The Dynamics of Violence in Harold Pinter’s Play- the Caretaker

Abstract

Harold Pinter has explored violence on many levels, ranging from the most palpable, visible forms to the most subtle. Taking recourse to Johan Galtung’s theory of violence and its typology as presented in his violence triangle, I have attempted to probe in this paper how direct, structural and cultural violence are projected in Pinter’s play, The Caretaker. Direct violence, which has a visibility factor is most often related to the invisible cultural and structural violence and is time and again the outcome of these subtle forms of violence. But it is a fact that direct violence does not affect many people as the cultural and structural violence, which constitute the hidden but major part of the ice-berg. The world has faced more violence through racism, poverty, religious fanaticism, unemployment, famine, illiteracy, sexism, conservative ideologies and so on. The paper attempts to establish that Pinter has through the play, The Caretaker, has presented a keen vision of our essentially violent world, which is intensified by the notion of menace and man’s basic insecurity.