The Absurdity of Dread: Pinter's The Dumb Waiter

Abstract

IT HAS GOTTEN SO THAT NO ONE CAN SPEAK OF ABSURDITY any more without forcing the corners of his mouth to stay down. The last of the critics quoted above, for instance, takes Ben and Gus very seriously indeed. Since Camus' Myth of Sisyphus, since the recent canonization of Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Sartre, above all since The Bald Soprano and Waiting for Godot, the classical adage that one must not treat serious things lightly has almost developed a contemporary equivalent, one must not treat light things lightly. Harold Pinter's The Dumb Waiter is an excellent case in point. Because it is another early play by the author of The Room, The Birthday Party, and A Slight Ache, it has been persistently labeled a "comedy of menace," with the accent on "menace." Actually it is a mock-melodramatic farce.