Ontology of sound in Harold Pinter’s radio drama

Abstract

ABSTRACT Can sound be an ontological index of existence? The paper examines this question of sound ontology in Harold Pinter’s radio drama. It foregrounds the ontological gap between linguistic and non-linguistic sounds in A Slight Ache (1959) to track how they solidify existence as a play of presence and absence. The sound problematic in A Slight Ache rests on a wordless character who is not soundless. The presence of such a character in the radio problematises existence through sound. The article takes this dynamic through philosophical literature on sound ontology to make an argument about the dramatic alteration of a sonic situation. Family Voices (1981), the second play under the scanner, indicates another dimension of sound ontology by proposing the voice as a transformation of the epistolary function of writing. The characters in the play are voices, standing in for letters that never reach each other. The paper highlights a pressurepoint between ontology and epistemology in relation to sound. It also shows how Pinter’s radio drama is able to mark the “unsaid” as something that can be heard through the connecting function of the radio audience. We have a potentialist sonic ontology here that dismantles the binary of sound and silence.