes overheard them mention T.S. Eliot, aside his interjection with, “Have you claims his grandfather “knew T S Eliot been working here long?” and asks, quite well.” (29) here, inter-textuality is “You going to stay until it changes used again. The Waiter lists others, a hands?” The Waiter takes it as a threat, roster of acclaimed British and American “Are you suggesting that I’m about to get writers his grandfather knew in the early the boot?” (31) Unlike Russell, who three decades of the twentieth century, requires assurances of his identity, the many of Pinter’s acknowledged Waiter admits inadequacies, “To be favorites: Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden, C. brutally honest, I don’t think I’d recover Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, Stephen if they did a thing like that.” This second, Spender, George Barker, Dylan Thomas, rare disclosure of vulnerability from a D.H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad, Ford Pinter character (which generally can Maddox Ford, W.B. Yeats, Aldous come only from one who accepts Huxley, Virginia Woolf and Thomas subservience), evokes some sympathy in Hardy. He claims his grandfather might its honesty. But when he says,“This place have been slated for “Chancellor of the is like a womb to me […]. I strongly exchequer or [. . . .] first Lord of the prefer that to being born,”(32) the Admiralty […], but as things turned out Waiter, links himself to the long and he spent most of his spare time in the oldest line of Pinter’s characters, Rose in United States where he was a very close The Room and Stanley in The Birthday pal of Ernest Hemingway.” (31)As his Party , postmodernist controlled→ list grows to offensive section to include, controlling characters who prefer to “William Faulkner, Scott Fitzgerald, remain powerless rather than venture out Upton Sinclair, John Dos Passos—you into life by using power the wrong way

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to harm the other. By getting self- Matt brings him back to the present: knowledge, the waiter is reborn. Russell, “Her.” Lambert, responding, “Her? No, who may recognize unwelcome not her. A girl. I used to take her for reminders of his own insecurities in the walks along the river,” obliterates his Waiter’s admission, easily dismisses wife and love for her. (34)Lambert’s him, “Listen, next time we’re talking response here is inter-textualized Andy’s about T S Eliot I’ll drop you a card.” (32) in Pinter's Moonlight when, as Bridget The Waiter, taking him literally, further stands before him in the dark, his wife accepts his position as a protector rather approaches and he says, “A woman that a defender, “You would make me a walked towards me in a darkening very happy man […]. You are incredibly room.” When his wife says, “That was gracious people.” (32) His answer me,” he says, “Who?” Julie ignores his exposes clearly his way of thinking as an recollection by offering her own: ethical postmodernist controlled→ “Lambert fell in love with me on top of a controlling character. He seems to be bus. It was a short journey. Fulham controlled by the owner of the restaurant Broadway to Shepherd’s Bush, but it was and the clients, but he has made his own enough. He was trembling all over.” (34) decision not to take violence as a choice. She verifies with Prue: “When I got Lambert picks up a variant of Russell’s home I came and sat on your bed didn’t self-congratulatory refrain and need for I?” (34) The buses and neighborhood flattering assurances, bouncing off the suggest that they may have all taken a others with fulsome self-praise, “I know quick ride up the social ladder, from I’m well liked. […] I trust my family and buses to the best restaurant in town. my friends […]. Deep down they trust Lambert, oblivious of his wife’s me […] they respect me—otherwise I digression, continues to cancel her out, “I wouldn’t say this. I wouldn’t take you all used to take this girl for walks along the into my confidence if I thought you all river.” Matt protests that he never knew hated my guts […] if I thought you about that. But Lambert suggests Matt thought I was a pile of dog shit […] I never knew his real self, implying the could never be frank and honest with you real self is the self who loves: if that was the truth….” (33)After this Lambert: “You knew nothing about me. windy prelude, he entrusts them with a You know nothing about me. Who the confession: “you won’t believe this, I fell fuck are you anyway?” Matt’s: “I’m your in love once and this girl I fell in love big brother,” Lambert:“I’m talking about with loved me back. I know she did.” love, mate […], real fucking love.” (34- (33) Accepting by the other, here, in a 35)It is this self-knowledge that Pinter form of love, a fleeting possibility for all demands from his audiences as well as even for Lambert, in an earlier and other readers. Throughout, fucking appears as incarnation, remains the otherwise an intensifying adjective signaling unspoken desire that all share, but he veracity: what is real, and links almost all uses this trusted confession to erase his topics with sex. Everything is sex. But wife. When Julie asks, “Wasn’t that me, with this third mention of acceptance in a darling?” Lambert, dazed, asks, “Who?” form of love, all ties begin to unravel as

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each speaks from his own memory but attempt to reinforce her bond to Julie, “I remains deaf to the others. While Matt mean we were sisters, weren’t we?” insists he knows his brother Lambert, becomes a comically terrifying saw him the day he was born, Prue’s assertion—that she should ask for, insist upon, verification, yet set the this restaurant,” “I suddenly find I have sibling relationship in the past. Ignoring no psychopathic tendencies at all. I don’t her question, Julie only recalls, “He was feel like killing everyone in sight, I don’t trembling like a leaf on top of that feel like putting a bomb under bus,”(35) bespeaking, perhaps, everyone’s arse.” (37) Although the Lambert’s earlier insecurity and audiences later learn he is a banker, the forgotten level of passion. In a introduction of a bomb ties his work contrapuntal recitative, Lambert, on his metaphorically, and later literally, to own track, insists, “This girl was in love violence. But, enraptured, he speaks of with me—I’m trying to tell you,” as the restaurant as a spiritual place of Prue, on her separate track, asks Julie, communion: “I feel something quite “Do you remember what you said?” (35) different, I have a sense of equilibrium, We never learn what Julie said about of harmony, I love my fellow diners.” Lambert in the past, but she now uses (37)This won’t last long. On the heels of that memory to put him down. The only Lambert’s confession of love, Russell love in any of the characters’ lives is admits, “Now this is very unusual for long dead. At this low point of discord me. Normally I feel—as I’ve just said— and total alienation, Richard visits the absolutely malice and hatred towards other table as Suki observes the everyone within spitting distance—but opposite: “Everyone is so happy in your here I feel love. How do you explain restaurant. I mean women and men. You it?”(37)Suki replies with abandoned but make people so happy.” (36) This comic banality, to register the level of reminder that food has become a Russell’s love:“It’s the ambience,” (37)It pastime, dining out, an entertainment, is perhaps that outside the restaurant, and restaurants, a retreat, a sanctuary there is the world where the two brothers providing a rare moment of community work as strategy consultants to enforce where people face one another and talk, peace. The critic, Pamela Fisher, reveals here only false, ferociously underlines the fact that the outside world combative fronts. Yet, these people face is threatening and it is "held at bay while the audiences so that the audiences can the restaurant sanctuary caters to every face themselves. Even as Richard mood and whim"(Fisher, 2001, N.P.) assents, “Well we do like to feel that it’s As a modernist limited→ controlled a happy restaurant.” (36) Russell accedes character, Russell honestly, if and then undercuts them both. He horrifyingly, admits his violent desires describes himself as “basically a totally and speaks to the audiences all at odd disordered personality, some people moments if the audiences are honest would describe me as a psychopath”(37) with themselves. With the mention of at which he turns to Suki for verification. acceptance in a form of love, he Russell adds, “But when I’m sitting in recollects his “old school master [who]

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used to say that ambience surrounds their father was or who their mother you.” But he sets limits on human was.” (41) Only the Waiter and Richard connection and acceptance: “but none of fondly recall family, the Waiter, his us boys were ever invited to tea.” (37) grandfather, Richard, his father. Matt’s Offering a connection, Richard free use of past tense “who their father was,” associates to his own childhood visits like Prue’s insistence that Julie “was my with his father to “our village pub,” sister,” suggests that family bonds don’t looking in from outside. Lambert: “To strengthen in time but dissolve. my wife. To our anniversary,”Julie: “Oh Otherness for the limited→ controlled darling! You remembered […]. I’m so character is a matter of memory and touched by this, honestly.” (40)Lambert past. For the time being, nobody cares cuts her off with, “Raise your fucking about the other. The observation of glass and shut up!” (40) Julie, in one of British psychologist, Frederick the rarest calls from a Pinter character, Bartlett(1997, 81) whose research on acknowledges another character’s point- memory concludes that one remembers blank attack:Julie: “But darling, that’s only fragmentary portions of a past naked aggression. He doesn’t normally occurrence but supply the rest from what go in for naked aggression. He usually he invents or recalls from other past disguises it under honeyed words.” experiences, in accordance with this Lambert: “We’ve been married for more observation, Pinter’s characters seem to bloody years than I can remember and it wander through a past equally invented don’t seem a day too long.” (40)Lambert and remembered, but additionally here returns with honeyed words no less used in the present as an arsenal: brutal for their obvious opposite weaponry to inflict wounds and nearly intention. Acceptance by the other in a destroy others. But the target must not be form of love again reappear in the play terminated, or the game’s over. But fact when Julie and Prue, protecting remembered quickly moves to invention themselves from their men, retreat into when Lambert says: sentimental reminiscences of their Lambert:“I was just about to fuck her at children, each competitively claiming the altar when somebody stopped me” their love from their children as what Matt: “I stopped him. His zip went down love they’ve known in life: “It’s funny and I kicked him up the arse. It would our children aren’t here. When they were have been a scandal. The world’s press young we spent so much time with them, was on the doorstep.” (43)Sonia, one of the little things, looking after them […]. the postmodernist controlled→ They always loved me much more than controlling characters, professionally, they loved him.” (41) But again, what unflinchingly straight-faced, dismisses love once existed is past, the men claim, Matt’s description of Lambert unzipping faded away. Matt quashes their at the altar quite simply with, “We get so remembered love, disavowing their many different kinds of people in here, claim by disparaging the children in the people from all walks of life.” “‘You present, their ingratitude: “They have no don’t have to speak English to enjoy memory […]. They don’t remember who good food,’” “You don’t have to speak

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English to enjoy sex.” (43)She quotes gangster and Gary Cooper the celebrated herself as saying, and joins in film star,” reflects Pinter’s own youthful peripherally likening food to sex, Sonia, fascination with gangster films, and his from Bethnal Green, attempts to reveal ongoing exploration of violence and its her own “worldly” sexual adventures, causes in his plays. “They were Jewish,” raising another epistemological question may also recall attacks upon him as a about how the audiences know and how youthful Jew, along with resonance to they form generalities, opinions and the World War II Holocaust. Lambert judgments of the world. She reveals how wrests the spotlight from the nameless they come frequently from firsthand, waiter by indicating Suki, “You see that subjective, and limited information, girl at that table?” “I know her. I fucked limited often to a single, unreliable her when she was eighteen.” (47) His remembered window on the world. She wife, Julie’s, confused angry reply, asks only sympathy, “Can you see how “What, by the banks of the river?” tragic my life has been?” (45) No current dismisses Suki as a candidate for love touches any of these lives. Sonia, Lambert’s recalled love. Talking in this registers an Old-Times moment when sexy way reflects the absence of ethics the pleasures of the “looking from the thoughts, behaviours, and as a forwardness,” now lost, rob all pleasure result the decline of the lives of these in the present moment. Sonia exits with modernist limited→ controlled a variant of that smiley-faced farewell characters. Prue attempts to detoxify the heard round the English speaking world, lethality of these past remembrances, “Have a happy night.” (45) The other for “Oh don’t get excited. It’s all in the Sonia could be the past memory which past,” when Suki repeats another Old she accepts and deals with it by Times’ line, “I sometimes feel that the becoming a whore. The derive for her past is never past.” (52) This is another acceptance is non ethical, so that her reference that the other for these result is being sexy woman. The Waiter, characters could be the past events at this moment, returns to continue his which they cannot change but they can cultural history lesson, moving forward modify their memories about them. in the twentieth century with a second Hence, they destroy them to keep living. interjection about his grandfather, who However, they in a very he claims was familiar with 1930s deconstructionist style the spoil their Hollywood: “Clark Gable, Elisha Cook lives for they live in un real world. Here, Jr. […] one of the very few native born a very important question arises: What Englishman to have had it off with Hedy would they do if they could live life Lamarr.” (46) The Waiter’s over? Nothing very different. Although reintroduction of violence and of Julie says: “I wouldn’t like to live again, brutality in his mention of Hollywood’s though […]. Once is more than “Irish Mafia” and their friendships enough,”(53) Lambert insists he would: among “famous Irish gangsters in “In fact I’m going to make it my job to Chicago. Al Capone and Victor Mature live again.”(53) In a rare accurate […]. John Dillinger, the celebrated awareness and assessment of a present

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self for a Pinter character, Lambert that Russell is a banker, the men begin to proposes: Lambert:“I’m going to come dance together even as Lambert mocks, back as a better person, a more civilized “With a big future before him,”(55) and person, a gentler person, a nicer person.” Matt joins in, “Well that’s what he Julie: “Impossible.” (53)He means that reckons.” (55) When Suki asks what he will have another life in which he they do, Matt and Lambert remain might be accepted by the others and he elusive: “Well, we’re consultants. Matt accepts others as well. It is a self- and me. Strategy consultants […]. It confrontation moment.Destroying the means we don’t carry guns.” (56) other is not only a strategy that is Here, the denial reveals as Matt says, adopted by the modernist limited→ “We don’t have to.” They broke them. controlled characters but a target and a That of course must remain unspoken. quest line for them. Each character of “We’re peaceful strategy consultants,” them tries to destroy even the other's (56) says Matt, and Lambert concurs ability of dreaming and hoping. To get with another self-referential descriptor control, for them, means to marginalize that concludes the reverse. “Worldwide. the other even in his dreams. The Keeping the peace” dramatizes, Prentice inability to dream of a better life is a (2000, 1) assures:"the main point of target because, to dream is to progress. Pinter’s 25 June 1999 speech to the To progress means to build. The only Confederation of Analytical ethics the modernist limited→ controlled Psychologists, delivered only months characters holds is destruction. Pinter before Celebration was written, when he has shown that jealousy is one of the denounced the NATO “peacekeeping” worst ethics that wreaks revenge on all action in Serbia as “yet another blatant fronts in Celebration. When Prue and brutal assertion of US power.” wonders where Lambert and Suki met, Elated, Russell says, “wonderful,” and, Russell finally strikes his delayed as a banker with money behind guns revenge at Suki, “Behind a filing brokering, he insists, in double speak cabinet.” (53) The main table joins cliché, “We need a few more of you forces behind Julie’s, “What’s a filing about […]. Taking responsibility. Taking cabinet?” (54) However, Julie also charge. Keeping the peace.” (57) He reveals she knows very well, when she wastes no time. Networking to promote asks what Suki does and Suki says she’s his own economic advantage, he a schoolteacher: “I teach infants,” a attempts to bond with them. “I think I’ll comic surprise in this context and have a word with my bank. I’m moving indicative of the future, the values these any minute to a more substantial bank. people promote to their children. Prue I’ll have a word with them.” “I’ll suggest and Julie join together by one-upping her lunch. In the City. I know the ideal in class, “We run charities” (54) —the restaurant. All the waitresses have big women’s work in the class that does the tits.” (57)His ego inflated with this brush cleanup following their husband’s with power, he confidently proposes. “peace-keeping” efforts and economics. This final move, mrrying “peace- When Matt guesses by the way he stands keeping” with guns, money and sex, puts

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all the men in bed together. Any And the women play nearly as well as disturbances caused by their women now the men. But they initiate little action. or in earlier liaisons can be dismissed or And they accept themselves as ed to advantage by an upwardly mobile, powerless to command their men, to halt insecure young man like Russell now or reverse their action or to direct their bonding with the more powerful. Then own in the larger world. At another Russell asks, “So how is the strategic level, however, Pinter seems to be consultancy business these days?” Matt dramatizing the necessary responsibility answers with a nicely ambiguous, “Very of women, these women, which can good. We’re at the receiving end of allow, even encourage these men to some of the best team in China,” carry out their affairs of the world. The signaling the third component of their reward is wealth and power. Pinter has arms and money connections: faced the audiences with a question: drugs.Richard then enters with a legal Who would willingly or easily give up drug of choice, a magnum of such comfort and safety that these champagne, the Waiter, following with women and men enjoy? Does Pinter glasses as “Everyone gasps,” and suggest what might be done? No more Richard toasts, “To celebrate a treasured than he suggests how people might wedding anniversary,” (58) furthering address the question of how they might the comic effect with what seems stop the ongoing “peace-keeping” furthest from the truth. Matt exclaims conflicts and the slaughter these men are the champagne “the best of the best,” as responsible for. While even the precise Lambert salutes his ongoing vision of nature of their work in the world must no life as a contest, “May the best man doubt elude, puzzle or certainly seem a win!” (58) Only the worst win here. Julie mystery to many in Pinter’s audiences, and Prue counter his insult in accord again, Pinter trusts his audiences. If he with one another: “The woman always has deliberately tapped into mystery, one wins.” Suki finds that “that’s really good main reason for the puzzle would seem news.” (58) In what sense can this to ask the audiences to question, and in possibly be true? Pinter may give this as questioning to begin to seek answers. It another self-referential assertion thrown is through getting the answer that self- in to call it into absolute doubt and knowledge is achieved for the characters utterly dismiss it.At some level, these as well as for the audiences. women, as kept women, ignorant and Lambert indicates the beginning of the perhaps necessarily kept in the dark end, offering Richard a cuddle in boozy about their men’s financial dealings, affection, a thanks and farewell, a seem to live comfortably padded, safe reversal of Julie’s and Prue’s earlier existences, tolerating their threat to kiss Richard. He cuddles Sonia, marginalization by holding ground, commends them both, “This is so totally deflecting their husbands’ attacks, the rare, you see. None of this normally primary form of attention and happens”. (59) This statement can be engagement the people in these seen as a comment on the whole play. marriages seem to accord one another. He discourses on the estrangement of

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people, “normally-you know- people exhibits acceptance to others only if they normally are so distant from each other form direct expedience for her regardless […] this given bloke doesn’t know that ethics and values. Her foremost value is another given bloke exists.” (59)Nor for money and power and not for family does Lambert seem to know anyone else relation or love. This time in front of his exists, except as target practice. His employer, the Waiter interjects, moving observation and excuse: “It goes down through the century’s wars with his through history, doesn’t it?” (59) references to “the Austro-Hungarian Prentice (2000, 47)suggests:"both Empire” again, hauling out his exonerates his own license to kill and grandfather this time as “an incredibly recognizes self-absorbed, individual close friend of the Archduke himself isolation as a major contributing factor […who] once had a cup of tea with in global conflict which requires Benito Mussolini.” (60)Suggesting that addressing through a knowledge that the world leaders are all in bed together, includes history, politics, economics, he even implicates his own family, and psychology, and both chaos and power by association, himself as well: “They theory. all played poker together, Winston Paying no attention to Lambert’s larger Churchill included.” (61) He admits his point, Sonia points up his point exactly. grandfather had “a really strange life.” She is doing so by taking this trivial He says, “The palms of his hands always pretext for mentioning an estrangement seemed to be burning,” a reference of her own. She tells Julie and Prue, perhaps to avarice and greed. But as a Sonia: “I’m so touched that you’re commentary on the brevity of sisters,” “I had a sister. But shemarried acceptance and love and life, he admits, a foreigner and I haven’t seen her in echo of Lambert’s story of lost love since.”Prue grudges,: “Some foreigners and Sonia’s of lost lust that prefigures are all right.” his final story of his own lost Sonia :“Oh I think foreigners are grandfather whom he loved: “He was in charming.” They’re her source of love, he told me once, with the woman revenue: “Most people in this restaurant who turned out to be my grandmother, tonight are foreigners.”(60)She covers but he lost her somewhere.” (61)The her racism claiming her reasons for grandfather is the only one of the bunch rejecting her sister’s husband were the audiences see or hear about here who personal, not prejudiced, his “enormous married for love. The Waiter reflects a moustache. I had to kiss him at the postmodern complexity in the character wedding. I can’t describe how awful it of his grandfather, an invented yet was.” (60) This is a very important collective of all grandfathers, whether or statement which reflects that there is no not they visited in the halls of fame and direct personal benefit for Sonia to power with men who shaped the century accept her sister's husband, thus she in this peculiarly end-of-the-century, shows her bigotry frankly. In this sense, turn-of-the-millennium play. What these she is a non ethical postmodernist many men and few women stood for controlled→ controlling character who valued and acted upon resonates

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throughout the Waiter’s summary grandfather knew them: “where they catalogs, and his reminiscence of suffered vast wounds to their bodies, invented remembrance suggests some their bellies, their legs, their trunks, their measure of forgiveness, for they, like all eyes, their throats, their breasts, their of the people, knew not what they did. balls—,”(61)Standing, Lambert cuts him The waiter insists that his grandfather off at this sexual juncture, rendering him was an ideal, even Christ-like, invisible by turning to his host: “Well, “everything men aspired to be in those Richard—what a great dinner!” (61) days […], tall, dark and handsome. He Behaving in a very modernist style, was full of good will. He’d even give a showing control over others, addressing cripple with no legs crawling on his him familiarly and condescendingly by belly […] a helping hand [….] He was his first name, a liberty Richard dare not like Jesus Christ in that respect. And he take in return—but an action indicative loved the society of his fellows,” (61) of hierarchy’s firm hold. Lambert’s next the only character in this play, offstage gesture of even greater condescension and long dead who does. Pinter, here, solidifies his position as he tosses tips of has conveyed the idea that acceptance fifty pound notes, two to Richard the other, loving the other, respecting the regardless for the custom of not to tip the other is far from the recent society and owner, then dangles notes in front of modern characters. It is a matter of past. Sonia’s cleavage, and even stuffs a note The only postmodernist ethical in the Waiter’s pocket, punctuating his controlled→ controlling character is the ostentation with, “Great dinner. Great waiter who has valued the past good restaurant. Best in the country.” To ethics but cannot but to speak about past which Matt adds, “Best in the world.” ideal of them. He initiates his excessive Money ensures position, purchases the summary end of twentieth-century poets, assurance that they’ll be treated royally playwrights, cricket players, pop upon their return and serves as a weapon musicians, singers, writers and comics to keep those serving at a distance, in his grandfather knew: “W B Yeats, T S their place. When Lambert demands Eliot, Igor Stravinsky, Picasso, Ezra “their bill,” taking Suki and Russell’s Pound, Bertholt Brecht, Don Bradman, with the announcement “It’s for old the Beverley Sisters, the Ink-spots, Franz time’s sake,” and Suki assents, “Right,” Kafka and the Three Stooges.” (61)The Lambert has effectively marked her as Waiter claims his grandfather knew his turf. Richard, disregarding all insult, them in their wounds. “He knew these says, “See you again soon?”(63) people where they were isolated, where Lambert assures him, “Plenty of they were alone, where they fought celebrations to come.” For these men against savage and pitiless odds,”(61)At who are responsible for the “peace- some level the Waiter’s declamations keeping” lives and deaths of others, he remind the audience that these people in remarks in death imagery: “Rest this play, for whatever power they assured,” and “Dead right.” Matt and possess, don’t even have a shot at such Lambert cap off the evening with a fame. When the Waiter claims his bonding duet that manages to slash out

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one last time at the women and describe His reverse echo of Bridget, the dead the plays’s powerplays in a comic echo sister and daughter in Moonlight who of Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on can’t get into the door at the party, first”:(Ibid.) becomes an image of death. Here, it is “Who’s in front? life that the Waiter cannot exit: “My Who’s in front. grandfather got out of it. He got right out Get out of the bloody way. You silly old of it. He left it behind and he didn’t look cunt!” (64)Suki, puts in her place, turns back.” (67) But the Waiter as an ethical on Russell, putting him in place: “How postmodernist controlled→ controlling sweet of him to take the bill, wasn’t it?” character can neither find his way out of (64) Russell reads Suki correctly as life nor participate fully in it. Nor can insulting him as well as Lambert’s wife, any of the other modernist limited→ Julie: “He must have been very fond of controlled characters. The waiter's comic you.”(64) Sonia says, “See you soon,” fantasies, hints K. Burkman (2008, N.P.) only to be met with Matt’s comic, “I’ll suggests a lost culture and lost values be here for breakfast tomorrow that he longs to recapture. At the end of morning.” (65) Julie and Suki, with the the play, the waiter occupies the stage last words from the group, exit as each alone. He is lost as ever. His final words says to the other what can only be a are addressed to the audience as he honeyed lie: “Lovely to meet you.” (66) confesses that he is in the middle of a The Waiter, alone, has the final word, mysterious life. This last view hints that the first fully human, touchingly warm the ethical postmodernist controlled→ and genuinely puzzled words of the controlling character is the one who, as evening as he recalls perhaps his real Pinter views, can keep ethics in this grandfather who “used to take me to the world. He is the character who is given edge of the cliffs and we’d look out to the last existence in Pinter's drama. He is sea” with a telescope. He recalls seeing the character who has the last words. people on a boat, a man, sometimes, and The addressed audience are demanded to a woman, or sometimes two men. That think about what is going in the world image of people viewed from a great around them. Celebration suggests as a distance, reinforces a dominant final plea that accepting the other and metaphor for the play’s dramatization of having a relation that is built on the the bonds between people—as distant, philosophy of alterity is the only solution almost, but not quite, nonexistent. Pinter, that can get the world out of the hole in this slight reference, may indicate that inside which the global age puts it. ethical postmodernist controlled→ Harold Hobson (1958, N.P.) was right controlling characters have to do those many years ago when he observed, something to strengthen the relations in “Mr. Pinter has got hold of a primary order not to live in a deserted world. The fact of existence. We live on the verge of waiter claims, “My grandfather disaster.” Because in Celebration Pinter introduced me to the mystery of life and has brought the audiences as close as I’m still in the middle of it,” but then he they have come in his work to those says, “I can’t find the door to get out.” picnicking on the global precipice and

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this time the audiences are laughing all of discovering, implementing change the way through as long as they can remains theirs. The slow fade on the avoid looking at their own pain and truth Waiter’s unfinished last line, “And I’d that ignites the flash of comic laughter like to make one further interjection,” and the insight they are happier to avoid. coming in agreement with Thomas Celebration is written with such Docherty's (1991, 54) opinion about the extraordinary economy that close open end of the postmodernist text is the attention is required not to miss the tossing of the final word to the audiences significance of the destructive wit. This to ask and answer that conflict with their play, another about power and the lack lives. of power, is equally about what almost Conclusion all Pinter’s work is about: otherness, With Celebration, Pinter exposes his acceptance by others, alterity, the final view regarding life and human desperate desire for it and the resulting relations. He shows that modernist destructiveness in the lack of alterity. characters are always there side by side But this time he’s given the audiences a with the postmodernists. Their conflict is closer and, in its comedy, a more what determines their existence and compassionate look at those more fully diversity. And the concept of alterity and responsible for trafficking in the the relation with “the other” as Levinas destruction of this planet and its people put it is very helpful in understanding to awaken them to the primal terror and how these two types of characters are the delight that illuminates how they are different. Their difference is shifted in all complicit. At another level this play which represents in this study Celebration reveals the source of Pinter’s final stage, to the public level. conflict as embedded in the most These characters are in a very inevitable intimate of human relationships, way intermingled, so that the private between questions about the mystery of conflict influences the public one. Pinter life. He both dramatizes and asks the calls for deep insight for the whole audience: Why do they act as they do? image in order not to let those who He sends them on a quest to seek the embody power and money to destroy the most effective means to confront whole world. Keeping peace and conflict, realizing that their task, like his, goodness is the responsibility for all and is not just that remedial work necessary not for only one. to effect change, but that the harder task Bibliography 1- Pinter, Harold.(2000) Celebration 3- Bartlett FC.(1997) Remembering: an (typescript, 1999). Celebration London: experimental and social study. Faber and Faber. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2- .(1993)Moonlight. London: Faber 4- Morely. Sharidan,(2000) ‘Pinter and Faber. Double’. The Spectator. 1 April. 5- Billington, Michael (2007). Harold Pinter. London: Faber and Faber.

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6- Davis, Colin. Levinas: An 15- Hobson, Harold. “The Screw Introduction. (1996). Cambridge: Polity Turns Again.” In Sunday Times Press. (London) 25 May 1958:11. 7- Docherty, Thomas.(1991). 16- Johnson, R. T.(1985) Harold "Postmodern Characterization: The Pinter: Poet of Anxiety Unpublished Ethics of Alterity." Postmodernism and 8517681, (1985)University of Contemporary Fiction. ed. by Edmund Delaware, United States-- Delaware. J. Smyth. London: B. T. Batsford Ltd. 17- Davis, Colin.(1996) Levinas: An 8- Mamet,David.(2013http://writersal Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press. manac.publicradio.org/index.php?date= 18- Levinas Emmanuel(1957) 1999/11/30. on 19\10\ 2013. "Philosophy and the Idea of the 9- Prentice, Penelope.(2000) The Infinite." Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pinter Ethics. New York: Garland. 19- (1961) Totalité et infini. Essai sur 10- Inan, Dilek. (2011) The City and l'exteriorité. La Haye: Martinus Nijhoff Landscapes Beyond Harold Pinter's [Original edition]; Quoted French Rooms. Ph.D. Thesis in: edition: (1990) Paris: Le Livre de http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/4373/1/WRAP_ Poche, Biblio Essais No. 4120. Quoted THESIS_Inan_2000.pdf on 4\8\2011. English translation: (1969) Totality and 11- Gauthier, Brigitte.(2007) ‘Preface Infinity – An Essay on Exteriority. to Viva Pinter’. The International Pittsburgh (Pa) & The Hague: Symposium, 22-24 March. Duquesne University Press & Martinus 12- Gussow, Mel. (1994) Nijhoff Conversations with Pinter. London: 20- (1981) "Emmanuel Levinas: Ethics Nick Hern Books. of the Infinite." Manchester: 13- Fisher .Pamela,(2001) ‘Celebration Manchester University Press. and The Room’. San Francisco 21- (1984) "Ethics as First Examiner. 21 September . Philosophy." Manchester: Manchester 14- Burkman. Katherine H. (1971)The University Press. Dramatic world of Harold Pinter: Its 22- (1993). To The Other: An Bases in Rituals. Ohio: Ohio State Introduction to the Philosophy of University Press. Emmanuel Levinas. Ed., Introduction and Commentary to Adriaan Peperzak. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 88-119.

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