Write on the tragic quality of ‘The Birthday Party

— Name                : Dodiya Mehul M.

— Roll No             : 23

— Enrollment No  : 206910840120011

— Class                 : M.A. Sem 3

— Paper Name      : The Modernist Literature

— Question       : Write on the tragic quality of ‘The Birthday Party’

— Words               :  1567

—  Percentage       :

— Year                  : 2017/19

— Submitted to     : Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

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Question : Write on the tragic quality of ‘The Birthday Party’

             ‘The Birthday party’ is writen by Harold Pinter. Harold Pinter was a Novel Prize winer, British Playwright, screen writer, director and actor. Pinter was born in Hackney, London and educated there downs school. He was sprinter and a keen cricket player, acting in school play and writeg course. He attented the Royal Academy of dramatic art but did not completed it. He marriaged actress Vivien Merchant and had a son. He left and second tim married with Lady Antonia Fraser in 1980. Pinter produce the first play is ‘The Room’ in 1957. His second play is ‘The Birthday Party, closed after eight performance, but was enthusiastically reviewed by critic Harold Habson. His most of the work has know as a ‘comedy of menace.’ ‘No Man’s Land’ and ‘Betrayal’us the moral plays. He directed 50 producation for stage, theatre and screen. Pinter receiving 50 awards, prizes amd other honours, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005. He died from liver cancer on 23 Dec. 2008.

             ‘The Birthday Party’ is the story of Stanley Webber’s life at a rundown seaside boarding house is disrupted by the unexpected arrival of two man Goldberg and McCann, who terrorise him and eventually take him away. Stanley is the only guest at Meg and Petey’s guesthouse. He becomes perturbed when he is told that new people are coming to stay. A young woman, Lulu, arrives with a package for Stanley. When the two visitors Goldberg and McCann turn up, they claim to have a job to finish. Goldberg suggests that they throw a party for Stanley as it’s his birthday. They corner and interrogate Stanley, their questions becoming ever more aggressive and absurd. They talk about a mysterious ‘organisation’ and are generally threatening in their demeanour. Pinter uses drumming and hysterical laughter to intensify the situation. A game of blind man’s bluff is played. The lights go out. Lulu faints, and it looks as if Stanley may have been about to assault her. The men’s strange menacing behaviour continues the following morning. They claim that Stanley has suffered a nervous breakdown, and the play ends with them taking him away. Petey makes an attempt to stop them, but they threaten him too. Irving Wardle famously described the play as ‘a comedy of menace’, while Pinter’s biographer, Michael Billington, calls the play ‘a cry of protest’.

·     What is Comedy of Menace

              Generally comedy makes people laugh but the word of Menace is makes differents it. The comedy of menace is inspires both positive and nagative feelings. Comedy is used during a dangerous situation to cause audiences to draw judgment about a character of communication. The words are focus of often powerful events and created conflicting emotions from its audience. The name of the ‘Comedy of menace’ immedialtely bring contradiction to mind, because comedy is given the entertentment to autdience the word ‘Menace’ implies something threatenining this pharase involves laughing at an ominous situation. Some play are unable to mingled the comedy with drama. ‘the Birthday Party is a character joking around about being in a menace situation while cleaning his gun to deal with the threat. The goal of such work is to generated tension about the situation . joking planing to shoot another person is generally not a tustworthy person. Pinter’s comedies of menace have a rather simplistic setting; they might focus on one or two powerful images and usually are set in just one room. A powerful force that isn’t specifically defined to the audience threatens characters in the plays. Audiences focus on the communications between the characters and generate the feeling and gist of the play from the conversations.

           The comedy of menace is present in the Birthday paty in the first scene it is a way of gently introducing the audience to thee world which Pinter is try to creat. This homour is quite subtle at first. Peter and Meg about whether Stanley is up or not play on the word up and down:

Meg : ‘Is Stanley up yet ?

Petey : I don’t know, is he ?

Meg : I don’t know. I haven’t seen him down

Petey : Well then, he can’t be up.

Meg : Haven’t you seen him down.

In this above conversation Pinter make a joke with the worry really who is they,  although the repitation in this short joke is very minor which made them smile and the humour also lulls them into a sense of confort. A joke with a similar effect  is made through another short dialogue between Meg and peter which Meg is asking who is having a infont with peter insisting that she does not know her until finally saying it’s Lady Mary Splatt’, to which Meg replies “I don’t know her.’  During the conversation of Meg and Stanley’s conversation has some comedic value it could also make the audience feel slightly enesays, perhaps will ask thirselves why this women of sixty treats a man thirty like a boy and why he plays along with her at time. Thus humor while seeming quite light can have a deeper meaning  and cover up something a lot more serious about a character and problems there Stanleys attempts at humour when talking to Lulu are a kind are a kind of his social inadequacy. When she said that it’s stuffy he replies ‘stuffy/ I disinfected the place this morning. And when she talks about his gerring under Meg’s feets he said he always on the table she talk about  his she seeps the floor. These two lines are both untrue and when Stanley’s aim seems to be make  a joke.  Secong observation is that, Goldberg does achieve what he wants to with his use of comedy and threats. This is because he want to create a more menacing scene in order to complexly destroy Stanley. His humour comes from the common expressions that he sometimes modifies. The different registers of these expressions. Pinter used comedy at that moments in the play in order to reassure the audience and to keep some suspence: if the whole length of the play was filled with a menacing atmosphere we would know that Stanley will lose the power struggle from the houmour  also brings a certain level of normality bake to the proceeding of the play so that the menacing atmosphere can increase slowly afgain creating more suspense. Stanley Webber is the protagonist of this play he is the only boarder at the Bole’s boaring house and is initially defined by lazyness unkeptness and smuggle cruely toward Meg. The might be a musician might want became a famous. Although there are a sense that he has sins unatoned for it. His aggressive depression transitions into a nervous breakdown when Goldberg and McCann arrive until he is nothing but bumbling like idiot. Goldberg and McCann are new visitors related to Stanley’s past. MartinEsslin gives various possibilities about Stanley’s past. According to Esslin, like Heidegger,Pinter takes as his starting point that fundamental anxiety, which is nothing less than a living being’s basic awareness of non-being, of annihilation. Pinter’s people are in a room, and theyare frightened of what is outside the room. Outside the room is a world peeping upon themwhich is frightening. Esslin also suggests that the root of the menace may be political –Stanley in his past may be belonged to some radical organization or Government or someEstablishment and now he has escaped from that for which the party or Government itself ishaunting for him. Stanley may be an absconder from some fanatic religious organization orhe may have escaped from a mental asylum. Stanley goes on using ‘they’ which can meanthat the concerned persons are unidentified or that Stanley is well-aware of their identity;again it can mean that he must have been associated with them where ‘they’ can stand for anygroup, organization or institution.

·     Conclusion

The Birthday Party is fantastic play by Harold Pinter. It is the best example of ‘Comedy of Menace’. As the definition Pinter has not only  conclude here the comedy and make the laughing of audience but he gives the tragedy on his play, the Birthday Party. Stanley’s condition, unexpected guest, Lulu’s rape, The birthday party, birthday Gift etc events make smile and entertainment of the audience but behind the reason of character is different. Like Stanley is real in problem, the owner of house but somehow he was fail to remove these expectedable guest. Lulu’s rape is the secret but Lulu can not told her problem to his families and also her loveable person.Thus some events of the Birthday party are seen as very critical. Thus Harold Pinter added some tragic qualities in his famous work, The Birthday Party.

Works Cited

Jennyfer. the birthday party; Comedy of Menace. n.d. 3 nov 2018.

Nedderman, Jamie. What is comedy of menace. n.d. 3 oct 2018.

Wikipedia. Comedy of menace. 8 july 2018. 3 Nov 2018.