The discourse of the opressed and the language of the abandoned in selected plays of Harold Pinter
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Date
2000-10
Authors
Jacobs, Edwena
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Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
The focus of this study is to explore the notions of oppression and abandonment and
language and discourse as it pertains to the works of Harold Pinter. A selected reading of
three psychoanalysts: Erich Fromm, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan facilitates an
explanation of the psychological effects of oppression, violence, victimisation and
alienation. According to Fromm, isolation is wo/man's most prodigious fear as being
abandoned from society institutes psychological disturbances. In the Pinterian landscape,
the characters are subjected to isolation and abandonment due to the oppressive society in
which they are positioned. The Freudian concept of unconscious discourse offers an
engaging explanation of the way in which Pinter's characters use discourse to signify
their ontological fears and repressed desires. Freud's theory on the mechanisms of the id,
ego and super-ego, and how these concepts correspond to repression and thus anxiety,
highlights the significant themes in Pinter's plays. The Lacanian notion of Other as it
relates to the laws and restrictive demands of society is manifested in Pinter' s plays as an
omnipresent menace. Thus the characters attempt to retreat from society as it threatens to
annihilate them, should they not conform. Ironically the tyrannical society is too powerful
for the characters, and consequently destroys them when they endeavour to defy the laws
of the Other. Accordingly Pinter's plays end with this final image of oppressed and
abandoned characters struggling in vain against the oppressive Other.
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Keywords
English drama -- 20th century -- History and criticism, Pinter, Harold, 1930- --Criticism and interpretation, Dissertation (M.A. (English))--University of the Free State, 2001