The Theme of Loneliness in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker

Abstract

It is generally known that the theme of loneliness is evident in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker (1959). The main characters of the play are often lonely either by an act of will , or rather due to some malign forces imposed on them . The basic interest of this paper is to shed light on the theme of loneliness as reflected in Pinter’s The Caretaker. Besides , the possibility to overcome one’s lonely condition will be questioned as expressed through the situation of an old tramp and a mentally unbalanced man . 1. The Shaping of Pinter's Sensibility Harold Pinter was born in Hackney , 1930 , the only child of a Jewish family descended from a Hungarian or probably Portuguese origin . He was then brought up and educated in that bleak suburb of the East End of London Which was at the time a good refuge for the Jewish People (Almansi and Henderson , 1983 : 10) . Pinter witnessed the Second World War with all its associated horror , but his life at home was completely undisturbed . At the age of eighteen , Pinter refused to be engaged in military Service mainly because of his hostile attitude towards war and violence . It turned out that the young Pinter , as an objector of the National Service , underwent two trials but fortunately he was not imprisoned (Ibid) . However , Pinter’s literary career could be accounted for in terms of two recognizable periods . The first started in 1949 when he joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art . But the atmosphere there did not appeal to him . It was at his feigning a nervous breakdown that he left the Academy quite unpleasantly only to initiate a new career as a repertory actor (Ibid) . During that period , Pinter had different inclinations . It was beside being an actor and a director that Pinter wrote poetry, some of which was published in London magazines . The second period which marked the real turning point in Pinter’s life , started in 1957 with Pinter’s being acclaimed as a dramatist .The period was initiated with The Room , a play written in four acts at the request of a friend , to be followed by plays like The Dumb Waiter , The Birthday Party and A Slight Ache .