International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT) ISSN: 2249 – 8958, Volume-X, Issue-X 1 MANIPULATION OF NONSENSE TO BRING SENSE: THE PINTER TECHNIQUE Anuradha S., R.Udhya Kumar Abstract: Harold Pinter, the Nobel laureate, is a literary giant of modern drama in English. His plays are categorized as belonging to the absurd theatre along with the likes of Beckett. The absurd theatre makes use of language in a peculiar way to communicate the real predicament of human existence. Harold Pinter, as a chief exponent of the Absurd Theatre made a significant stamp on the theatrical language. His style is so unique that it led to the coinage of the word ‘Pinteresque’. The speeches in his plays are an interplay of both sense and nonsense. This article aims to analyze the language employed by Harold Pinter and in the process examine how absurd it actually is. Keywords : Absurd, expression, language, meaning, purpose, silence, I. INTRODUCTION After the World Wars, people were afflicted with depression and anger caused by trauma. Writers and dramatists expressed their anguish in their own ways. “Existentialism speaks powerfully to the sense of the 20th century as a chaotic and even catastrophic era, in which certainties have been lost and man is faced with the abyss of nothingness, or of his own capabilities for evil.” (Wynne 214) Absurd theatre grew out of such negativity as a reaction against it. The Theatre of the Absurd rocked the literary world with its unconventional, extraordinary use of language. Absurd Theatre projects life as meaningless and purposeless which is how they could have perceived it given their situation. The language employed by the dramatists of the Absurd theatre comes closest to colloquial everyday language of commoners. However, the plays of Absurdists are at the same time far removed from realism. They tease the audience to understand them. They employ a lot of nonsense. The plays selected here for analysis are The Birthday Party and One for the Road. II. METHODOLOGY A. SENSE THROUGH NONSENSE Pinteresque language has received mixed reactions. Pinter’s language is one filled with “mumbling, repetitiveness, poor grammar, incomplete sentences, non sequiturs, sudden shifts of subject matter, refusal or inability to leave a subject another character has left, and the like” 1 Revised Manuscript Received on July 22, 2019. * Correspondence Author First Author Name*, his/her department, Name of the affiliated College or University/Industry, City, Country. Email: xyz1@blueeyesintlligence.org Second Author Name, department, Name of the affiliated College or University/Industry, City, Country. Email: xyz2@blueeyesintlligence.org Third Author Name, department, Name of the affiliated College or University/Industry, City, Country. Email: xyz3@blueeyesintlligence.org (Dukore 4). It is almost always that the words uttered by Pinter’s characters are just verbal forms of images in their minds. Their words are not what they speak but what thoughts they are clinging to and unable to let go. For instance, in The Birthday Party, Meg asks Petey if the cornflakes she fixed for him are nice repeatedly. The plays are filled with dialogues which are mere repetitions – The opening dialogue itself is repetitive. Meg asks Petey, “Is that you Petey?”(1) more than three times. Then she asks if the cornflakes are nice yet again several times. III. RESULT AND DISCUSSION The reluctance to let go of a topic or idea or feeling is evident through all his characters. When they utter a phrase or a sentence or a word, it’s like they are stuck to it mentally. As they are struck mentally by a thought, they are unable to move on. They hold on to the same thought or feeling however uncomfortable and disturbing they might be. The reason being plain fear of what is to follow. There is not much to look forward to. The bleakness of life is a stark reality which slaps on the face of hope and expectation. Since the characters share this fear of reality, they are unwilling to face it. Instead they choose to talk about irrelevant things. There is an unnecessary stress laid on unimportant things while speaking. The focus is not to bring attention towards something but to remove the attention from what is ailing or disturbing. This can be seen play The birthday party, where after Stanley is carried away to an asylum, Meg is boasting of how lovely the party was. “Meg. Wasn’t it a lovely party last night? Petey. I wasn’t there. Meg. Weren’t you?” (87) Petey allows Meg to revel in her delusion instead of discussing the reality of Stanley’s exit. It has to be understood that Pinter has made the dialogues more natural because “real-life conversations don’t proceed smoothly and logically from point to point” (Kennedy 168). Another accusation levelled against Pinter is that he hides a lot of information. Pinter never reveals the true identity of any of his characters. There is an element of mystery surrounding all his characters. Audience get to see only the tip of the iceberg. Pinter is rightly defended by Mishra, according to whom “words are, in fact, more evocative than descriptive in nature” (Misra 64). Absurd Theatre is commonly associated with the inability of language to communicate. Pinter is not concerned about the ineffectiveness of language. He is concerned about how people are evasive while communicating. People are scared of revealing their identities since they believe it would harm them. Pinter does not argue that language is useless. “He rather tries to explore the dramatic possibilities of low-life idiom and conversational speech, in projecting the complex psychological states of modern life” (Misra 152). In the 1