The whole human history is, so to speak, a process of a series of
struggles forexistence. So is the life of the individual. To exist, he
has to fight against the external manaces or persecutions that threaten
his existential security. And perhaps he will find the meaning of his
existence of oven his identity during such confronation. It ishow the
individual manages to exist in such a world of violence and menace that
Harold Pinter presents in his early drama.
This thesis consists of five chapters. The introductory chapter sets out
from Harold Pinter's biographical facts to introduce some major
characteristics of Pinter's works. Among them, the fact that he is a Jew
may have contributed most to the sense of menace that dominates his
dramatic world and to the presentation of his characters as alienated
human beings at the crisis of their existence. In the light of
Kierkegaardian existentialism, this chapter then advances to a thematic
study of Pinter's early drama: how the alienated individual encounters
his external menace. To each individual, it is not merely an outward
activity. Rather, it is a binary development that involves also an inward
metamorphosis.
The main body of this thesis is devoted to the exploration of the
above-mentioned theme revealed separately in Pinter's three full-length
plays. Chapter II concerns itself with how the pprotagonist Stanley in
The Birthday Party plays the ostrich policy and finally escapes into his
own annihilation. Chapter III deals with how Aston in The Caretaker
ventures to reach out for human contact. His attempt, nevertheless, ends
up in failure. The main concern of Chapter IV is how the heroine Ruth in
The Homecoming conquers the external menace by actively exerting her
woman potentiality.
By virtue of the foregoing chapters, the concluding chapter ventures to
trace Pinter's thematic progression of his early drama in accord with the
chronology of his writing, and the development of his later period as a
whole.