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SUST Journal of Humanities (2015) Vol.16.No. 4

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

Landscape: Pinter-ish Characters

Ansam Riyadh A. Almaaroof - Yousif Omer Babiker 1. lecturer-English Department College of Education- Tikrit University-Iraq 2.English Department College of Languages- Sudan University of Science and Technology ABSTRACT : This paper handles Pinter's characters' construction in the first one-act play that denotes Pinter's second phase of writing, Landscape (1968). The paper hypothesizes that Pinter throughout his second stage of writing has tried to give the impression that the conflict which has been appearing throughout his first stage writing is vital to get full-life characters, and without such conflict, there will be neither protagonist nor antagonist. Character analysis will be adopted as a method of discussion. The discussion concludes that Pinter has used inactive characterization to indicate the idea that conflict is an essential part for life continuation and character's construction. Key words: Landscape, Memory, Characterization اﻟﻣﺳﺗﺧﻠص : ﺗﺗﻧﺎول ﻫذﻩ اﻟورﻗﺔ ﺑﻧﺎء اﻟﺷﺧﺻﯾﺎت ﻓﻲ ﻣﺳرﺣﯾﺔ اﻟﻔﺻل اﻟواﺣد , " اﻟﻣﻧظر" (1968) ﻟﻬﺎروﻟد ﺑﻧﺗر واﻟﺗﻲ ﺗﻣﺛل اﻟﻣرﺣﻠﺔ اﻟﺛﺎﻧﯾﺔ ﻓﻲ ﻛﺗﺎﺑﺎﺗﻪ. ﺗﻔﺗرض اﻟورﻗﺔ ان ﺑﻧﺗر ﺧﻼل اﻋﻣﺎﻟﻪ ﺣﺎول ان ﯾﻌطﻲ اﻧطﺑﺎﻋﺎ ان اﻟﺻراع اﻟذي ﯾظﻬر ﻓﻲ اﻟﻣرﺣﻠﺔ اﻻوﻟﻰ ﻣن ﻛﺗﺎﺑﺎﺗﻪ ﻛﺎن اﺳﺎﺳﺎ ﻣن اﺟل ﺑﻧﺎء ﺷﺧﺻﯾﺎت ذوي ﺣﯾﺎة ﻣﺗﻛﺎﻣﻠﺔ وﺑدون ذﻟك اﻟﺻراع ﻻ ﯾﻣﻛن ان ﯾﻛون ﻫﻧﺎك اﺑطﺎل او ﻧﻘﯾﺿﻬم. اﻟورﻗﺔ ﺗﺑﻧت ﺗﺣﻠﯾل اﻟﺷﺧﺻﯾﺎت ﻟﺗﻛون وﺳﯾﻠﺔ اﻟﻧﻘﺎش. اﻧﺗﻬت اﻟورﻗﺔ اﻟﻰ ان ﺑﻧﺗر ﻣن ﺧﻼل اﺑرازﻩ ﻟﺷﺧﺻﯾﺎت ﺑدون ﺻراع اوﺿﺢ ﻓﻛرة ان اﻟﺻراع ﻣﻬم ﻻﺳﺗﻣرار اﻟﺣﯾﺎة وﻟﺑﻧﺎء اﻟﺷﺧﺻﯾﺔ.

INTRODUCTION : century’(2007,N.P.) Her opinion is , the winner of the Nobel definitely correct as Gussow (1994, 123) Award for Literature (2005), is known rightly observed, ‘is essentially world-wide as one of the greatest writers exploratory. […] theatre has always been of a body of literary work that includes a critical act’. Landscape(1968) is thirty-two plays, twenty-one film scripts, chronologically located in the middle one novel, and numerous poems. period between the early and late plays. Besides being a prolific writer, he has This one-act play is the first play Pinter been a director, an actor, and a political has written in this period. It shows a activist in the second half of the distinguished form and content different twentieth century. Pinter's contribution is from that of preceding plays. Though it of such a distinctive quality that he was is different in the way Pinter manipulates described by Brigitte Gauthier, in her things and characters, it is geared to the preface to Viva Pinter, as ‘Harold Pinter same central idea that Pinter has was the Shakespeare of our

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previously exposed, though this time in a the audiences postmodernist characters reversed and revised form. while he is talking about modernist ones. The second phase of Pinter’s work In Landscape there is experimentation begins with two plays so radically with both form and memory which begin different from anything Pinter had now to give voice to some public written previously in the first stage of his consequences of the private conflict at writing. The limited→ the heart of all Pinter’s plays. Pinter controlled/controlled → controlling seems to have broken away from his conflict which dominates his first stage reliable power-play source of tension. writing almost disappears here, but with Setting is used in a different form; Pinter startling consequences. The overall arch is inclined to show that the period of the of the play’s conflict which this play closed rooms has ended, and he is fully shows is mirrored in each detail but aware of the important role of setting in different from the previous works: this understanding his plays. The focus is time with public consequences. Never, shifted from the closed rooms to un throughout the whole of Pinter’s work, walled space that can be anywhere. the conflict has never become repetitive Pinter underlined this new landscape or assumed a merely mechanical form. setting trend by saying, "Certainly they For each play its function and form are are not in a room. So the characters can’t specific to the nature of the limited→ open a door and come in, but I think controlled/controlled→ controlling they’re there". (Tynan, 1967, 8) conflict. In this one-act play, Pinter gives his Methodology audiences a different form of relation, if The paper adopts the character analysis one can say it is a relation at all. The to be the method of discussion. conflict is not there for power and Character analysis is the most suitable dominance or for anything else. Mel method for approaching the selected Gussow(1996, 18) in an interview with play "Landscapr" since the target of the Harold Pinter states that " Landscape paper is to evaluate the characters' and [ the two short poetic construction with relation to conflict. memory plays that were written between Discussion and The ] Landscape presents the other face of the are in a very different form. There is not life that differs from what Pinter used to any menace at all". Beside lacking the register in previous works to show by menace in Landscape, in a very contrast the essence of life that is formalistic way the character can be derived by ethics. In portraying described neither as protagonist nor characters as neither controlled nor antagonist for there is nothing to be controlling and neither modernist nor gained. The quest-line for each character postmodernist, Pinter insists that their is not portrayed throughout the play. At existence will be felt and valued only if the end of the play, the audience realize it occurs at the same time. He predicts the core of the idea which Pinter is postmodernism before its time by giving trying to explain: without the differences between the characters and their

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stimulus there will be no conflict, no which keeps the other in its place. When relation and thus, no life. Also, without true silence falls we are still left with any consideration for others there will be echo but are nearer nakedness. One way no continuation of life. of looking at speech is to say that it is a In Landscape a middle-aged couple constant stratagem to cover nakedness.( (Beth and Duff) speak at, rather than to, Pinter, Harold. Plays: Three. London: each other in a counterpoint that Eyre Methuen, 1978)This nakedness consigns speech to an extension of which is associated with silence is very private memory. The characters essential in Pinter's writing. The speech communicate their thoughts, memories, the people hear is an indication of that and daydreams of past loves aloud to the which they don't hear. Pinter once said: audience but not to each other. Thus, "It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, Pinter describes the genesis: I’ve started sly, and anguished or mocking smoke a couple pages of something quite screen which keeps the other in its true different. A new form and I’m diving. place. When true silence falls we are left It’s simply, as it stands, about a woman with echo but are nearer around fifty. She’s talking. That’s all I nakedness."(Doods,2008,N.P.)Pinter bloody well know. I don’t know where tries to show this nakedness through she is. (Ibid.) silence as well as through speech. Only in the most subtle sense does Conflict, characterization and plot can be this play dramatize the characters’ developed through strong dialogue. Each occupation for power; more obviously it line is meant to cause a reaction in the portrays Pinter’s concern with time, other character or it is wasted. Dialogue space, and the mystery of identity as mustn’t be expositional i.e. explain what choice continues to connect with self- is happening. The playwright should knowledge. But the absence of power reveal little by little as the audience occupation here develops with gradually begins to detect the context unexpected ramifications: not as a good and background of what is being said. but it's opposite. In Landscape the Characters should reveal themselves as implication is that the absence of the the stakes get higher. Of course, all that conflict may be as destructive as its the audiences have is an inertial presence. monologue and not a dialogue. There is In the introduction to the first volume of no progress for the action because of the his Complete Plays, Pinter wrote: There lack of the dialogue. are two silences. One when no word is In Landscape, the setting is the two spoken. The other when perhaps a sides, right and left, of a kitchen table. torrent of language is being employed. The setting in the script is followed by a This speech is speaking of a language note: locked beneath it. That is its continual Duff refers normally to reference. The speech we hear is an Beth, but does not appear indication of that which we don't hear. It to hear her voice. is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen

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Beth never looks at Duff, “You’ll plead with me like a woman,” and does not appear to Beth recalls a time past on the beach hear his voice. when, Both characters are relaxed, in no sense He lay above me.” (196) rigid.(175) The setting shows that the She then brings down the final curtain characters are not linked to each other. with the table is not but a stage-setting rather “Oh my true love I said.” (197) than a common thing they are using. The The anguish is there in their talk. In important note here is to illustrates that neither case does the love recalled these characters are not indulging in a absolutely reference one another nor is it conversation, for each of them appears clearly fulfilled. Duff switches from the to be indulged in his own monologue. conditional past to the future tense, The audience are faced by Beth and Duff describing what he wishes would have who are engulfed by silence. Stage happened or will occur, while Beth directions imply that they do not “appear recalls a long-past, almost girlhood, to hear” each other’s voices. Duffs patter memory detached from the living, aging about trivia in the present, his woman of the present. In the recollections of the past, and Beth’s fragmenting and telescoping of time, the internal monologue is solely about the identities of the characters, cloaked in past. There is hardly any hint at their mystery, remain in flux. Is Beth really relationship as husband and wife, nor are different from the young girl whom she their present identities contained in their recalls as herself? She knows she will be separate illusions about one another. different in the future: From the first page of the script, the list Of course when I’m older I won’t be the of the characters, the reader can notice same as I am, I won’t be what I am, my that these characters are of no specific skirts, my long legs, I’ll be older, I won’t identities. There is no relation between be the same. (192) Nor is it clear that her them that can be identified, and they man, as she refers to him, is Duff. He have no special features that can be may be their former employer Sykes, distinguish them from any other gone—presumably dead. Pinter, in a characters. They could be any one. No letter to the director of a German facial or bodily features are mentioned. production, maintains that the man in The subjects of their separate Beth’s memory is Duff, infused with monologues converge at times, most recollections of Sykes whom Duff noticeably at the end when Beth and jealously detests: Duff describe sexual encounters. But [T]he man on the beach is Duff. I think even in their separate recollections of a there are elements of Mr. Sykes in her shared intimate experience there is no memory of this Duff, which she might close association. Where Duff recalls be attributing to Duff, but the man “banging the gong,” claiming: remains Duff. I think that Duff detests “I would have had you in front of the and is jealous of Mr. Sykes, although I dog like a man,” do not believe that Mr. Sykes and Beth Hoping, were ever lovers. I formed these

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conclusions after I had written the plays memory, continue to portray the [letter refers also to Silence] and after destructive qualities of hierarchy from learning about them through rehearsals. the vantage point of those forced to (Esslin, The Peopled Wound, 187) assume the yoke of service in a Elsewhere in the play the two hierarchal society—the servants. Duff, monologues contrapuntally echo one first speaks quite respectfully of his another. Immediately following Duffs' former employer, Sykes: “That’s where description of stopping off at a pub for a we’re lucky in my opinion. To live in pint, Beth speaks of stopping off at a Mr. Sykes’ house in peace, no-one to hotel for a drink. (183) A dog wanders in bother us. I've thought of inviting one or and out of both their narratives, but even two people I knew from the village in in these tenuous connections, Pinter here for a bit of a drink once or twice but dramatizes the separateness of these two I decided against it. It's not necessary.” people who have presumably lived Pause (185) Duff's together for many years but whose lives speech which is followed no longer touch. Duffs' explicit by a pause, reflects his statement about what really matters only reluctance and his furtheremphasizes their separateness: disbelief that his opinion That’s what matters, anyway. We’re is right. And he soon together. That’s what matters. discloses hostility: Silence (192) In what sense are Beth and “Mind you, he was a gloomy Duff together, or does it possibly matter bugger,”(188) aside from their proximity and the fact He says with unintended irony that that they share a breathing space? The equally comments on his own life, silence that follows the statement shows adding: that Pinter here evokes the horror of the “I was never sorry for shared/ unshared existence between two him at any time, for his people without intimacy or even lonely life.” relationship. Except for their advancing Pause (188) He admits ages, which limit other more attractive his relief now that Sykes choices, would they be better apart? is gone: Although the landscape of each of their At least now…at least narratives takes the audience beyond the now, I can walk down to walls that are traditionally associated the pub in peace and up with Pinter’s rooms, Beth and Duff seem to the pond in peace, more obviously walled into the isolation with no-one to nag the of their separate recollections of their shit out of me. shared romance. Yet romance remains Silence (192) Duff resents his paramount to both. Hints of the subservient position but salvages some limited→ controlled/controlled→ dignity by recalling his one area of controlling conflict, subtly retained in mastery, his position as a trained Duffs relation to Sykes, to Beth, and in cellerman: “ this fellow knew bugger all Beth’s relation to the man of her about beer. He didn't knoe I'd been

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trained as a cellarman. That’s why I the self and imagines the other, generally could speak with authority.” (193) In his in the past. Beth may or may not have relationship with Beth, he is gentle at been unfaithful to Duff as he confesses times, as when he recalls her among the he was to her, yet her ongoing infidelity flowers or when he describes his with her imaginary man of her youth is a confession of infidelity to her. But far more palpable and salient part of her though he confesses his desire to take life now than Duffs' real infidelity is to Beth by force, expressed in him. In a sense then, these characters commanding, raucous terms, he seems that are out of touch with each other are oddly unsure of his ability to have her beyond any quest for power. Power “like a man” and describes only how he requires relationship. But though they “would” have liked to behave with her have escaped the confinement of the and have her respond to him. (193) walls of a room, they are also beyond Sadly, he does not seem to achieve exerting any power even in their own “what matters” to him. Beth’s relation to isolated private lives, which seem to drift her man is quaintly passive, played to a on chance remembrance rather than be courtly but sensuous love, imagined as driven by any volition. The absence of much as remembered, who spends much power occupation reduces these time asleep on the beach. The man she characters to a static landscape blending describes seems so different from the with the background and generating only Duff the audience see that it is easy to a lyrically recalled past. What is best in suppose Beth is speaking of another man their lives is already over except for altogether. It hardly matters. Duff is what is savored in memory and becoming the sleepy dormouse Sykes imagination.The assertion of power in may have become in old age, and this this play, so subtle it seems almost Duff of her memories and dreams is not absent, occurs primarily at junctures to the real living, here-and-now man underscore the failures in the anyway. That seems to be the point as relationships, and junctures. In this Pinter explores how, in even a single regard, Penelope Prentice(2000, 174) instant of memory, an image can argues that this Landscape forms:A displace reality, the living moment. It is momenta mori portraying those who not not necessary to suppose these two only sit out their lives (rarely a posture to people never speak to one another. The be admired in Pinter’s work) but who dramatic device of the internal sleep through life. Like those fence- monologue simply allows Pinter to sitters in Dante’s Inferno, these dramatize what is occasionally common characters suffer from unlived lives; to any conversation—one person’s being failure to choose, inability to act, on his or her own track while the other is however lyrically recalled, consigns privately shut off or engaged elsewhere. them to a living purgatory they choose to Here he also dramatizes what is most interpret as contentment. The characters important to each character: not each remain without influence in the public other, not even themselves as they sphere, and hardly exert impact on the presently exist, but how each conceives private. The characters remain as out of

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touch with one another as with conflict is very essential in keeping themselves. But their loss momentarily progress of life. The existence of illumines the audience's. In Landscape different kinds of characters: the the critic, Dilek Inan (2011, N.P.) states modernist and postmodernist is a that in Landscape the characters retreat demand to give value for the motivations into their own realms of memory, that derive their actions and reactions. perhaps to reflect a sense of loss, regret Conflict helps in appreciating the ethics or a desire to live in a fantasy world that generate certain behavior. In because the reality of present time is juxtaposing the two kinds of characters unbearably oppressive. In order to in the same play, Pinter shows the survive in a setting where the character importance of their existence together.In is faced with the naked truth, Pinter’s Landscape Pinter presents the other face characters usually withdraw into the of the life that differs from what he used realm of memory instead of responding to register in previous works to show by to the immediate question as a tactic. contrast the essence of life that is derived This in itself creates a drama of distress by ethics. In portraying characters as and desperation which is part of neither controlled nor controlling and everyday life. Lambert and Julie neither modernist nor postmodernist, immerse into different memories which Pinter insists that their existence will be reflects their lack of connection.It is not felt and valued only if it occurs at the surprisingly the near absence of the same time. He predicts postmodernism limited→ controlled/ controlled→ before its time by giving the audience controlling conflict does not produce a postmodernist characters while he is paradise but a life devoid of that vitality talking about modernist ones.Landscape that seems a concomitant of the desire is an important work, because it clearly for love and power. These characters, exposes Pinter's opinion regarding the which may seem to represent an ethical inevitability of the existence of the advancement toward peace in Pinter’s modernist\postmodernist characters in work, have simply retreated from the the same context. By presenting one-act conflict rather than confront their own play that lacks the conflict which reflects desires. Jean Baker Miller (1971, 767- the features of modernist 775) in her work Toward a New controlled\postmodernist controlling Psychology of Women, written almost characters, Pinter has exposed inactive four decades ago, noted that women "as characters who are unable to have a full a subservient group and as nurturers and life. Moreover, Pinter's characters in keepers of peace in a society which does Landscape, are lacking the relation with not value those virtues must not only the other, so that they cannot progress or confront conflict but initiate it. Her even live. In this sense, Pinter has conclusion aptly addresses the seemed conveyed the idea that postmodernism is peace these characters gain at the not but a complement of modernism by expense of all else. The failure to presenting the characters as completion confront any conflict here results only in for each other.. In Landscape, perpetuating illusion. Confronting acceptance in a form of love is

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increasingly portrayed as failing to benefit greatly from that struggle by connect the lives of the characters whose achieving self-knowledge. In this regard, separateness is further emphasized in it might be supposed that the absence of past, often failed, attempts to love. the struggle for dominance would signal Acceptance in a form of love here is not a positive turn in Pinter's work. Without linked with accepting the other and with the struggle and without the correlative the ethics of alterity and otherness, thus desire to attain a position or role, it fails to form a connection link among however artificial or arbitrary, these characters. Love, in this play is characters seem only half alive. Without connected only with the emotional erotic attempts to fulfill desires, they remain state rather than with the psychological- isolated into an almost death-in-life behavioral as well as rational states.Even existence. Having a relation with the when considered among those who loved other in Pinter’s plays seems both and married, Beth and Duff are in no integrally connected and opposed to way close. Landscape, portrays blood lust and violence. The only peace characters past youth without the hopeful in Pinter’s work, purchased in springtime and summer of love, seasons Landscape at the expense of which are nevertheless suggested in the powerlessness, is portrayed as self- lush rain wet landscapes of Duffs' delusion. In this sense, Prentice (2000, narrative.The almost total absence of the 178) states that Pinter’s portrayal of love power occupation in this one-act plays and violence mirrors: poses aninteresting question: Does the the most fundamental physical structure absence of the struggle for dominance in the human brain governing love and reflect an absence of a quality essential violence to convey a force resembling not only to drama but to life? an fate. Deep within what some term the outstanding question that is raised during primitive brain resides the core of this period of time, the middle period, to strongest emotions, the amygdale, center show Pinter's deep concern with of love and rage. Where Pinter’s early exhibiting the conflict as a necessity for plays show how the quest for love and progress, life-continuation, as well as respect, when thwarted, can so easily self-knowledge. The three things which trigger anger and violence, the reverse Pinter has been greatly interested in applies here—without a quest neither throughout his early plays.The thematic love nor anger is fully activated in the implications of the controlled/ present living moment, and action thus controlling conflict in Pinter’s early dead ends. These characters claim to be work suggest that the struggle grows out complete within themselves, as is typical of feelings of inadequacy and results in Pinter’s work, only to call that generally in destruction rather than completeness into question. Landscape, creation or growth of human directly confronting the power conflict relationships from the modernist by suspending it, signals a shift in controlled character's point of view. attitude toward that conflict. Even more Nevertheless, the postmodernist disturbing than the battle for power is the controlling character is believed to dramatization of how quickly one can

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inhabit one’s routine and assume habits instead of responding to the immediate not consciously chosen, but simply fallen question as a tactic. This in itself creates into. The characters remain blithely a drama of suffering and anxiety which innocent of the choices they made in is part of every day- life. their lives which gained them their Works Cited current identities. The audience see that 1- Esslin. Martin, The Peopled at some level they all desire acceptance Wound: The Work of Harold Pinter. from the other, yet each in the end is left (1970). New York: Doubleday. touting a happy isolation which evinces 2- Gussow, Mel. Conversations with the opposite: an unresolved loss. Pinter. (1994) London: Nick Hern Landscape, written by a master of Books. dramatic conflict, takes the audience 3- Gauthier, Brigitte. ‘Preface to Viva further to the edge of life lived in the Pinter’. The International Symposium, absence of conflict than any of his work 22-24 March 2007. written after. Implicit in such wholly 4- Inan . Dilek, Harold Pinter the solipsistic, inner-directed identities is Wordsmith: . some recognition that the healthy woman Nebula8.1, December 2011. and man exist in a larger society, 5- Miller. Jean Baker, Toward a New requiring some balance between the Psychology of Women. In The American inward- with the outward-directed self, Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 41(1971) some vital engagement with the world, 767-775. what Bertrand Russell simply calls 6- Pinter. Harold, Landscape in “zest.” Thus the near absence of Pinter’s Complete Works: 3.(1990) New York: concern with modernist Grove Press. controlled\postmodernist controlling 7------. Plays: Three.(1978) relationships in these plays calls for a London: Eyre Methuen. person possessing an honest self- 8- Prentice, Penelope. The Pinter knowledge, a consciousness of choices, Ethics.(2000) New York: Garland. and an ability to confront conflicts in the 9- Dodds, Baisley. Nobel Laureate larger community in order to act and Harold Pinter dies at 78. Thursday, gain what is desired for the self and December 25, 2008. In others. http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendl Conclusion y_wires/2008Dec25/0,4675,EUBritainO In Landscape the characters retreat into bitPinter,00.html On 3\7\2013 their own realm of memory, perhaps to 10- Russell. Bertrand, Positive Atheism's reflect a sense of loss, regret, or a desire Big List of Bertrand Russell Quotations. to live in fantasy world because the In reality of present time is unbearably http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quot oppressive. In order to survive in a es/russell.htm. on 29\7\2013. setting where no great values and ethics 11- Tynan, Kathleen. “In Search of dominate, Pinter's characters usually Harold Pinter: Part Two.” Evening withdraw into the realm of memory Standard 29 Apr. 1967:9.

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