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The Birthday Party: The Archetypal Woman
The Birthday Party: The Archetypal Woman
Pinter wrote Birthday Party, the second play, in 1957. Its first performance took
place on 28 April 1958 at the Arts Theatre, Cambridge. There are three acts
running for two hours or more. The drama has an ABA pattern. It starts with a
given situation seemingly calm, but replete with signs of doom. It then explodes in
Stanley, the protagonist, lives in the boarding house of Meg and Petey. Two
new guests are expected. Stanley‟s sudden mood transitions like his irritated
comments concerning the poor breakfast, shows his restlessness about coming
visitors. Towards the conclusion of the first act, Goldberg and McCann, the
unexpected guests, appear. Suspense is developed by their referring to the job they
his tormentors Goldberg and McCann jostle for position. A series of questions
the truth. There is physical conflict and violence, game playing, and singing. In
the final act, the „C‟ section, calm seems to have returned. How Goldberg and
her serving role which reflects her subordination to her husband. On the other
hand, in her role as a nourisher of Petey and Stanley, she tries her best to exercise
power over them. She pesters Petey with trivial questions but his indifference to
her questions makes her extremely unpleasant and tiresome. Stanley also turns a
deaf ear to Meg‟s tiresome instructions, and thus avoids her domination. He even
STANLEY: What?
STANLEY: Succulent.
MEG: Yes.
Later Meg deliberately takes up the word „succulent‟ which was rejected by her:
“Am I really succulent?” (29). Thus she exhibits an erotic nature of women which
they try to suppress. Critic Martin Esslin refers contemptuously to Meg‟s „senile
eroticism‟ (Esslin 88). Instead of dominating Stanley and Petey, she becomes a toy
of their hands. Stanley knows well how to play with it. Calculating Meg‟s level of
MEG: Who?
MEG: What?
that van.
MEG: No!
Above dialogues are much more than mock-terrorisation. This is how Stanley
In most of the play, Meg is naive and oppressive wife with a desire to dominate
the male world. Only in one prominent incident, she voices her point of view
This speech may be true or fabricated, but this is Meg‟s expression of her
identity and longings, which goes unnoticed. None of the male characters is
of woman. She projects male superiority in disguised form. When she is told by
Petey that a lady gave birth to a girl, she expresses strong disappointment and her
own preference for a boy. This female wish accepts the male domination in the
not typed as good or bad. On the whole , Pinter‟s character‟s seem to belong to
real world though they are not real. In an interview to Lawrence Bensky he said
that he likes all his characters, „even a bastard like Goldberg‟ (Bensky 361). There
McCann can‟t be stereotyped as symbol of vice as they possess other human and
realistic aspects.
Meg‟s house is the seedy place where all the characters compete with one another
in mental and moral weakness. Initially Goldberg and McCann look powerful,
determined and confident. Soon mask of superiority falls off McCann as he starts
asking questions, clearly revealing his insecurity. Goldberg is the only person who
enjoys superiority over the others for quite some time. Soon mask of his
superiority also smashed to the ground when the deficiency of his own nature is
revealed:
(Desperate)…
momentary mental and vocal failure brings him down to the same paralytic
position as his own victim Stanley at the end of the play.” (Sakellaridou 41).
Goldberg and McCann are projected as victimizers, but they are as vulnerable as
their own victims. Pinter once said that “we are all in the same boat” (Thompson
change into victimizer and vice-versa. Katharine Burkman points out the blending
and same time with the weapon of verbal silence and physical absence, he fights
Another female character, Lulu, is the stereotype of the young, provocative, and
sexual object. Critics have regarded her as “a nubile bundle of fluff called Lulu”
(Anonymous 44). She is depicted merely as a sex object. She doesn‟t have much
job in the play. Lulu is portrayed as stupid and empty headed as Meg. Still these
male‟s ambivalence towards women explicitly which can illuminate the situation
redundant and useless. The hero victim is man and so the victimizers Goldberg
and McCann. Women are portrayed on the level of marginality. The play projects
Homecoming.
WORK CITED
Published in 1970 by Methuen & Co. Ltd under the title The Peopled Wound:
The Plays of Harold Pinter. Revised edn published in 1973 as Pinter: A Study
Press, 1988.
1961, 8-10.