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Harold Pinter's ~u2;The Birthday Party~u1; and ~u2;The
Homecoming~u1; canbe the representatives of his comedies of
menace in the early and middlestages respectively. The
characters in the two plays resort to violenceand menace in
order to dominate others. The narrative and language of
thecharacters in the two plays can function as exposition and
the exposure oftheir inner emotions and notions. In addition,
they employ the narrativeand language as their weapon (verbal
attacks) and strategy (fabrication ofthe past, stories, and
memories) in order to achieve the purpose ofdominating others.
Meg in ~u2;The Birthday Party~u1; presents a strikingcontrast to
Ruth in ~u2;The Homecoming~u1;. In this thesis, I probe intothe
two plays from the following three aspects: (I). violence and
menacein the battles for dominance, (II). the function of the
narrative andlanguage, and (III). female characters (Meg in ~u2;
The Birthday Party~u1;and Ruth in ~u2;The Homecoming~u1;) and
their respective role-playing. This thesis contains five
chapters. Chapter One, "Introduction," Iintroduce the background
of Harold Pinter and the style of his plays andthen make a brief
introduction to what I discuss in the following threechapters.
Chapter Two is a discussion on violence and menace in thebattles
for dominane: Goldberg and McCann in ~u2;The Birthday Party~u1;
resort to violence and menace in order to dominate Stanley.
Similarly,the members of Max's family in ~u2;The Homecoming~u1;
employ violence andmenace in order to acquire the dominant
status. Chapter Three is a discussion on the function of the
narrative and language in the two plays.Pinter exploits the
narrative and language as exposition to introducethe backgrounds
of the characters in the two plays and as the revelationof their
interior world. In additon, continuing the theme of Chapter Two,
I give examples in Chapter Three to explain how the characters
in the twoplays use the narrative and language as their weapon
and strategy to threaten and dominate others. Chapter Four is a
discussion on the femalecharacters (Meg in ~u2;The Birthday
Party~u1; and Ruth in ~u2;The Homecoming~u1;), their respective
role-playing, and the contrastbetween them. Furthermore,
combining the female characters with thetheme in Chapter Two
(violence and menace in the battles for dominance),Chapter Four
explains that Meg forms a sharp contrast to Ruth on
theircharacters and reactions when they encounter the menacing
force. InChapter Five, "Conclusion," I conclude the themes of
the foregoing threechapters--Chapter Two, Chapter Three, and
Chapter Four. Simultaneously, in Chapter Five, I account for:
(I). the reasons for my studying Pinter's~u2;The Birthday
Party~u1; and ~u2;The Homecoming~u1; from the threeperspectives
discussed respectively in the foregoing three chapters,(II).
Pinter's originality, and (III). the interrelated aspects of
theforegoing three chapters.
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