New Academia: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory (Online ISSN 2347-2073) Vol. IV Issue I, Jan. 2015 228 TRIANGULAR ABSURDITY IN HAROLD PINTER’S THE CARETAKER Mudasir Ahmad Mir & Dr. Vinita Mohindra Research Scholar & Associate Professor Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal. mudasirmir1@gmail.com & vinitamohindra@gmail.com 9617601914 & 9425008518 Abstract The life in post-war period has been adverse due to the catalyst World War II for the infliction of human suffering. The period in the second half of the 20 th century has been an awful stage copious in predicament and misery. Harold Pinter and other absurdist playwrights have investigated the circumstances in the post-war period in which every kind of suffering haunted the humans. Existential dilemma has been the main problem that kept the human movement twisting—for they have to earn to keep their being. Breakdown of communication and identity crisis has been the issue among the people of 20 th century, and is aptly reflected in the play. The attitude of hegemony found among individuals is revealed mostly through the episodes of the play. Keywords: Communication breakdown, Hegemony, Identity crisis, Post-war, Suffering, The Caretaker The play The Caretaker depicts the human suffering and diverse predicament that haunted people in the mid-20 th century after the World War II. It is about the undisciplined life that people used to live in the post-war period, with dilemma in every aspect—economical, social, political, cultural, natural, intellectual, spiritual, and moral etc. Through this play, Pinter has skilfully portrayed the unfavourable circumstances that crippled the human society in the modern period. His plays locate the “collective subject” by exploring the relationship between an individual discourse and a collective ideology—between an individual and the society (Woodroffe 499). Such characters have dragged their sense of being towards plight and utter absurdism. The Theatre of the Absurd describes that absurd characters are fearful of darkness, obscurity, loneliness and usually suffer from various phobia—hydrophobia, nyctophobia, claustrophobia, insomnia, and other similar apprehensions. In an interview with Tynan, Pinter states: I think that in this play . . . I have developed, that I have no need to use cabaret turns and blackouts and screams in the dark. . . . I do see this play as merely . . . a particular human situation, concerning three particular people (qtd. in Gale 111). Pinter says that he has written plays about violent families. All the characters in the play are puzzled and have their distinctive stories to present which make the audience desperately anxious about the characters. Generally, the behaviour of absurd characters shocked the audience as being strange and unpredictable. Kerr writes, Pinter is “the only man working in the theatre [. . .] who writes existentialist plays existentially” (qtd. in Fuegi 32). Pinter and other absurdist playwrights delineate the absurd societies where every class had its unique problem. The senior class of the society had to earn for a living due to lack of any adult member in their life. Pinter presents a difference between