The Birthday Party, a comedy of menace

comedy of be was a depot offset determinationd to describe Harold Pinters races by the drama critic Irving Wardle. He borrowed the term from the subtitle of star of David Camptons bring ins, The Lunatic View A Comedy of Menace. A comedy is a tragicomic play which contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of gelid expectations and so on in auberge to amuse and make the interview laugh. A scupper is or sothing which threatens to cause harm, evil or injury which squ ar offms kinda a an incompatible with the idea of a comedy.However, as The Birthday Party assigns, it is quite possible for a playwright to make off twain wag and terror in the similar play, and even at the same time, in set up to produce certain effects and to transmit ideas to the reference. Comedy is gift in The Birthday Party from the very firstborn off conniption it is a government agency of gently introducing the sense of hear ing to the world which Pinter is trying to create. The sense of humor is quite problematic at first, for lesson the exchange between Petey and zillion ab step up whether Stanley is up or non plays on the lyric up and run through Meg Is Stanley up yet? Petey I dont know.Is he? Meg I dont know. I formnt seen him toss off. Petey Well then, he cornerstonet be up. Meg Havent you seen him down? . Although the repetitions in this miserable exchange testament non make the audience burst tabu with laughter they tin pile make them smile and the humour similarly lulls them into a sense of comfort. A conjuration with a similar effect is do through another short parley between Meg and Petey in which Meg continu aloney have a bun in the ovens who is having a baby with Petey insisting that she wont know her until finally life tabuing its Lady Mary Splatt, to which Meg replies anticlimactically I dont know her.This mawkishness as well as the incongruous name of the woman (we do not imagine a Lady having the surname Splatt) creates humour and once more lulls the audience into a sense of peace and blueprintity. As well as this we get a sense of Megs stupidity, Peteys resignation to it and their relationship universe childless and routine from their sidesplitting yet uninteresting converse. Indeed, half the reason what they say awaits funny is because of how pointless it is. then, Pinter highlights the uselessness of Meg and Peteys intercourse and in multiplication the uselessness of everyday small talk.The worrying thing for the audience around this comedy is that it evidences a kind of futility Meg does notseem to have much of a life beyond these pointless conversations. Thus, while the humour of the dialogue lightens the shadow of the scene it as well poses a research on the passivity and futility of the lives of the uses and the lives of galore(postnominal) people in general. Humour besides serves to draw attention to the inquisit iveness of Meg and Stanleys relationship. Indeed, Meg treats him like a child despite his organism a man of thirty. We are made aware of the incident that Stanley is not a child when he comes on stage for the first time. out front this Megs calling him that boy and trying to get him out of bed by calling Stan Stanny Stan Im glide path up to fetch you if you dont come down Im coming up Im going to count to three One Two third makes the audience think he must be a child. Thus when we see him for the first time the incompatibility between the reality and what we have been lead to imagine creates humour. The inappropriateness of Megs treatment of Stanley and his being a richly grown man likewise creates humour at other moments of the play, for example when she asks him if he paid a visit this morning (went to the toilet).While Meg and Stanleys conversation has some comedic value it could also make the audience feel sparingly uneasy, perhaps they will ask themselves why this woma n of sixty treats a man of thirty like a boy and why he plays along with her at quantify. Their exchanges, for example, the dialogue revolving around Stanley calling Meg a succulent old washing bag and Megs reaction to it, seeming to believe that its a rude word is quite funny for the audience as again it highlights her silliness but makes their relationship even unnamedr as she speaks coyly she does not only play a maternal character but is also sanely flirtatious.Thus humour, while seeming quite light can have a deeper meaning and cover up something a lot more serious near a character and problems they may have. Likewise, Stanleys attempts at humour when talking to Lulu are a kind of proof of his social inadequacy. When she says that its stuffy he replies Stuffy? I disinfected the place this morning. And when she talks about his getting under Megs feet he says he al looks stands on the table when she sweeps the floor. These two lines are twain untrue and when saying them St anleys aim seems to be to make a joke.However, they both fall flat with Lulu and we could also imagine with the audience. Consequently, comedy, or rather attempts at it, evidence Stanleys lack of social skills. Therefore humour can be a way to introduce the audience to characters and their relationships with each other, and also make the audience think about these characters and perhaps their problems while detentioning them interested in the play itself. The parody of small talk also allows Pinter to pose questions to the audience about the futility of many of our lives.Comedy does not notwithstanding appear alone in this play, humour often appears during a somewhat frightening scene in which characters menace another. Some of these scenes are magnate struggles between characters or scenes where one character asserts themselves over another. For example, in the scene where Stanley tells Meg about the wheelbarrow he is obviously trying to menace her with his repeated questions (Do you know what? , Have you heard the latest? , And do you know what theyve got in that van? etc), the anonymous they, the imminence of today and his actions as he advances upon her.Despite the inauspicious aspect of this scene the position that what he is heavy(a) her with is a wheelbarrow adds a slightly bizarre and humorous tone. Indeed, the audience could laugh at Meg, thinking only she could be horror-struck of a wheelbarrow. However, her reaction to the threats is quite strong as she becomes breathless and cries out hoarsely. She seems to be afraid of it because its new and different, an example of human disquietude of the unknown, and also perhaps of being taken away as Stanley repeats twice Theyre looking for mortal.Either way the humorous aspect of someone being afraid of a wheelbarrow heightens the minacious melodic phrase for the audience as we dont understand her fear if she was afraid of something more normal we would not feel so ill at ease. Thus in this sc ene, Pinter makes use of a comedic aspect with a menacing atmosphere in aim to make the audience aware of our own fears of what we do not understand. Comedy and menace also appear together in both the first medicine hall scene and just before it.In the sit down scene, a certain amount of humour can be derived from the fact that three grown men are playing a childish jeopardize about who will sit down first, but what this game represents is a power struggle. As with the wheelbarrow, this silly game is symbolic of something much more serious here, the person who sits will abide power. This menacing part of the scene is shown by the insistence of Goldberg and McCann that Stanley sit down and McCanns yelling Thats a dirty trick Ill kick the shite out of him. Interestingly, Stanley seems to try to lighten the atmosphere with the joke (Now youve both had a rest you can get out ) which causes McCann to say this, but he only succeeds in heightening the tense and menacing atmosphere of the scene. Again, humour does not take away from the threat but adds to it, making it worse. The fact that Stanleys joke doesnt lighten the scene as he hoped can also show the inadequacies of language. Indeed, one would not expect a joke to create more threats and menace. Thus, through the pairing of humour with menace Pinter shows the audience how words do not always achieve the desired effects and therefore is evidence of our own shortfalls as we do not always make what we would like to through our speech.However, Goldberg does achieve what he wants to with his use of comedy and threats. This is because he wants to create a more menacing scene in order to completely destroy Stanley. His humour comes from the common expressions that he sometimes modifies, such as Youre beginning to get on my breasts, and the different registers of these expressions, for example he says Why are you driving that old lady off her surpass? which seems very colloquial compared to his normal speech. He also makes an ironic joke when he says that McCann is the life and soul of any party, which is evidently monstrous as the audience can tell that he isnt from how little he speaks. Goldbergs jokes bank line with the serious and statementling man who makes Stanley sit down but by saying quietly Webber. SIT DOWN. Indeed, we feel more menaced by Goldberg than by McCann because as McCann has already yelled at Stanley we feel as though we know what he is capable of but we dont authentically know how much Goldberg can do with his power of speech.The power which comes from the paradoxical pairing of humour with menace can be seen in the first music hall scene and in the scene with Lulu. In the music hall scene, the fast pace of the short, nonsensical questions creates a sense of need and fear as we do not know what the point of all these questions is. While some of the questions and accusations seem serious, such as Why did you bring home the bacon the organisation? , others creat e humour such as, When did you last have a bath or McCann You throttled her. Goldberg With arsenic.At the end of the scene the question they are asking him is the well known joke Why did the grumbler cross the road? . It is this question, one of the most unanswerable of all the ones they ask him that finally makes him break down he can no bimestrial answer. The fact that a joke question is one of the causes of Stanleys destruction shows the potence of humour. Indeed, Freud theorised that in addition to the one who makes the joke, there must be a certify person who is taken as the object of the hostile aggressiveness, and a third in whom the jokes aim of producing pleasure is fulfilled.In this scene, Goldberg and McCann make the jokes to amuse the audience while Stanley is the victim. However, the audience does not really laugh at these jokes, in fact they serve more to make us uneasy, but we windlessness bring in the humour in them and perhaps even appreciate it. The same thre e person structure is found in the scene where McCann menaces Lulu. In that scene, Lulu is the victim while McCann tells her savagely to confess while Goldberg creates humour by picking up everything she says and turning it against her. For example she says You taught me things a daughter shouldnt know before shes been married at least three times , to which Goldberg replies Now youre a jump ahead What are you complaining about? .The audience will appreciate Goldbergs humour while also finding what Lulu herself says funny despite the fact that she is evidently upset and angry, as it says in the stage directions. This humour followed so quickly by McCanns threats will again make the audience uneasy. This uneasiness of the audience is partly caused by our finding Goldberg, and perhaps even McCann, funny when we feel perhaps that we shouldnt. By being amused by them we ally ourselves with them, the two characters who we know to be manipulative and controlling.Indeed, through their (G oldbergs especially) humour we are manipulated by them to laugh at the other characters. Thus, Pinter shows by placing comedic elements with menacing ones that humour can be aright and creates relationships between us relationships which have a strong element of control to them, as our feelings and reactions are manipulated by Goldberg, just like the other relationships which we see in the play. Therefore, we can say that Pinters comedy of menace is a way to show us how he believes that all relationships revolve around one person asserting their power over another.The atmosphere of menace which is present in this play does not only appear in connective with humour. Instead it often relies on the unknown or things not being fully explained. For example, when Goldberg and McCann first arrive, they come through the back door without knocking, which is in itself quite odd, then Goldberg says he wasnt looking for a number when McCann asks him how he knows its the right home. This is q uite an eerie thing to say as the audience can ask themselves what he was looking for as normally you recognise a house by the number.Indeed, it is this abnormality and not knowing how Goldberg knew which house he wanted which creates a sense of a threat or that something bad will happen. This can show the audience how we feel a need for things to be normal, we fear things that we dont understand or that are new. Likewise, McCanns refusal to join Stanley in conversation at the beginning of the second act, bragging(a) short answers and asking little in return is really a refusal to make normal conversation. These short responses seem quite menacing because they contrast against Stanleys obviously open discussion.The audience could believe that Stanleys trying to tempt McCann into conversing with him mightily is not only to get information about why he is there but to also make McCann seem more normal and thus less menacing. Like the opening scene with its pointless dialogue this s cene shows the human need for speech in order to keep the fear of a threat, in this case represented by McCann, at bay. Language is not the only menacing thing, there are also several small actions or events which add to the menacing atmosphere of the play the synchronised whistling, McCanns disunite the newspaper into strips and the lights during the birthday party.None of these things should seem that menacing by themselves but the context in which they are placed makes them seem so. Two strangers whistling the same tune together while talking, a grown man sitting at a table tearing paper, a light being shone on a man at his own birthday party as though he is a police suspect and finally a blackout which makes Stanley become baseless all seem abnormal and strange for the audience we do not understand why they happen (except for the blackout, and then we only find out later).It is this not understanding and abnormality of the events which adds to the menacing atmosphere of the pl ay. Therefore we can say that the threatening ambiance of the play is created through language, in finical humour and the unknown, but also through certain eerie and strange events or deeds. The reason Pinter uses these things to make the audience afraid is to show us our fear of what we do not know and the abnormal. However, Pinter makes sure that some of the menacing atmosphere is elevated at times, which actually emphasises how strong this atmosphere is.The threatening ambiance is lessened by the use of humour. This humour can be found in the first dialogue between Goldberg and McCann, for example, when McCann says that Goldberg, who is obviously a Jew, is a true Christian. There is also humour with the dialogue between Goldberg and Meg, after the first music hall scene, when he is admiring her localize and slaps her bottom, as well as before when he calls her a tulip and she asks What colourise? .Pinter uses comedy at these moments in the play in order to promise the audienc e and to keep some suspense if the whole length of the play was filled with a menacing atmosphere we would know that Stanley will doze off the power struggle from the beginning. The humour also brings a certain take of normality back to the proceedings of the play so that the menacing atmosphere can increase slowly, again creating more suspense. Thus, I agree completely with the description of The Birthday Party as a comedy of menace. While comedy and menace both appear separately in the play it is together that they affect the audience most.The association of two seemingly opposing themes in one play allows the audience to realise some of Pinters preoccupations concerning the inadequacy of language but also its power, how we have some chimerical fears concerning the unknown and the abnormal, how relationships work through manipulation and power struggles and the passivity of so many people throughout their lives. As well as this, the fact that we can associate these two terms, f inding something menacing yet humorous at the same time, could also be a way for Pinter to show the paradoxical nature of human beings.