Theme And symbols (The Birthday Party)

Name: Dodiya Meghana J

Roll No: 11

Paper Name: The Modernist literature

Email Id:mdodiya26@gmail.com

Submitted To: Department Of English

• Harold Pinter was born in 1930 and died in 2008.

• He was a Nobel prize winning English playwright, screenwriter, director and actor.

• He was one of the most influential modern British

dramatist who whole for round about 50 years

Absurdity The term "absurd" was originally used by

Albert Camus in his 1942 essay “Myth of Sisyphus,” wherein he described the human condition as “meaningless and absurd.” Albert Camus “Myth of Sisyphus”.

The absurd in these plays takes the form of man’s reaction to a world apparently without meaning ,and or man as a puppet controlled by invisible outsider.

In almost every character we find a kind of disappointment and complain from life. Meg keeps on running meaningless conversations like “how is cornflakes ?” or “didn’t you enjoy your breakfast ?”etc. It is perhaps to fill the emptiness within her

Violence and cruelty• In the birthday party full of

violence, both physical and emotion ,overall suggesting that violence is fact of life.

• Stanley is cruel and violent towards but, much more afraid against other man.

• Much of the violence in the play concern women.Stanley not only intimidates Meg verbally,but he also prepare to assault Lulu.

• Finally,the threat of violence is ever-present in the play.

Blindness

• Man groping in the darkness-search for identity or search for existential human predicament.

• Game-played at party-Blind man’s buff

• Stanley’s glasses-cannot see without it –removes when feels nostalgic-Maccan breaks it-at the end promises to give new one.

Death

• Process of death• Stanley first loses his

sight(glasses broken),then his speech, finally ceases to exist.

• Wheel brrow and black car is symbolic of hearse where in coffin is carried for burial.

• He is neatly dressed up as dead body is cleaned and dressed up.

Symbols

MirrorNews-PaperWindowToy-Drum

Mirror

• Shows what we want to see about our self .an illusionary image.

• Shows self reflection to character what we are.

• In beginning of the movie ,camera focuses on mirror of the car, and through this we see what is passing by.

Newspaper• Obstacle in communication.• Petey is reading in the

beginning .we can read that behind newspaper he is hiding his impotency.

• Later on this newspaper was torn into pieces by Maccan,which represent that Maccan himself is broken inside like these torn pieces of newspaper

window and Toy-Drum

• Stanley as an artist but someone is destroying it at last.

• Window is symbolizes Hope of escape but it is meaningless

Reference

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=images+of+birthday+party+by+harold+pinter&FORM=HDRSC2

http://www.bing.com/search?q=theme+and+symole+of+birthday+party&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IE8SRC

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