Preethi Shanthi

Harold Pinter's Plays As 'comedies of Menace': ('the Birthday Party', 'the Room', 'the Dumb Waiter', 'the Caretaker') Preethi Shanthi

For the past few decades people have been torn apart by wars, terror attacks, financial crisis even in countries which were the so called super powers of the world. This has resulted in people living with insecurity, lack of recognition, fear and nostalgia and also led to broken families and forgotten friends whom we try to communicate only through social networking websites. In such a scenario the plays of Harold Pinter also expose the same especially through the theatre technique called comedy of menace which is a kind of a dark comedy which arises from a menacing situation. In his works there is always a clash between man's need for recognition and security and the pressure of the society which poses a challenge for him. All these views are expressed in the early plays of Pinter especially 'The Birthday Party', 'The Room', 'The Dumb Waiter', 'The Caretaker' and even after all these years of its creation the ideas expressed are fresh and novel. This work aims at analysing the selected works of Pinter for the Comedy of menace explored by him.