My Plot: The Dumb Waiter is again one of the master piece of Harold Pinter the leading dramatist of the Theater of Absurd, The Play was all about a Two Hit Men, Ben and Gus, Ben is the Senior of the Gang and Gus is a Beginner to the Gang team, They were Hired to Kill someone, the One Act play goes in. Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter is a short one-act play that deals with existentialism and the search for meaning, as experienced by two hitmen awaiting their target. While the men are waiting.

The Dumb Waiter Harold Pinter Characters
The Dumb Waiter Script Harold Pinter
The Dumb Waiter Harold Pinter Summary

Critique of The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter
The Dumb Waiter is a play that could be interpreted in many ways. It could be veiwed simply as a photo realistic slice of life drama or as a comical case study of a dysfunctional relationship. The dramatic action in TheDumb Waiter is relatively static. The two characters, Ben and Gus, do not change environments through out the play. Which leaves the audience to sit there and attempt to grasp what the scattered dialogue is talking about as opposed to focusing on the environment that surrounds them.
The characters Pinter creates are a pair of hit men who, as the dialogue states, have pulled many jobs with each other. They have developed the relationship of a bully and his sidekick. Ben, the protagonist, is very sly and quick with the tongue like a gecko. When placed in a bind he adapts to the circumstances surrounding him. This becomes apparent when it is implied that he cant read, he creates absurd stories that are convincing to his not to quick sidekick. Gus, the antagonist, plays the pole of his subservient yes man through out the play; he is Ben’s Labrador, doing exactly as told as if he were unable to think for himself.
The major obstacle for Ben is the struggle to cope with the antics of Gus. Gus has many idiosyncrasies that Ben finds intolerable. One example that is made very clear is gus’ inquisition. Gus questions everything, especially when the message will come. Ben overcomes this obstacle quite easily when he turns the gun on his own partner.
The play is set in the basement of an old broken down house. The basement seems dark and dank. This setting is not familiar to the characters for they are hit men and move around from job to job. Later in the play the dialogue indicates that it is set in the basement kitchen of a café, but I feel that this is just another story made up by Ben in order to explain the dumb waiter’s activity.
The Dumb Waiter follows epic form. The action slowly unfolds until there is one climax. Like in many modern plays the climax and the resolution are the same moment. In The Dumb Waiter this climax is at the final moment when Ben realizes he must turn his gun on his own partner. He does so and the play ends.

1Analysis of Harold Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter

Dramatist: Pinter (b.1930)

The Dumb Waiter Harold Pinter Characters

Characters: BEN

The Dumb Waiter Script Harold Pinter

Gus

Critically analyze The Dumb Waiter

The drama ‘The Dumb Waiter’ is written by Harold Pinter in 1957. He has written plays for the commercial stage, radio, television as well as film scripts produced by some of the best directors of his time. In the same year, he wrote the one act the Room and The Birthday Party.

This drama ‘The Dumb Waiter’ belongs to the theatre of absurd. Theatre of the absurd is the 20^th century theatre which holds the belief that it is itself in absurd and meaninglessness. Meaninglessness can be represented in the dramatic elements like setting, plot, characters and dialogue.

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Setting: Setting refers to the time and space in which the play takes place. In the traditional drama setting sets the mood temperament and environment. Mostly identifiable settings are chosen for the drama but this drama, does not accord with traditional notion of the setting. Ben and Gus are limited to a tiny basement room. All of their activities are limited there. The limitation of the setting in the basement room shows the limitation of the human life itself. Like Ben and Gus, we all are limited in the narrow space. The scene of flushing toilet, reading newspaper, putting on shoes in the room, a serving hatch and having Gyaratte packet are the things which are included in this drama. These things in the setting are unarranged or muddled. From this type of muddled condition, we can claim that this is the drama of the absurdist. The drama begins with the room, goes continuous and ends within the room. From this point of view comparing to our life, it also begins, continues and ends in the circle of space as shown in the drama.

Plot: The plot refers to the order of the events that happen in a play. Plot is “The imitation of the action as well as the arrangement of the incident” for Aristotle. In the traditional drama, plot is made up of recognizable beginning, middle and end. One event is closely linked with the other. But this drama challenges the traditional notion of the plot too. The events are jumbled together. One event has no connection with another event. There are different events like receiving of the newspaper story, arrival of car, receiving and sending the messages, waiting for a girl, discussion of a figurative language and reminiscence of the mother and so on. All those events are not connected with each other and they are narrated frequently and repeatedly. And the plotlessness of the drama reminds us about the plotlessness of the human life. Life is without plot, coherence, sequence, and routine. Things happen randomly there as in the drama an envelope has been put there but having nothing. That means as an empty envelop.

Dialogue: In the traditional drama dialogue is a means for communication. But in this drama, dialogue itself has blocked the communication. The dialogue is laconic and repetitious. For example, Ben asks ‘light the kettle’ to the Gus but Gus does not understand. It is obviously understood that one wants other to do something else. But instead of performing anything they discuss about the nature of this sentence and about who uses and who does not use this cannot be language or dialogue. This formal communication does not move ahead rather it belongs to the question itself. In the Drama the dialogue for example,

BEN – Stand behind the door.

GUS – Stand Behind the door.

BEN – If there is a known on the door you don’t answer it.

GUS – He won’t see you the door I don’t answer it.

BEN – He won’t see me.

Character: “The person presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who are interpreted by the reader as being endowed with particular moral, intellectual and emotional qualities that are expressed in what they say-the dialogue-and by what they do-the action” Abram (1993). In the conventional play characters are life like and they are easily identifiable. At least in the traditional drama we can identify the relationship between the characters. Sometimes we get an impression that Ben and Gus are the two friends who are sharing the same room. But other time they raise the question of senior and junior which destroys our earlier impression. We do not know who is there in upstairs, nor do we know anything about the relationship between the one upstairs and them downstairs.

This absurd drama symbolically represents the nature of the human existence. In the life we all are free to make choices but once we choose life becomes repetitions and that repetitions produces boredom and it is in the state of the boredom there lies in the human existence. Ben and Gus are free in their life and in this free life they want to choose a job. Like the Dumb Waiter they want to follow the orders in this sense they themselves are the Dumb waiter. We all of us are the Dumb waiter.

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