Portrayal of Female Characters in Pinter’s Plays-Soma Mondal
Assistant Professor, Department of English,Gobardanga Hindu College
[Abstract: We have a certain series of fixed stereotypes on which the images of women depend.They are subjected to much violence and cruelty.There are certain limitations in Pinter’s women characters than male characters.]
Women in literature written by men are for the most part seen as other, as objects, of interest only insofar as they serve or detract from the goals of the male protagonist. Such literature is alien from female point of view because it denies her essential selfhood… (Donovan 212)
In literature we have a certain series of fixed stereotypes on which the images of women depend. These ideas are repeated over and again much in Western literature. The women are seen as objects to serve as others.
Millet’s Sexual Politics (1970), was only oneofthemanybooks that offered a critique of male-dominated literature and challenged the established (male) notions about how women are supposed to think, feel and react. Feminist criticism is moral because through this we see that in Western literature the women are seen not as human beings but as objects to facilitate men. They are subjected to much cruelty and evil.
Millet’s Sexual Politics was the first widely read work of feminist literary criticism. Millet’s focus was upon the twin poles of gender as biology and culture. In her analysis of D. H. Lawrence, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, and Jean Genet she reads literature as a record of male dominance. As a “resisting reader”, Miller included critiques of capitalism, male power, crude sexuality, and violence against women. (Guerin 223-224)
“I myself have never able to find out precisely what feminism is,” British author and critique Rebecca West remarks; “I only know that other people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or prostitute” (Guerin 222) .Thus we see that whenever a woman tries to think in a different way she is considered as a feminist.
Indeed, feminism has often focussed upon what is absent rather than what is present,reflecting concern with the silencing and marginalisation of women in a patriarchal culture, a culture organised in the favour of men… (Guerin 222-223) Feminism thus becomes an overtly political approach which attacks other approaches because of their false assumptions about women. As Judith Fetterly has bluntly pointed out,”Literature is political” and its politics “is male” (Guerin 223)
The problem from which women suffer has no name. It is buried and unspoken for many years.
It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even to herself the silent question- “Is this all? (Friedan15)
After going through Pinter’s plays I have found that his women characters are assigned a lower level and a negative role compared to his male characters.
Under the category of the good-women stereotypes, that is, those who serve the interests of the hero are the patient wife, the mother/martyr, and the lady. In the bad or evil category are deviants who rejects or do not properly serve man or his interests: the old maid/career women, the witch/lesbian, the shrew or domineering mother/wife. Several works, considered archetypal masterpieces of the Western tradition, rely upon these simplistic stereotypes of women… (Donovan 214)
Thereare certain limitations in Pinter’s women characters, giving more closed space to his male characters. In several plays we can see that the male characters are irritated by the presence of motherly type women character. The female characters in these plays are placed under the stereotyped patriarchal society. These female characters are an integration of the ‘mother and the whore’.
Like Sally in Night School, Stella in The Collection and Sara in The Lover, Ruth also assumes the role of a mother and a prostitute. If a woman is a whore in that case the woman can be treated as a sexual object without any consideration of her own feeling and desires. And often the more helpless a male he trends to dream of woman as obedient, slave and prostitute. Hence, the stern, unapproachable, mother image, in a sexual dream of a child tends to turn into an image of a whole. In Betrayal, Emma shows single “explicit feminist banners”, which separates her from the male world emotionally. In Landscape, through Beth’s character Pinter shows extreme feminity.
Simon De Beauvoir however, argues that woman is always situated as the other to man. (Waugh,Patricia. 321).
Throughout the dramatic career of Pinter – The Room to Betrayal, the role of female characters is that of Castaway. The women characters are perceived as threatening, terrifying, unwanted and undesirable by the male world. They are treated as ‘other’ and outcast. The lives of the female characters are disturbed by the male interference. We find this concept in Pinter’s first play The Room, 1957. The protagonist of the play, Rose, is a simple minded old woman who inhabits the room with her husband, Bert, who never speaks to her although he is pampered and fed with overwhelming motherliness. As the play opens we find her engrossed in household activities like buttering the bread, wiping Cup and Saucer, etc. which are very common and simple activities but slowly we see that she has a fear of the outside world and has an extreme sort of attachment with her room. Her plight is that of a human nature rather than feminine. She has an existential crisis and her questions are onto logical. Her world and activities are restricted within the room and the outside is winter, cold and night. The room is a kind of comfort and security to her in a hostile world. The room is projected as a small area with light and warmth, whereas, the basement is dark, dawn and cold. The play opens with a typical domestic atmosphere but from the very beginning we can see that the husband, Bert is totally unresponsive to his wife, Rose. She has a typical fear for the outside world. Then the landlord Mr. Kidd enters into the room. Bert maintains his silence. There is a strange kind of conversation between Rose and Mr. Kidd. After that both Mr. Kidd and Bert leave. We can again see Rose’s motherly feelings when Bert is ready to leave.
[Rose]: All right. Wait a minute. Where’s your jersey?
She brings the jersey from the bed.
Here you are. Take your coat off. Get into it.
She helps him into his jersey.
Right. Where’s your muffler?
She brings a muffler from the bed. [R, I, 110]
After this scene only we find that Rose’s character takes a largely unflattering image.
The relationship of Rose and Bert is shown in such a way that our sympathy goes with Bert due to the over emphasized motherly care of Rose towards Bert. The entry of the young couple Mr. and Mrs. Sands further complicates Rose’s precarious position. They informed Rose that they have come to visit Rose’s precarious position. They informed Rose that they have come to visit Rose’s room as it is considered to be vacant. In this relationship also we see that the wife, Clarissa, tries to dominate her husband through motherly feelings.
MRS SANDS : You’re sitting down!
MR SANDS : (jumping up) who is?
MRS SANDS : You were.
MR SANDS : Don’t be silly. I perched
MRS SANDS : I saw you sit down.
MR SANDS : You didn’t see me sit down because I did not sit bloody well down. I
perched!
MRS SANDS : Do you think I can’t perceive when someone’s sitting down? (R, I, 116)
Through their conversation it is seen that Mr. Sands is confused regarding his wife or mother relationship and the wife denies that she is her husband’s mother.
MRS SANDS : You take after your uncle, that’s who you take after!
MR SANDS : And who do you take after?
MRS SANDS : (rising): I didn’t bring you into the world
MR SANDS : You didn’t what?
MRS SANDS : I said, I didn’t bring you into the world.
MR SANDS : Well, who did then? That’s what I want to know. Who did?
Who did bring me into the World?
We can see that the mother-child relationship is no loving, caring and benevolent but is rather a negative one. Our sympathy goes on with the male characters. Rose’s position is more worsened when the blind Negro comes to met her. Rose is showing a fear, guilt about her past life. May be she was a whore. Her change of name from Rose to Sal is also giving prove for this. If we compare Sal with Sally in Night School, then the role of a prostitute is more visible. Thus, Bert’s attack to the Negro is a form of suppressing the female and Rose’s blindness is a punishment given to her for her moral cowardice, subjugation to patriarchy and violating the societal norms. The woman is seen as helpless, defenceless and obviously in a disadvantageous position, vulnerable in the hands of the patriarchy.
The second play of Pinter The Birthday Party 1957, projects Stanley, a male character as the protagonist of the play. Like rose, of The Room, he also suffers from a certain fear. He lives in a boarding house, where we meet the first woman character, Meg, who nurtures Stanley, as her own son. Here also we have a confirming mother-son relationship. Meg is the landlady of Stanley, but shows unnecessary care and attention towards Stanley and he tries to revolt against typical matriarch. Like The Room, here also we find the old couple, Meg and Petey in the serving breakfast table and Meg doing simple works like giving breakfast to her husband and talking a lot but like Bert, Petey is also not very responsive to her questions. When he reads out the news that a lady named Mary Splatt has given birth to a girl Meg shows her likeness towards a boy.
Petey : (studying the paper). Er— a girl.
Meg : Not a boy?
Petey : No.
Meg : Oh, what a shame. I’d be sorry. I’d much rather have a little boy.
Petey : A little girl’s all right.
Meg : I’d much rather have a little boy. [B.P.11]
Thus, we can see Meg’s fondness over a male child and thus, her love towards Stanley is stronger. She even requests Petey to ask Stanley to take her for a walk.
Meg : I wish Stanley would take me for a walk along the front
one day. When was I last along the front? Why don’t you
ask him to take me for a walk one day, Petey? (B.P, 1, 11)
Meg is not happy from her marriage with Petey and so her attention is shifted from Petey to Stanley. Petey is passive towards her.
Stanley : You’re a bad wife.
Meg : I’m not. Who said I am?
Stanley : Not to make your husband a cup of tea. Terrible.
Meg : He knows I’m not a bad wife.
Stanley : Giving him sour milk instead.
Meg : It wasn’t sour.
Stanley : Disgraceful.
Meg: You mind your own business, anyway. (Stanley eats).
You won’t find many better wives than me, I can tell you. I
Keep a very nice house and I keep it clean. (B. P. 1, 16)
There is a suppressed sexual feeling in Meg and this comes out even when Meg talks to Stanley and he can also sense this.
Stanley : What?
Meg : The fried bread.
Stanley : Succulent.
Meg : You shouldn’t say that word.
Stanley : What word?
Meg : That word you said.
Stanley : What Succulent–?
Meg : Don’t say it!
Stanley : What’s the matter with it?
Meg : You shouldn’t say that word to a married woman.
Stanley : Is that a fact?
Meg : Yes.
Stanley : Well, I never knew that.
Meg : Well, it’s true.
Stanley : Who told you that?
Meg : Never you mind
Stanley : Well, if I can’t say it to a married woman who can? Say it to? (B.P, I, 17-18)
We find that in the beginning Meg tries to show that she does not like the word ‘succulent’ used by Stanley but later on she herself asks Stanley whether she is really succulent or not. Stanley understands the hidden sexuality within Meg and thus Meg loses her surrogate motherly qualities over Stanley and he shows his male power on her. Thus, Meg becomes a thing of pity to both her husband Petey and Stanley. Thus, Meg becomes a mother and a flirt together. Critic Martin Esslin refers contemptuously to Meg’s ‘servile’ eroticism. Later on in the play we see that Goldberg, thus, exploits feminity and she dreams herself as ‘the belle of the ball’. Then we find that Meg is celebrating Stanley’s birthday, without knowing his actual birthday and gives him a present—a drum and tries to see Stanley as a child and the girl from next door, Lulu comes with a present. Stanley is not interested in Lulu and refuses to go out with her. Then we see that after a certain period of time Stanley is unable to bear the situation and Stanley tries to strangle Meg and rape Lulu. The play, thus, shows the fear of women over the male characters. And at last they are castrated by the men.
In Pinter’s third full-length play, The Homecoming, we find a different image of a woman who is a mother and a whore but is not completely dependent on men but she, too, shows her own desires. It is the homecoming of the woman, the mother and not the son. The daughter-in-law takes the position of the dead mother and joins the family business of prostitution. Ruth is the wife of Teddy and they have come to meet Teddy’s family. We find typical male chauvinism dictating hatred, asking for sexual favour and abuses toward the female and at the same time their childishness wants motherly affection and care. The mother figure is appreciated and hated at the same time.
Man reminisces about Jessie, his late wife, who taught his boys every single bit of the moral code they live by, his generosity toward her, his exertions in building up his business and inevitably also the exploits of the late Mac Gregor. But almost in the same breath he call Jessie a ‘sluttish’. (Esslin, Martin. 144)
From the play we came to know that before marrying Teddy she was a model and may be they are not happily married as a result it is much more easier for her to accept the proposal of the patriarch than to leave the house with her husband. The patriarch comes under her control and she enjoys this situation.
He falls to his knees and crawls up to Ruth, pleading all the way that he is not an old man and begging for a kiss. But Ruth remains impassive, stroking Joey’s head, while Lenny stands by watching. The curtain falls. (Esslin, Martin. 148)
The mother, Jessie, was involved in the family business of prostitution and after her death the children became motherless and also devoid as aesthetic and moral sense. Thus, after Ruth’s arrival this vacant position is again filled and Man openly says that,
Max: I’ve never had a whore under this roof before. Ever
since your mother died. My word of honour. [B.P.I, 42]
The personality of the dead mother pervades the entire play. Ruth is able to take a dominating position and at the same time is telling her husband to keep in touch. When Teddy was leaving Ruth says that,
Don’t become a stranger. [B.P.II, 80]
We see that Ruth is quite confident and authoritative in the play.
Ruth is no more a ‘hyacinth girl’ than she is a whore. By the end
of the play she has formed for herself a compact personality,
synthesizing all the aspects of the female principle, The mother, the
wife and the whole and achieving and ‘equilibrium’ that her
husband never managed to reach despite all his philosophical
theories. [Sakellaridou, 111]
Thus, after going through Pinter’s plays it is seen that the women characters are projected as more vulnerable in the hands of the male characters. They are shown as dominating the male characters but ultimately they are under the subjugation of the male dominance and are punished for their attitude. The norms of patriarchy are clearly visible throughout the plays. The male members create a lace of their own where the women are obviously considered as alien, as, ‘other’. They are considered as an intruder violating the male privacy and not as lover or beloved to be fondled. They are compartmentalised as over caring mother and a whore at the end. Thus, we can say with Kristeva, “Femininity and womanhood are not the same but patriarchy makes them appear identical. So women come to represent the boundary between symbolic order and imaginary chaos, either virgin or whore, idealised or vilified’’(Kenyon8).
Bibliography
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Pinter, Harold. The Birthday Party and Other Plays. London: Methuen, 1960.
______. The Caretaker. London: Methuen, 1960.
______. A Slight Ache and Other Plays. London: Methuen, 1961.
______. The Homecoming. London: Methuen, 1965, 1970ed.
______. Plays Four. London: Faber and Faber, 1993, 2005ed.
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http://www.communication.northwestern.edu/tic/belarusfreetheatre.php
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