Gulliver's Travels 2

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Gulliver’s Travels

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Click for Summary and Plot Overview -    Gulliver's Travels 1

Characters

Gulliver - The narrator and protagonist of the story. Although Lemuel Gulliver’s vivid and detailed style of narration makes it clear that he is intelligent and well educated, his perceptions are naïve and gullible. He has virtually no emotional life, or at least no awareness of it, and his comments are strictly factual. Indeed, sometimes his obsession with the facts of navigation, for example, becomes unbearable for us, as his fictional editor, Richard Sympson, makes clear when he explains having had to cut out nearly half of Gulliver’s verbiage. Gulliver never thinks that the absurdities he encounters are funny and never makes the satiric connections between the lands he visits and his own home. Gulliver’s naïveté makes the satire possible, as we pick up on things that Gulliver does not notice.

The Emperor - The ruler of Lilliput. Like all Lilliputians, the emperor is fewer than six inches tall. His power and majesty impress Gulliver deeply, but to us he appears both laughable and sinister. Because of his tiny size, his belief that he can control Gulliver seems silly, but his willingness to execute his subjects for minor reasons of politics or honor gives him a frightening aspect. He is proud of possessing the tallest trees and biggest palace in the kingdom, but he is also quite hospitable, spending a fortune on his captive’s food. The emperor is both a satire of the autocratic ruler and a strangely serious portrait of political power.

The Farmer - Gulliver’s first master in Brobdingnag. The farmer speaks to Gulliver, showing that he is willing to believe that the relatively tiny Gulliver may be as rational as he himself is, and treats him with gentleness. However, the farmer puts Gulliver on display around Brobdingnag, which clearly shows that he would rather profit from his discovery than converse with him as an equal. His exploitation of Gulliver as a laborer, which nearly starves Gulliver to death, seems less cruel than simpleminded. Generally, the farmer represents the average Brobdingnagian of no great gifts or intelligence, wielding an extraordinary power over Gulliver simply by virtue of his immense size.

The King - The king of Brobdingnag, who, in contrast to the emperor of Lilliput, seems to be a true intellectual, well versed in political science among other disciplines. While his wife has an intimate, friendly relationship with the diminutive visitor, the king’s relation to Gulliver is limited to serious discussions about the history and institutions of Gulliver’s native land. He is thus a figure of rational thought who somewhat prefigures the Houyhnhnms in Book IV.

Lord Munodi - A lord of Lagado, capital of the underdeveloped land beneath Laputa, who hosts Gulliver and gives him a tour of the country on Gulliver’s third voyage. Munodi is a rare example of practical-minded intelligence both in Lagado, where the applied sciences are wildly impractical, and in Laputa, where no one even considers practicality a virtue. He fell from grace with the ruling elite by counseling a commonsense approach to agriculture and land management in Lagado, an approach that was rejected even though it proved successful when applied to his own flourishing estate. Lord Munodi serves as a reality check for Gulliver on his third voyage, an objective-minded contrast to the theoretical delusions of the other inhabitants of Laputa and Lagado.

Glumdalclitch -  The farmer’s nine-year-old daughter, who is forty feet tall. Glumdalclitch becomes Gulliver’s friend and nursemaid, hanging him to sleep safely in her closet at night and teaching him the Brobdingnagian language by day. She is skilled at sewing and makes Gulliver several sets of new clothes, taking delight in dressing him. When the queen discovers that no one at court is suited to care for Gulliver, she invites Glumdalclitch to live at court as his sole babysitter, a function she performs with great seriousness and attentiveness. To Glumdalclitch, Gulliver is basically a living doll, symbolizing the general status Gulliver has in Brobdingnag.

The Queen - The queen of Brobdingnag, who is so delighted by Gulliver’s beauty and charms that she agrees to buy him from the farmer for 1,000 pieces of gold. Gulliver appreciates her kindness after the hardships he suffers at the farmer’s and shows his usual fawning love for royalty by kissing the tip of her little finger when presented before her. She possesses, in Gulliver’s words, “infinite” wit and humor, though this description may entail a bit of Gulliver’s characteristic flattery of superiors. The queen seems genuinely considerate, asking Gulliver whether he would consent to live at court instead of simply taking him in as a pet and inquiring into the reasons for his cold good-byes with the farmer. She is by no means a hero, but simply a pleasant, powerful person.

Yahoos - Unkempt humanlike beasts who live in servitude to the Houyhnhnms. Yahoos seem to belong to various ethnic groups, since there are blond Yahoos as well as dark-haired and redheaded ones. The men are characterized by their hairy bodies, and the women by their low-hanging breasts. They are naked, filthy, and extremely primitive in their eating habits. Yahoos are not capable of government, and thus they are kept as servants to the Houyhnhnms, pulling their carriages and performing manual tasks. They repel Gulliver with their lascivious sexual appetites, especially when an eleven-year-old Yahoo girl attempts to rape Gulliver as he is bathing naked. Yet despite Gulliver’s revulsion for these disgusting creatures, he ends his writings referring to himself as a Yahoo, just as the Houyhnhnms do as they regretfully evict him from their realm. Thus, “Yahoo” becomes another term for human, at least in the semideranged and self-loathing mind of Gulliver at the end of his fourth journey.

Houyhnhnms - Rational horses who maintain a simple, peaceful society governed by reason and truthfulness—they do not even have a word for “lie” in their language. Houyhnhnms are like ordinary horses, except that they are highly intelligent and deeply wise. They live in a sort of socialist republic, with the needs of the community put before individual desires. They are the masters of the Yahoos, the savage humanlike creatures in Houyhnhnmland. In all, the Houyhnhnms have the greatest impact on Gulliver throughout all his four voyages. He is grieved to leave them, not relieved as he is in leaving the other three lands, and back in England he relates better with his horses than with his human family. The Houyhnhnms thus are a measure of the extent to which Gulliver has become a misanthrope, or “human-hater”; he is certainly, at the end, a horse lover.

Laputans - Absentminded intellectuals who live on the floating island of Laputa, encountered by Gulliver on his third voyage. The Laputans are parodies of theoreticians, who have scant regard for any practical results of their own research. They are so inwardly absorbed in their own thoughts that they must be shaken out of their meditations by special servants called flappers, who shake rattles in their ears. During Gulliver’s stay among them, they do not mistreat him, but are generally unpleasant and dismiss him as intellectually deficient. They do not care about down-to-earth things like the dilapidation of their own houses, but worry intensely about abstract matters like the trajectories of comets and the course of the sun. They are dependent in their own material needs on the land below them, called Lagado, above which they hover by virtue of a magnetic field, and from which they periodically raise up food supplies. In the larger context of Gulliver’s journeys, the Laputans are a parody of the excesses of theoretical pursuits and the uselessness of purely abstract knowledge.

Mary Burton Gulliver - Gulliver’s wife, whose perfunctory mention in the first paragraphs of Gulliver’s Travels demonstrates how unsentimental and unemotional Gulliver is. He makes no reference to any affection for his wife, either here or later in his travels when he is far away from her, and his detachment is so cool as to raise questions about his ability to form human attachments. When he returns to England, she is merely one part of his former existence, and he records no emotion even as she hugs him wildly. The most important facts about her in Gulliver’s mind are her social origin and the income she generates.

Gulliver’s Houyhnhnm Master - The Houyhnhnm who first discovers Gulliver and takes him into his own home. Wary of Gulliver’s Yahoolike appearance at first, the master is hesitant to make contact with him, but Gulliver’s ability to mimic the Houyhnhnm’s own words persuades the master to protect Gulliver. The master’s domestic cleanliness, propriety, and tranquil reasonableness of speech have an extraordinary impact on Gulliver. It is through this horse that Gulliver is led to reevaluate the differences between humans and beasts and to question humanity’s claims to rationality.

Don Pedro De Mendez - The Portuguese captain who takes Gulliver back to Europe after he is forced to leave the land of the Houyhnhnms. Don Pedro is naturally benevolent and generous, offering the half-crazed Gulliver his own best suit of clothes to replace the tatters he is wearing. But Gulliver meets his generosity with repulsion, as he cannot bear the company of Yahoos. By the end of the voyage, Don Pedro has won over Gulliver to the extent that he is able to have a conversation with him, but the captain’s overall Yahoolike nature in Gulliver’s eyes alienates him from Gulliver to the very end.

Brobdingnagians - Giants whom Gulliver meets on his second voyage. Brobdingnagians are basically a reasonable and kindly people governed by a sense of justice. Even the farmer who abuses Gulliver at the beginning is gentle with him, and politely takes the trouble to say good-bye to him upon leaving him. The farmer’s daughter, Glumdalclitch, gives Gulliver perhaps the most kindhearted treatment he receives on any of his voyages. The Brobdingnagians do not exploit him for personal or political reasons, as the Lilliputians do, and his life there is one of satisfaction and quietude. But the Brobdingnagians do treat Gulliver as a plaything. When he tries to speak seriously with the king of Brobdingnag about England, the king dismisses the English as odious vermin, showing that deep discussion is not possible for Gulliver here.

Lilliputians And Blefuscudians - Two races of miniature people whom Gulliver meets on his first voyage. Lilliputians and Blefuscudians are prone to conspiracies and jealousies, and while they treat Gulliver well enough materially, they are quick to take advantage of him in political intrigues of various sorts. The two races have been in a longstanding war with each over the interpretation of a reference in their common holy scripture to the proper way to eat eggs. Gulliver helps the Lilliputians defeat the Blefuscudian navy, but he eventually leaves Lilliput and receives a warm welcome in the court of Blefuscu, by which Swift satirizes the arbitrariness of international relations.

James Bates  - An eminent London surgeon under whom Gulliver serves as an apprentice after graduating from Cambridge. Bates helps get Gulliver his first job as a ship’s surgeon and then offers to set up a practice with him. After Bates’s death, Gulliver has trouble maintaining the business, a failure that casts doubt on his competence, though he himself has other explanations for the business’s failure. Bates is hardly mentioned in the travels, though he is surely at least as responsible for Gulliver’s welfare as some of the more exotic figures Gulliver meets. Nevertheless, Gulliver fleshes out figures such as the queen of Brobdingnag much more thoroughly in his narrative, underscoring the sharp contrast between his reticence regarding England and his long-windedness about foreigners.

Abraham Pannell - The commander of the ship on which Gulliver first sails, the Swallow. Traveling to the Levant, or the eastern Mediterranean, and beyond, Gulliver spends three and a half years on Pannell’s ship. Virtually nothing is mentioned about Pannell, which heightens our sense that Gulliver’s fascination with exotic types is not matched by any interest in his fellow countrymen.

Richard Sympson - Gulliver’s cousin, self-proclaimed intimate friend, and the editor and publisher of Gulliver’s Travels. It was in Richard Sympson’s name that Jonathan Swift arranged for the publication of his narrative, thus somewhat mixing the fictional and actual worlds. Sympson is the fictional author of the prefatory note to Gulliver’s Travels, entitled “The Publisher to the Readers.” This note justifies Sympson’s elimination of nearly half of the original manuscript material on the grounds that it was irrelevant, a statement that Swift includes so as to allow us to doubt Gulliver’s overall wisdom and ability to distinguish between important facts and trivial details.

William Prichard - The master of the Antelope, the ship on which Gulliver embarks for the South Seas at the outset of his first journey, in 1699. When the Antelope sinks, Gulliver is washed ashore on Lilliput. No details are given about the personality of Prichard, and he is not important in Gulliver’s life or in the unfolding of the novel’s plot. That Gulliver takes pains to name him accurately reinforces our impression that he is obsessive about facts but not always reliable in assessing overall significance.

Flimnap - The Lord High Treasurer of Lilliput, who conceives a jealous hatred for Gulliver when he starts believing that his wife is having an affair with him. Flimnap is clearly paranoid, since the possibility of a love affair between Gulliver and a Lilliputian is wildly unlikely. Flimnap is a portrait of the weaknesses of character to which any human is prone but that become especially dangerous in those who wield great power.

Tramecksan - Also known as the High-Heels, a Lilliputian political group reminiscent of the British Tories. Tramecksan policies are said to be more agreeable to the ancient constitution of Lilliput, and while the High-Heels appear greater in number than the Low-Heels, their power is lesser. Unlike the king, the crown prince is believed to sympathize with the Tramecksan, wearing one low heel and one high heel, causing him to limp slightly.

Slamecksan - The Low-Heels, a Lilliputian political group reminiscent of the British Whigs. The king has ordained that all governmental administrators must be selected from this party, much to the resentment of the High-Heels of the realm. Thus, while there are fewer Slamecksan than Tramecksan in Lilliput, their political power is greater. The king’s own sympathies with the Slamecksan are evident in the slightly lower heels he wears at court.

Reldresal  - The Principal Secretary of Private Affairs in Lilliput, who explains to Gulliver the history of the political tensions between the two principal parties in the realm, the High-Heels and the Low-Heels. Reldresal is more a source of much-needed information for Gulliver than a well-developed personality, but he does display personal courage and trust in allowing Gulliver to hold him in his palm while he talks politics. Within the convoluted context of Lilliput’s factions and conspiracies, such friendliness reminds us that fond personal relations may still exist even in this overheated political climate.

Skyresh Bolgolam - The High Admiral of Lilliput, who is the only member of the administration to oppose Gulliver’s liberation. Gulliver imagines that Skyresh’s enmity is simply personal, though there is no apparent reason for such hostility. Arguably, Skyresh’s hostility may be merely a tool to divert Gulliver from the larger system of Lilliputian exploitation to which he is subjected.

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Symbols

Lilliputians

The Lilliputians represent the human tendency to consider themselves the most important creatures in the universe, but their tiny size and insignificance in the world as a whole reveals the error in this belief. For example, even after peace has been reached with the neighboring island of Blefscu, the emperor is not satisfied with his victory. He wants to enlist Gulliver in continuing the war so he can take over Blefscu. The emperor has little regard for his neighbors because his beliefs differ from theirs, and he thinks his own importance justifies the lives that may be lost if the war continues.

Brobdingnagians

The Brobdingnagians' size magnifies both their best and worst aspects, symbolizing how all humans have the capacity for great good and beauty, as well as ugliness and evil. The farmer's family, Gulliver's first acquaintances in Brobdingnag, illustrate both extreme greed and extreme kindness. The farmer himself has no problem with exploiting Gulliver as a kind of sideshow attraction, to the detriment of Gulliver's health. The farmer's daughter, who Gulliver calls Glumdalclitch, is devoted to Gulliver's care, even leaving her family behind to accompany Gulliver to the royal court so she can protect him.

Laputans

The Laputans, and their ground-dwelling counterparts on Balnibarbi, symbolize the futility of seeking knowledge without the means or desire to put it to practical use. The Laputans eschew most normal human interactions, preferring a life of the mind, puzzling over mysteries of mathematics, physics, and astronomy all day. They are unable to construct sturdy homes, and their ideas often cause them stress, but they continue to pursue knowledge for its own sake. On Balnibarbi, the projectors engage in studies and experiments with the aim of improving the lives of their people, but their understanding of science and other topics is so incomplete that they lack the ability to construct useful experiments or learn anything that might accomplish their goals.

Houyhnhnms

The Houyhnhnms symbolize the rule of rational thinking and the benefits of collective living, but also the loss of individual identity that comes with extreme devotion to reason. While rationality has allowed the Houyhnhnms to construct a culture based on benevolence and friendship, peaceful and harmonious within, they are also overly beholden to the culture's rules and norms. Therefore, a recently widowed Houyhnhnm does not outwardly mourn her husband's passing, but she also does not live long after him. The master and his family have affection for Gulliver but social pressures force them to exile him. The denial of normal emotions prevent a full engagement with life.

Yahoos

The Yahoos symbolize a complete loss of rationality in a primitive state, but they also show how ongoing oppression can drive humans into this primitive state. Ample evidence of their propensity for violence appears in the novel; Yahoos fight one another; they hoard stones; and on one occasion a female tries to sexually accost Gulliver. At the same time, the Yahoos have little and are subject to abuse, enslavement, and rejection by the Houyhnhnms, which introduces a chicken-and-egg scenario: Are the Yahoos rejected because they are primitive, or are they violent because they have been rejected? Perhaps, as the Houyhnhnms claim, the Yahoos are a lost cause. On the other hand, the Yahoos have very little means for survival, which drives them to extreme measures.

Click for Summary and Plot Overview -    Gulliver's Travels 1

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Gulliver's Travels

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Gulliver’s Travels

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Summary

The book is written in the first person from the point of view of Lemuel Gulliver, a surgeon and sea captain who visits remote regions of the world, and it describes four adventures. In the first one, Gulliver is the only survivor of a shipwreck, and he swims to Lilliput, where he is tied up by people who are less than 6 inches (15 cm) tall. He is then taken to the capital city and eventually released. The Lilliputians indulge in ridiculous customs and petty debates. Political affiliations, for example, are divided between men who wear high-heeled shoes (symbolic of the English Tories) and those who wear low ones (representing the English Whigs), and court positions are filled by those who are best at rope dancing. Gulliver is asked to help defend Lilliput against the empire of Blefuscu, with which Lilliput is at war over which end of an egg should be broken, this being a matter of religious doctrine. Gulliver captures Blefuscu’s naval fleet, thus preventing an invasion, but declines to assist the emperor of Lilliput in conquering Blefuscu. Later Gulliver extinguishes a fire in the royal palace by urinating on it. Eventually he falls out of favour and is sentenced to be blinded and starved. He flees to Blefuscu, where he finds a normal-size boat and is thus able to return to England.

Gulliver’s second voyage takes him to Brobdingnag, inhabited by a race of giants. A farm worker finds Gulliver and delivers him to the farm owner. The farmer begins exhibiting Gulliver for money, and the farmer’s young daughter, Glumdalclitch, takes care of him. One day the queen orders the farmer to bring Gulliver to her, and she purchases Gulliver. He becomes a favourite at court, though the king reacts with contempt when Gulliver recounts the splendid achievements of his own civilization. The king responds to Gulliver’s description of the government and history of England by concluding that the English must be a race of “odious vermin.” Gulliver offers to make gunpowder and cannon for the king, but the king is horrified by the thought of such weaponry. Eventually Gulliver is picked up by an eagle and then rescued at sea by people of his own size.

On Gulliver’s third voyage he is set adrift by pirates and eventually ends up on the flying island of Laputa. The people of Laputa all have one eye pointing inward and the other upward, and they are so lost in thought that they must be reminded to pay attention to the world around them. Though they are greatly concerned with mathematics and with music, they have no practical applications for their learning. Laputa is the home of the king of Balnibarbri, the continent below it. Gulliver is permitted to leave the island and visit Lagado, the capital city of Balnibarbri. He finds the farm fields in ruin and the people living in apparent squalor. Gulliver’s host explains that the inhabitants follow the prescriptions of a learned academy in the city, where the scientists undertake such wholly impractical projects as extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. Later Gulliver visits Glubbdubdrib, the island of sorcerers, and there he speaks with great men of the past and learns from them the lies of history. In the kingdom of Luggnagg he meets the struldbrugs, who are immortal but age as though they were mortal and are thus miserable. From Luggnagg he is able to sail to Japan and thence back to England.

In the extremely bitter fourth part, Gulliver visits the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses who are cleaner and more rational, communal, and benevolent (they have, most tellingly, no words for deception or evil) than the brutish, filthy, greedy, and degenerate humanoid race called Yahoos, some of whom they have tamed—an ironic twist on the human-beast relationship. The Houyhnhnms are very curious about Gulliver, who seems to be both a Yahoo and civilized, but, after Gulliver describes his country and its history to the master Houyhnhnm, the Houyhnhnm concludes that the people of England are not more reasonable than the Yahoos. At last it is decided that Gulliver must leave the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver then returns to England, so disgusted with humanity that he avoids his family and buys horses and converses with them instead.

Plot Overview

Gulliver’s Travels recounts the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a practical-minded Englishman trained as a surgeon who takes to the seas when his business fails. In a deadpan first-person narrative that rarely shows any signs of self-reflection or deep emotional response, Gulliver narrates the adventures that befall him on these travels.

Gulliver’s adventure in Lilliput begins when he wakes after his shipwreck to find himself bound by innumerable tiny threads and addressed by tiny captors who are in awe of him but fiercely protective of their kingdom. They are not afraid to use violence against Gulliver, though their arrows are little more than pinpricks. But overall, they are hospitable, risking famine in their land by feeding Gulliver, who consumes more food than a thousand Lilliputians combined could. Gulliver is taken into the capital city by a vast wagon the Lilliputians have specially built. He is presented to the emperor, who is entertained by Gulliver, just as Gulliver is flattered by the attention of royalty. Eventually Gulliver becomes a national resource, used by the army in its war against the people of Blefuscu, whom the Lilliputians hate for doctrinal differences concerning the proper way to crack eggs. But things change when Gulliver is convicted of treason for putting out a fire in the royal palace with his urine and is condemned to be shot in the eyes and starved to death. Gulliver escapes to Blefuscu, where he is able to repair a boat he finds and set sail for England.

After staying in England with his wife and family for two months, Gulliver undertakes his next sea voyage, which takes him to a land of giants called Brobdingnag. Here, a field worker discovers him. The farmer initially treats him as little more than an animal, keeping him for amusement. The farmer eventually sells Gulliver to the queen, who makes him a courtly diversion and is entertained by his musical talents. Social life is easy for Gulliver after his discovery by the court, but not particularly enjoyable. Gulliver is often repulsed by the physicality of the Brobdingnagians, whose ordinary flaws are many times magnified by their huge size. Thus, when a couple of courtly ladies let him play on their naked bodies, he is not attracted to them but rather disgusted by their enormous skin pores and the sound of their torrential urination. He is generally startled by the ignorance of the people here—even the king knows nothing about politics. More unsettling findings in Brobdingnag come in the form of various animals of the realm that endanger his life. Even Brobdingnagian insects leave slimy trails on his food that make eating difficult. On a trip to the frontier, accompanying the royal couple, Gulliver leaves Brobdingnag when his cage is plucked up by an eagle and dropped into the sea.

Next, Gulliver sets sail again and, after an attack by pirates, ends up in Laputa, where a floating island inhabited by theoreticians and academics oppresses the land below, called Balnibarbi. The scientific research undertaken in Laputa and in Balnibarbi seems totally inane and impractical, and its residents too appear wholly out of touch with reality. Taking a short side trip to Glubbdubdrib, Gulliver is able to witness the conjuring up of figures from history, such as Julius Caesar and other military leaders, whom he finds much less impressive than in books. After visiting the Luggnaggians and the Struldbrugs, the latter of which are senile immortals who prove that age does not bring wisdom, he is able to sail to Japan and from there back to England.

Finally, on his fourth journey, Gulliver sets out as captain of a ship, but after the mutiny of his crew and a long confinement in his cabin, he arrives in an unknown land. This land is populated by Houyhnhnms, rational-thinking horses who rule, and by Yahoos, brutish humanlike creatures who serve the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver sets about learning their language, and when he can speak he narrates his voyages to them and explains the constitution of England. He is treated with great courtesy and kindness by the horses and is enlightened by his many conversations with them and by his exposure to their noble culture. He wants to stay with the Houyhnhnms, but his bared body reveals to the horses that he is very much like a Yahoo, and he is banished. Gulliver is grief-stricken but agrees to leave. He fashions a canoe and makes his way to a nearby island, where he is picked up by a Portuguese ship captain who treats him well, though Gulliver cannot help now seeing the captain—and all humans—as shamefully Yahoo like. Gulliver then concludes his narrative with a claim that the lands he has visited belong by rights to England, as her colonies, even though he questions the whole idea of colonialism.

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Click for Characters and Symbols - Gullivers travels 2

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The Birthday Party

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At a glance

Harold Pinter was working as an actor in England when he stayed briefly at a dilapidated boardinghouse that would serve as his inspiration for both The Birthday Party and The Room. As he has explained in many published works, he wrote more from intuition than from intellect, exploring his characters without pre-decided narratives in mind, and this one encounter was inspirational not because of people he met there, but because of a certain visceral feeling it gave him.

Pinter wrote The Birthday Party in 1957, after his one act play The Room attracted the attention of Michael Codron, a producer who saw much promise in the quirky playwright. The Birthday Party is Pinter’s first full length play, and the first of three plays considered his “comedy of menace” pieces. The other two are The Caretaker and The Homecoming.

"Comedy of menace," a term coined by critic Irving Wardle, describes a play which paints a realistic picture while creating a subtext of intrigue and confusion, as if the playwright were employing a sleight-of-hand trick. Pinter once said, “What I write has no obligation to anything other than to itself,” which both belies the designation Wardle gave his plays, and acknowledges the originality that inspired such a designation in the first place. Inspired by other unconventional playwrights such as Samuel Beckett, Pinter transcended traditional theater by staging a familiar setting (the English home) and then throwing it into a state of confusion with lies, deceit, and chaos. These juxtapositions would be further explored by Martin Esslin in his seminal study Theatre of the Absurd.

The Birthday Party premiered in Cambridge's Arts Theater on April 28, 1958, with Willoughby Gray as Petey and Richard Pearson as Stanley. Pinter directed the initial productions himself, but Peter Wood took his place as director once the play hit the pre-London stage. Though the play was received well in Cambridge, it was a resounding failure during its run at the Lyric Opera House in Hammersmith. The avant-garde writing and the confusing subtext sat poorly with critics and audiences alike..



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Act I

The play begins in the living room of a seaside boardinghouse in 1950s England. Petey, the boardinghouse owner, and his wife Meg, both in their sixties, sit at the living room table and engage in tepid conversation while eating breakfast. Meg is an inquisitive character who peppers Petey with repeated questions concerning his food, his job, etc. Petey informs his wife that two gentlemen will soon arrive to stay at the boardinghouse; he met them the night before. Meg is flustered by the news at first, but quickly recovers to promise she will have a room ready for them.

She then calls out to Stanley Webber, their boarder who is asleep upstairs. When he doesn’t answer, she goes upstairs to fetch him, and then returns a bit disheveled but amused. Stanley, a bespectacled, unkempt, surly man in his thirties, soon follows. Petey and Stanley speak of mundane topics while Meg prepares cornflakes and fried bread for Stanley’s breakfast. After Petey leaves for work, the atmosphere changes. Meg flirts with Stanley, who jokingly calls her “succulent” while criticizing her housework. When Meg becomes affectionate, he rudely pushes her away and insults her. Meg then informs him that two gentlemen are coming. The news unsettles Stanley, who has been the only boarder for years. He accuses Meg of lying, but she insists that she speaks the truth.

Before Meg leaves to shop, Lulu, a young girl in her twenties, arrives with a package. Meg instructs Lulu to keep the package from Stanley, and then she leaves. Lulu and Stanley chat for a little while, mostly about Stanley’s lack of enthusiasm and his appearance. Lulu calls him a “wash out” and then quickly exits. Stanley washes his face in the kitchen, and then leaves by the kitchen door. In the meantime, Goldberg and McCann enter the living room. They are the two gentlemen who had requested rooms for the evening.

It becomes immediately apparent that Goldberg and McCann have come under mysterious circumstances to “finish a job.” The job in question seems to be Stanley, though details are scarce. Goldberg reassures McCann that they are at the right house, and that this job will cause no more stress than their jobs usually cause them. Goldberg rambles on about his uncle until Meg arrives, and introductions are made.

Goldberg’s sweet temperament and suave demeanor soon set Meg at ease. Goldberg asks after Stanley, and Meg tells him that Stanley was once a successful pianist but had to give it up. Meg also reveals that it is Stanley’s birthday, and Goldberg suggests they have a party. Thrilled with the idea, Meg shows the gentlemen to their room. Later, Stanley returns to the living room as Meg arrives to put the groceries away. She tells him about the two gentlemen, and Stanley is visibly upset to learn Goldberg’s name. To cheer him up, Meg suggests he open his birthday present, even though Stanley insists that it is not his birthday. To humor Meg, he opens the package and finds a toy drum with drumsticks. He hangs the drum around his neck and parades around the table beating the drum merrily until his rhythm becomes erratic and chaotic. He beats the drum possessively and looms over Meg with a crazed expression on his face.

Act II

Later that same evening, McCann sits at the living room table shredding a newspaper into five equal strips. Stanley arrives, and the two men awkwardly greet one another. McCann, in a calm tone of voice, congratulates Stanley on his birthday, and says it is an honor to be invited to his party. Stanley replies that he wants to spend the evening alone and tries to leave, but McCann will not let him.

Stanley sits at the table and touches one of the newspaper strips, which upsets McCann. Stanley speaks of his past, and suggests he has never been one to cause trouble. Stanley insists that he has met McCann before, and grows upset when McCann denies the connection. Stanley wants to know why he and Goldberg are at the boardinghouse, and grows frantic when McCann claims they are there on a short holiday. Desperate, Stanley grabs McCann’s arm, who violently hits him off. Shocked into submission, Stanley calms himself and speaks of his love for Ireland, for its people, its sunsets, and its police. He asks McCann to accompany him to a nearby pub, but is interrupted when Petey and Goldberg enter the room.

Petey introduces Stanley to Goldberg, and then leaves. The situation in the room grows tense, as Goldberg yammers on about his past. Despite Goldberg’s soothing words, Stanley remains on edge and refuses to sit down when McCann asks him to. It is not McCann's threats that convince him to sit, but rather Goldberg's quiet insistence.

After Stanley submits, Goldberg and McCann interrogate him about his past - they accuse him of betraying their “organization,” of killing his wife, of leaving his bride at the altar, of being a waste of space, and more. Stanley answers at first, but is soon struck dumb by the sheer number of questions being thrown at him. The questions grow progressively more ridiculous and nonsensical. Finally, Stanley hits Goldberg in the stomach. McCann and Stanley threaten each other with chairs, but are cooed back into civility when Meg arrives, beating Stanley’s toy drum. She is dressed for his birthday party. Goldberg compliments her, and the tense atmosphere quickly dissipates as Meg makes a moving tribute to Stanley in a toast while McCann flashes a torch in Stanley’s face like a spotlight. Lulu arrives, and Goldberg gives a second toast which includes more reminiscing.

The party begins in earnest. Lulu and Goldberg flirt, while Meg and McCann speak of Ireland. Stanley sits alone at the table until Meg suggests they all play blind man’s bluff. During Stanley’s turn, he is blindfolded by McCann, who breaks his glasses and puts the toy drum in his path so that Stanley’s foot smashes through it. When Stanley reaches Meg, he begins to strangle her. Goldberg and McCann pull him off, but then the lights suddenly go out. In the darkness, the two gentlemen cannot find Lulu, who has screamed and fainted. McCann shines his flashlight on the table to discover Stanley standing over Lulu as though about to sexually assault her. He giggles manically as the men slowly approach him and the curtain closes.

Act III

The next morning, Petey sits at the living room table reading a newspaper, while Meg frets about having no breakfast food left. Her memory is hazy from the night before, and she forgets that Petey was not there as she tries to remember what happened. When she leaves to shop, she sees Goldberg's car in the driveway, and grows frightened. Petey calms her down.

As Meg prepares to leave again, Goldberg enters the room and sits at the table. Meg asks him about the car, but he ignores her. She finally leaves. Petey asks Goldberg about Stanley, and Goldberg explains that Stanley suffered a nervous breakdown, and needs to be taken to a doctor whom Goldberg knows. Petey wants to see Stanley when he wakes, despite Goldberg's insistence that he should simply leave for work.

McCann enters with two suitcases, and tells Goldberg that Stanley is trying to fit his broken glasses into his eyes. When Petey suggests a way to fix the glasses and offers to fetch a doctor, Goldberg dismisses him. Petey departs to tend to his peas, insisting he be told when Stanley wakes, and Goldberg sits slumped over the table.

McCann demands they expedite the job, but Goldberg ignores him. Angry, McCann shakes Goldberg's chair and calls him "Simey," which causes the latter to attack him. McCann pacifies Goldberg, who then admits he feels poorly and is confused by the feeling. He tells McCann about his father and about his own principles on family, and finally makes a strange request by asking McCann to blow into his mouth twice. McCann does so without question, and Goldberg is calmed.

Lulu enters, and McCann leaves them alone. Lulu accuses Goldberg of having taken sexual advantage of her the night before. They argue over blame until McCann reenters and tells Lulu to confess her sins. Startled by this bizarre turn of events, Lulu flees. McCann then leaves to fetch Stanley, who enters cleanly shaven and nicely dressed. The two men seem to take pity on Stanley, and Goldberg promises to buy him new glasses. In a reprise of the interrogation from Act II, they pepper Stanley with gentler questions and comments. Goldberg asks Stanley if he wants to leave with them, but Stanley can only muster gurgling sounds. They begin to exit with Stanley, but Petey arrives and tells them to stop. Menacingly, they ask Petey if he wants to accompany them. Petey allows the two men to take Stanley away, but before they leave, he cries out “Stan, don’t let them tell you what to do!”

Afterward, Petey returns to the living room table and picks up his newspaper. Meg arrives and asks if Stanley has come down to breakfast yet. Petey lies and tells her Stanley is still sleeping.

Themes

 

Atonement

One of the great ironies in this play is that it uses what appears to be a fairly undramatic, realistic setting which nevertheless hides a surplus of guilt. The theme of atonement runs throughout the play. Stanley's past is never detailed, but he is clearly a guilty man. He is vague about his past, and does anything to distract Goldberg and McCann. He does not wish to atone for whatever he did, but is forced to do so through torture. Goldberg, too, wishes to avoid whatever sins torture him but cannot fully escape them; his mood in Act III shows that he is plagued by feelings he does not wish to have. In the end, all of the characters are like Lulu, who flees when McCann offers her a chance to confess - everyone has sins to atone for, but nobody wants to face them.

Complacency

Perhaps the most pessimistic aspect of The Birthday Party is that the only alternative Pinter gives to chaos and confusion is a life of apathy and complacency. The play's opening sets this up - Petey and Meg reveal a comfortable but bland life in which they talk in pleasantries and ignore anything of substance. Stanley might be more aggressive than they are, but he too has clearly chosen the safety of complacency, as he makes no effort to change his life. His lethargic lifestyle reflects the attraction comfort has for him. When Goldberg and McCann arrive, they challenge this complacent lifestyle until the whole place falls into chaos. Ultimately, Petey chooses to refortify the complacency of the boardinghouse over bravely fighting for Stanley; neither choice is truly attractive.

Confusion and Chaos

A key element of “the absurdist theater” is its focus on confusion and chaos. In The Birthday Party, these elements manifest constantly, especially through its characters.

The primary way in which the themes manifest are through the ambiguities of lives and pasts. Stanley has some sort of mysterious past that deserves a violent reckoning, but nobody really provides its details. When Stanley describes his past to Meg in Act I, there is even the sense that he himself is confused about its particulars. Goldberg's name and past seem shrouded in mystery and delusion, and Meg convinces herself to believe things about her life that are clearly not true. Further, because of these type of confusions, the situation devolves into total chaos. From the moment Goldberg and McCann arrive, the audience can sense that the simplicity of the boardinghouse is about to be compromised, and indeed, the chaos at the end of Act II confirms it.

The only truth of The Birthday Party is that there is no truth, only chaos and confusion from which we make order if we choose.

Language

The precision Pinter employs in crafting his rhythmic silences is enough to justify language as a major theme, but he moreover reveals how language can be used as a tool. Each of the characters uses language to his or her advantage. In effect, characters manipulate words to suggest deeper subtexts, so that the audience understands that true communication happens beneath language, and not through words themselves. When Stanley insults Meg, he is actually expressing his self-hatred and guilt. Goldberg is a master of language manipulation - he uses speeches to deflect others questions, to redirect the flow of conversation, or to reminisce about past events. His words are rarely wasted. Meg, on the other hand, repeats herself, asking the same questions over and over again in a bid for attention. Even though she often speaks without affectation, her words mask a deep neurosis and insecurity. These are just a few examples of instances in which language is used not to tell the story, but to suggest that the story is hidden. In essence, language in The Birthday Party is a dangerous lie.

Nostalgia

Perhaps most fitting for a contemporary audience who would see this play as something of a period piece, the theme of nostalgia is implicit but significant in The Birthday Party. Goldberg, particularly, is taken by nostalgia, frequently waxing poetic both on his own past and on the 'good old days' when men respected women. Certainly, Goldberg tells some of these stories to contrast with the way Stanley treats women, but they also suggest a delusion he has, a delusion that breaks down when he himself assaults Lulu between the second and third acts. He idealizes some past that he cannot live up to.

Other characters reveal an affection for nostalgia as well. During the birthday party, Meg and Lulu both speak of their childhoods. However, their nostalgic feelings have darker sides. Meg remembers being abandoned, whereas Lulu's memories of being young lead Goldberg to bounce her perversely on his knee. Similarly, the characters play blind man's bluff specifically because it makes them nostalgic, but the sinister side of such nostalgia is inescapable in the stage image of Stanley preparing to rape Lulu. Nostalgia is lovely to feel, the play seems to suggest, but more insidious in its complexities.

Much of the violence in the play concerns women. Stanley not only intimidates Meg verbally, but he also prepares to assault Lulu. Goldberg in fact does assault Lulu. Finally, the threat of violence is ever-present in the play. Even before we realize that disaster might come, we can feel the potential through the many silences and tense atmosphere.

Sex

Sexual tension is present throughout the entire play, and it results in tragic consequences. Meg and Stanley have a strange, possible sexual relationship that frees him to treat her very cruelly. The ugliness of his behavior is echoed when Goldberg calls him a “mother defiler” and “a lecher.” In fact, Goldberg suggests that Stanley's unnamed sin involves his poor treatment of a woman. Lulu seems interested in Stanley as well, but is quickly attracted to Goldberg in Act II. Her innocence makes her prey to men's sexuality. Her openness leads to two consecutive sexual assaults, and yet she is nevertheless upset to learn that Goldberg is leaving. All in all, it is a strange, perverse undercurrent throughout the play - sex is acknowledged as a fact of life, and yet does not ever reveal positive aspects of the characters.

Violence

The Birthday Party is full of violence, both physical and emotional, overall suggesting that violence is a fact of life. The violence is doubly affecting because the setting seems so pleasant and ordinary. Most of the men show their potential for violence, especially when provoked. Stanley is cruel and vicious towards Meg, but much more cowardly against other men. Both McCann and Goldberg have violent outbursts no matter how hard they try to contain themselves. Their entire operation, which boasts an outward civility, has an insidious purpose, most violent for the way it tortures Stanley slowly to force him to nervous breakdown. In both Acts II and III, they reveal how language itself can be violent in the interrogation scenes.

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.Characters

Petey

Petey Boles is the owner of the rundown boarding house in which the play takes place. He is 60 years old and married to Meg. Petey works a deckchair attendant at an unspecified seaside resort near his home on the shores of England.

As the play continues, Petey’s character is revealed to be more astute. He realizes that Goldberg and McCann are more insidious than they seem, and probably knows of his wife and Stanley's strange relationship. While Petey seems to know quite a lot more than he lets on, he ultimately reveals that he will do little to compromise the comfortable, delusional existence he shares with Meg.

Meg

Meg Boles is a kind woman who helps run the boardinghouse. She is sixty years old and married to Petey in a seemingly childless marriage. Absentminded and simplistic, Meg often asks repetitive questions and constantly requires attention. While she does carry on a sexually-tinged relationship with Stanley, Meg lives a rather humdrum life that allows her to maintain certain delusions about her attractiveness and popularity, delusions which she works hard to protect even as the play goes to darker places.

Stanley

Stanley Webber is ostensibly the protagonist of the play. He is the only boarder at the Boles's boardinghouse, and is initially defined by laziness, unkemptness, and smug cruelty towards Meg. The many details of his past are never confirmed - he might be a musician, might have been famous, etc. - although there is a sense that he has sins unatoned for. His aggressive depression transitions into a nervous breakdown when Goldberg and McCann arrive, until he is nothing but a bumbling idiot in Act III.

Goldberg's problems seem to be connected to his past - he is nostalgic about family, and waxes poetic about the old days. To what extent these delusions explain and/or feed his anger and violence are left to the reader's imagination.

McCann

Dermot McCann is an Irish member of an unnamed "organization" that has hired him to take Stanley away from the boardinghouse. Unlike Goldberg, who uses words and charm to his advantage, McCann is a paragon of bodily aggression. He lacks much social skill, and is something of a simpleton.

Goldberg

Nat Goldberg, also called “Simey” and “Benny,” is a Jewish gentleman who works for an unnamed "organization" that has employed him to take Stanley away from the boardinghouse. He is defined by his outwardly polite and suave demeanor, which stands in stark contrast to that of his associate McCann. However, he ultimately reveals an angry, violent streak beneath this suave demeanor.

Lulu

A young woman in her twenties, Lulu is an acquaintance of Meg’s and a visitor to the boardinghouse. She is childish and flirtatious, and though she seems initially interested in Stanley, she is easily attracted to Goldberg's charms. Her girlish qualities become ironically unsettling after she is sexually assaulted.

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.Theater of the Absurd

Martin Esslin, a theater critic, coined the term “Theater of the Absurd” to describe a number of works being produced in the late 1950s and early 1960s that defied any traditional genres. The most famous playwright associated with this movement include Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Jean Genet, and of course, Harold Pinter.

The term "absurd" was originally used by Albert Camus in his 1942 essay “Myth of Sisyphus,” wherein he described the human condition as “meaningless and absurd.” The key element to an absurdist play is that the main characters are out of sync with the world around them. There is no discernable reasoning behind their strangeness, though a threatening sense of change shakes their existence to the core.

Influences on the absurdist theater go as far back as the Elizabethan tragicomedies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The tragic plays Macbeth and Hamlet offer segments of comedy that shift the play's perspective, if only for the briefest moments. For example, Hamlet’s wit and the porter scene in Macbeth offer moments of comedy to alleviate the drama's intensity. Other influences on the absurdist playwrights include the work of Sigmund Freud, and the Surrealist movement of the 1920s and 1930s, which introduced the avant-garde to mainstream media.

However, the largest influence was World War II and its aftermath. Like Pinter, who was a child during the war, many Englishmen and women felt disillusioned once the war was over. They were angry and upset with the world, but found it difficult to express their collective opinions. In such a damaged world, it was no longer feasible to use traditional methods of storytelling on stage. The human condition was too complex and fragmented, and the old forms of language were hence inappropriate for exploring it.

To shake audiences from their more conventional viewing habits, the playwrights of the Absurdist Theater used traditional settings to ease the audience into their plays, and then shocked them with surreal imagery, uncommon circumstances, or fragmented language. Language within the Absurdist Theater often transcended its base meaning. As in The Birthday Party, nothing is as it seems and no one speaks the whole truth. Also, the use of silence as language was often utilized in these plays.

The drama of the absurdist theater is dreamlike, almost lyrical. Like the Surrealists before them, the absurdist playwrights use imagery, subtext, mythology, and allegory to express a deeper meaning which is often never fully explained. In fact, the playwrights of the Theater of the Absurd allowed their plays to speak for themselves. Pinter explained this absurdist concept best in his 1962 speech “Writing for the Theatre,” which was presented at the National Student Drama Festival in Bristol. He said, “I suggest there can be no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false.” The thin line between truth and lies is perhaps the defining characteristic of the Theater of the Absurd.

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Why is the play The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter absurdist?

Absurdist drama is about the illogical nature of the world and its lack of meaning. The main character in The Birthday Party, Stanley Webber, is an unemployed pianist, but he asks Meg, who runs the boarding house where he lives, "I haven't got a piano, have I?" Stanley is unaware of even the basic nature of his existence. Later, Stanley tells Meg, who is celebrating Stanley's birthday, "This isn't my birthday, Meg," even though she reassures him it is. Stanley is unsure even of when he was born, showing his alienation and uncertainty about the world. 

When two agents named Goldberg and McCann arrive to question Stanley, their questions veer into the absurd. Goldberg asks Stanley, "Who watered the wicket in Melbourne?" and McCann adds, "What about the blessed Oliver Plunkett?" Goldberg and McCann continue to ask questions that have no answers as they grill Stanley. They use this absurdism to torture Stanley. However, conversation in this play has no meaning, and words are only used to confuse people. The confusing nature of words supports the idea that the world is absurd and that the search for meaning is pointless. 




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Beowulf

Beowulf

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is arguably one of the most important works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating pertains to the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, referred to by scholars as the "Beowulf poet".

The story is set in Scandinavia. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by a monster known as Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then also defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland  and later becomes king of the Geats. After a period of fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a headland in his memory.

The full story survives in the manuscript known as the Nowell Codex. It has no title in the original manuscript, but has become known by the name of the story's protagonist. In 1731, the manuscript was badly damaged by a fire that swept through Ashburnham House in London that had a collection of medieval manuscripts assembled by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton. The Nowell Codex is currently housed in the British Library.

Beowulf, heroic poem, the highest achievement of Old English literature and the earliest European vernacular epic. It deals with events of the early 6th century and is believed to have been composed between 700 and 750. Although originally untitled, it was later named after the Scandinavian hero Beowulf, whose exploits and character provide its connecting theme. There is no evidence of a historical Beowulf, but some characters, sites, and events in the poem can be historically verified. The poem did not appear in print until 1815. It is preserved in a single manuscript that dates to circa 1000 and is known as the Beowulf manuscript

Beowulf falls into two parts. It opens in Denmark, where King Hrothgar’s splendid mead hall, Heorot, has been ravaged for 12 years by nightly visits from an evil monster, Grendel, who carries off Hrothgar’s warriors and devours them. Unexpectedly, young Beowulf, a prince of the Geats of southern Sweden, arrives with a small band of retainers and offers to cleanse Heorot of its monster. Hrothgar is astonished at the little-known hero’s daring but welcomes him, and, after an evening of feasting, much courtesy, and some discourtesy, the king retires, leaving Beowulf in charge. During the night Grendel comes from the moors, tears open the heavy doors, and devours one of the sleeping Geats. He then grapples with Beowulf, whose powerful grip he cannot escape. He wrenches himself free, tearing off his arm, and leaves, mortally wounded.

The next day is one of rejoicing in Heorot. But at night as the warriors sleep, Grendel’s mother comes to avenge her son, killing one of Hrothgar’s men. In the morning Beowulf seeks her out in her cave at the bottom of a mere and kills her. He cuts the head from Grendel’s corpse and returns to Heorot. The Danes rejoice once more. Hrothgar makes a farewell speech about the character of the true hero, as Beowulf, enriched with honours and princely gifts, returns home to King Hygelac of the Geats.

The second part passes rapidly over King Hygelac’s subsequent death in a battle (of historical record), the death of his son, and Beowulf’s succession to the kingship and his peaceful rule of 50 years. But now a fire-breathing dragon ravages his land and the doughty but aging Beowulf engages it. The fight is long and terrible and a painful contrast to the battles of his youth. Painful, too, is the desertion of his retainers except for his young kinsman Wiglaf. Beowulf kills the dragon but is mortally wounded. The poem ends with his funeral rites and a lament.

Beowulf belongs metrically, stylistically, and thematically to a heroic tradition grounded in Germanic religion and mythology. It is also part of the broader tradition of heroic poetry. Many incidents, such as Beowulf’s tearing off the monster’s arm and his descent into the mere, are familiar motifs from folklore. The ethical values are manifestly the Germanic code of loyalty to chief and tribe and vengeance to enemies. Yet the poem is so infused with a Christian spirit that it lacks the grim fatality of many of the Eddaic lays or the sagas of Icelandic literature. Beowulf himself seems more altruistic than other Germanic heroes or the ancient Greek heroes of the Iliad. It is significant that his three battles are not against men, which would entail the retaliation of the blood feud, but against evil monsters, enemies of the whole community and of civilization itself. Many critics have seen the poem as a Christian allegory, with Beowulf the champion of goodness and light against the forces of evil and darkness. His sacrificial death is not seen as tragic but as the fitting end of a good (some would say “too good”) hero’s life.

That is not to say that Beowulf is an optimistic poem. The English critic J.R.R. Tolkien suggests that its total effect is more like a long, lyrical elegy than an epic. Even the earlier, happier section in Denmark is filled with ominous allusions that were well understood by contemporary audiences. Thus, after Grendel’s death, King Hrothgar speaks sanguinely of the future, which the audience knows will end with the destruction of his line and the burning of Heorot. In the second part the movement is slow and funereal: scenes from Beowulf’s youth are replayed in a minor key as a counterpoint to his last battle, and the mood becomes increasingly sombre as the wyrd (fate) that comes to all men closes in on him.

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