The document provides an analysis of Harold Pinter's play "The Birthday Party" as a modernist work. Some key points made include: - Pinter is known for his non-conforming plays which use ambiguous themes and open-ended plots. - "The Birthday Party" uses ambiguity of human nature and shifting realms of reality consistent with modernist works. - The play can be categorized as a "comedy of menace" genre due to its use of comic elements alongside generated fear and looming threats. - Elements like silence, pauses and lack of communication enhance the play's mysterious atmosphere. - Issues of identity, apathy, misogyny, and violence are

1. The Birthday Party
as a
Modern Play

2. Name: - Dharti Makwana
Sem:- M.A. sem-3
Subject:- Modernist Literature
Topic:- The Birthday Party by Horald.
Pinter
Department of English, Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar
University

3. ➔ Born on 1930 - Died on
2008.
➔ Playwright, director,
actor, poet and social
activist.
➔ He was ‘Nobel
Laureate’ of 2005.
Harold Pinter

4. ➔Plays noted for non-conformist
stance and political undertones.
➔Defined conventional tropes of
literary writing-open ended plot
sequence and ambiguous themes.

5. Major works of Pinter
“Your writing absolutely fascinates me”
- Noël Coward

6. Modern aspects of the play
➔Inherent ambiguity of human
nature.
➔Categorization and acquires newer
levels of significations.
➔Illogical characters motivated by
unknown reasons.
➔Truth posited as a construct
➔Shifting realms of reality.

7. What is Comedy of menace?
➔ Tragedy with a comic elements.
➔ Term coined by Irving Wardle.
➔ Fear generated by the looming menace.
➔ Major dramatic associated with the genre
● Harold Pinter
● David Compton
● Nigel Dennis
● N.F. Simpson
Irving Wardle

8. The Birthday Party-Comedy of Menace
➔ Hint of menace permeates the play.
➔ Stanley's conversations rife with veiled
threats and impending danger.
➔ Tone of mutual suspicion predominant.
➔ Stanley's helplessness.
“Goldberg: But why is it
that before you do a job
you're all over the place,
and when you're doing
the job you're as cool as a
whistle?”

9. Pinterian silence and pauses
Deeper significance of action
Enhance the mysterious past
Inability to communicate

10. Identity
➔ Fluidity of identity.
➔ Misleading of Meg by Goldberg
and McCann.
➔ Goldberg's past appears more
like a carefully cultivated fable.
➔ Various names adopted by
Goldberg.

11. Apathy and change
➔ Meg’s comforting web of deceit.
➔ She becomes symbol of fixity.
➔ Their life becomes an endless cycle
of repetitive patterns.
➔ Petey and meg’s monotonous life.

12. Misogyny and Violence
➔ Stanley is rude and dismissive
towards Meg.
➔ Lulu becomes an object for
sexual gratification.
➔ Femal characters are not
portrayed in a positive light.

13. Conclusion
➔ Play ends on a notes of ambivalence.
➔ Pinter deliberately leaves the play open
ended.
➔ Fluidity in narration and action.
➔ Indicates level of identity that can be
found in the contemporary world as
well.
➔ Remains a true literary classic.

14. Citations
Majhi, Sanjana. "HAROLD PINTER'S REPRESENTATION OF LIFE AND SOCIETY
IN 'THE BIRTHDAY PARTY'." Modernism and Literature. Blogger, 6 Oct. 2013. Web.
04 Sept. 2020.
Begam, Richard. Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity. Stanford,
California: Stanford U.P., 1996.
Clark, J.C.D. Our Shadowed Present: Modernism, Postmodernism, and
History. Stanford, California: Stanford U.P., 2004.
Cahoone, Lawrence E. From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology.
Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2003.
“From Modernism to Postmodernism” in Visual and Cultural Studies
[revised 10 November 2007]. [cited 2 February 2009.] Available from
http://homepage.newschool.edu/~quigleyt/vcs/postmodernism.pdf;
INTERNET.