HAROLD PINTER - Joshua Ruebl

of Post-Modernism and the kind of political play that could be consistent with it. In
Pinter’s plays the political, when it becomes overt, is always one component of situations
of larger social complexity, and as the political problems emerge from no clearly defined
institutional base, their resolution or evasion depends on no particular political program.”
(Quigley, pg. 15.)
The Lover and The Homecoming both written in the same period of Pinter’s
career, grasp with the changing sexual mores of the 1960’s and mark a distinct move in
Western drama toward postmodernism and the removal of the meta-narrative. In these
plays, binary power conflicts emerge without solid resolution, which is indicative of a
nascent postmodern style. This does not mean that the plays are without strong political
content, because like much of contemporary postmodernism, these two plays merge the
personal with the political with strong tendencies toward ambiguity. The plays are rituals
that use heightened language, and in the case of The Lover, take on almost a meta-theatre
conceptualization.
In The Lover and The Homecoming, both Sarah and Ruth are playing games of
power as they try to achieve autonomy in their relationships. In The Lover, for instance,
an animalistic male quality is unleashed as the middle-class household and its morals are
shattered by the actions of the female character. The women in these plays subdue male
violence with the force of their intellect ability to change. Old patriarchal ideas of man
seem to be crumbling and the new power structure seems to be put in place. Ruth in The
Homecoming, is a gentile woman married to a Jewish professor, and she returns with him
to his working-class family in Hackney. There she takes over the household with her
sexuality and gains power and autonomy in the process.
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