Multilevel Representations of Power in Harold Pinter's Plays

The book draws an interdisciplinary analysis of Harold Pinter's dramatic discourse. It concentrates on the way power lets his characters play on the borders of linguistic, spatial, narrative and gender configurations and explores how he employs the narrative of the past as a new dramatic technique which focuses on the inner life of the characters.

The study offers an interdisciplinary analysis of Harold Pinter's dramatic discourse and focuses on the way power makes the characters play on the borders of linguistic, spatial, narrative and gender configurations. It examines the experimental nature of Harold Pinter's dramatic technique and how he compromises both the realistic and the absurd dramatic formulae. The study also investigates the narrative of the past a new dramatic technique in Pinter's Plays, which brings into focus the inner life of the characters without causing any severe disturbance to the realistic conventional formula. It asserts that the narratives of the past become a form of doing, of being anchored in life and of acting in response to it. It also argues that sexuality is constantly submitted to manipulation and that women are more prepared than men to transgress gender constructions.

Auteur

Alina-Elena Röca is Assistant Lecturer of English Literature at the University of Ploie ti (Romania). Her research fields are Literary and Cultural Studies, Modernism/Postmodernism, and, more specifically, Harold Pinter. She is also a member of the European Society for the Study of English.

Texte du rabat

The study offers an interdisciplinary analysis of Harold Pinter s dramatic discourse and focuses on the way power makes the characters play on the borders of linguistic, spatial, narrative and gender configurations. It examines the experimental nature of Harold Pinter s dramatic technique and how he compromises both the realistic and the absurd dramatic formulae. The study also investigates the narrative of the past a new dramatic technique in Pinter s Plays, which brings into focus the inner life of the characters without causing any severe disturbance to the realistic conventional formula. It asserts that the narratives of the past become a form of doing, of being anchored in life and of acting in response to it. It also argues that sexuality is constantly submitted to manipulation and that women are more prepared than men to transgress gender constructions.

Contenu

Contents: Preliminary Analysis of Harold Pinter s Dramatic Technique Breaking the Realistic Convention Surveying Power through Multi-Layered Games. The Complicity of Language, Narration, Space and Gender Constructions Spatial Configurations Territorial Confrontations Body and Object Negotiations Uses and Abuses of Language Language: a Means of Elusion. Avoiding the Painful Encounter with the Other The Theory of Politeness: Preserving the Illusion of the Self Representations of the Past The Narrative of the Past. The Past: A Means of Dissimulation Indebtedness to the Past: Memory and Amnesia Representations of Sexuality Women Transgressing the Norm Women: the Embodiment of Otherness.