Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies
Available online at www.ajms.co.in
Volume1, Issue 4, November 2013
ISSN: 2321-8819
Power of the Past: A Study of Harold Pinter’s Old Times
Paulami Dasgupta,
Research Scholar,
Dept. of English, Assam University.
Abstract: In most of his works, Pinter makes an exploration of memory; what is
real and what is imaginary fuse together in his plays. Also Pinter has always
made his characters use the gaps in their memory to their advantage. His works
very often show his preoccupation with the elusive nature of human memory.
However, from the late 1960s through the 1980s, Pinter composed a series of
plays which focussed tenaciously on the overwhelming ambiguous nature of
human memory. This particular era in the oeuvre of Pinter‟s work is regarded by
critics as the memory plays of Harold Pinter. The plays which come under this
category include both masterpieces and some of his lesser known works. These
are – Landscape (1968), Silence (1969), Night (1969), Old Times (1971), No
Man’s Land (1975), The Proust Screenplay (1977), Betrayal (1978), Family
Voices (1981), Victoria Station (1982), and A Kind of Alaska (1982).
The Old Times is one such play of Harold Pinter where the past and the memories
of the past take the centre stage and is used by the characters to dominate over
each other. Here, we can understand that the past has the power to destroy the
present happiness and well being. In this play, the past plays an enigmatic and
enthusiastic role in determining where the loyalties of the characters lie, thereby
shaping and re shaping the relationships between characters.
Key words: Harold Pinter, power, past, memory plays, Old Times.
Pinter‟s plays have always
focused more on the inner struggles
of human beings and memories or
nostalgia has been a favoured theme
for him. He has, time and again
played upon the force and power of
memories of a human mind. In fact,
Harold Pinter wrote a series of plays
and sketches from the late 1960s
through the early 1980s that explore
complex
ambiguities,
elegiac
mysteries, comic vagaries and such
other characteristics of memory and
which critics sometimes classify as
Pinter‟s „memory plays‟. These
plays include: Landscape (1968),
Silence (1969), Night (1969), Old
Times (1971), No Man’s Land
(1975), The Proust Screenplay
(1977), Betrayal (1978), Family
Voices (1981), Victoria Station
(1982), A Kind of Alaska (1982).
Some of Pinter‟s later plays,
including Party Time (1991),
Moonlight (1993), Ashes to Ashes
(1996) and Celebration (2008) draw
upon some features of his memory
dramaturgy in their focus on the past
in the present, but they have
personal and political resonances
and other tonal differences from
these earlier memory plays. “In these
dramas, the protagonists‟ encounters
with a double initiate an inward
journey which brings them face to
face both woth their mortality and
with previously unknown aspects of
themselves.” (Bold, 131)
While introducing the play in their
book, Baker and Tabachnick writes of it:
“Like the Gershwin and Kern songs that
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Power of the Past: A Study of Harold Pinter’s Old Times
infuse Old Times and make it as much a
product of the 1930s and 1940s as of 1971,
the date of the first production, so the
themes of this most recent Pinter play link
it to the poet‟s artistic past… (This play)
strikes the old note of a conflict for
dominance, possession and territory fought
with the weapons of cunning innuendo and
ambiguous
threat…”
(Baker
and
Tabachnick, 137).
Old Times is the fourth full-length
play by the Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter.
It was first performed under Peter Hall‟s
direction by the Royal Shakespeare
Company at
Aldwych
Theatre in London on June 1, 1971. The
play focuses its attention on the
relationships, both past and present. Here,
when the past memories come into force, it
brings along the threat to demolish the
present lives and happiness. In this play,
the characters fight with their very own
memories, disagree with themselves and
remember events that might never have
happened. The past plays a very important
role in the relationships of the characters
as well as in present action. As in the other
„memory plays‟ of Pinter, memory
becomes a weapon used by the characters
in the Old Times to gain control and
dominate their opponents. “Old Times
contains drama in presenting a clash of
personalities, a battle for the affections of
a woman by her husband and best friend;
and while this is a deadly serious affair the
dialogue sparkles with amusing lines;
moreover, although the mood of the play is
one of recall of things past, one of Pinter‟s
main earlier themes re-emerges: the theme
of the intruder who disturbs the peace of a
home and a safe relationship.” (Esslin,
183).
In Old Times, Deeley and Kate, a
married couple in their forties, live on the
sea coast. Anna, a former roommate of
Kate‟s, revisits them after an interval of
twenty years. In the play, we see the
gradually intensifying rivalry of Deeley
and Anna over Kate. Kate, asserting her
dominancy, tries to terminate their quarrel.
As terms like rivalry suggest, the
stratagems and power struggle that
characterize other famous plays of Pinter
like The Homecoming and The Collection,
where the past also plays a major role, are
important factors in the play.
As always in Pinter‟s plays the
ambiguity of action is the very essence of
the impact of Old Times. On a realistic
level Old Times is simply a match for
domination between a husband and the
wife‟s former girlfriend for her affections.
Both the husband Deeley and the girlfriend
Anna use memories and reflections of the
past as weapons in this confrontation. In
the end the two women occupy the marital
bed, while the husband sits in the armchair
between them, symbolically dispossessed
of marital rights as the „odd man out‟, the
aptly used title of the film in the play.
On another level, the play might be
a nightmare of Deeley‟s who is
apprehensive that the sudden arrival of a
girl friend of his wife‟s, might over throw
his hold over her. We see that Deeley is
the only character who remains involved
in the play from beginning to the end.
Anna, though is seen on the stage, is not
included in the action in the first act, and
Kate is absent in the beginning of the
second, supposedly having a bath, which
leads to another confrontation between
Anna and Deeley. Kate is present through
out the struggle to gain dominance over
her, but she hardly confirms or denies any
of the stories told about her. She merely
comments on the fact that they talk about
her if she were dead. It is a point to be
noticed that neither Deeley, nor Anna ask
Kate her opinion or memories of the past;
they are too busy recreating the past
themselves.
Talking about the possible
interpretations of the play, Bold says that
fact that Anna is present when Kate and
Deeley discuss her imminent arrival,
presents the audience with the impression
that she is a latent part of Kate, an eminent
part of her past that has lived on and reemerges. “Deeley‟s assertion that Anna,
whom he claims to have known in the past,
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Power of the Past: A Study of Harold Pinter’s Old Times
used to pretend to be Kate and might even
have been her, offers one the possibility
that … Deeley and Kate may have
projected Anna.” (Bold, 134)
Anna, intrudes into and subtly
menaces the marriage of the other two by
trying to recreate her friendship with
Kate, a friendship into which Deeley,
according to Baker and Tabachnick,
intruded by marrying Kate. The battle
between Deeley and Anna for possession
of Kate‟s mind and body emerges
gradually
from
the
meaningless
pleasantries of polite conversation and
explodes bombastically. We find in the
play, all the tactics and emotions of the
male-female struggle characteristic to the
human race and to Pinter‟s work. All
characters enter the struggle with the
obsessiveness found in Pinter‟s works and
become locked in a pattern of attack and
defence. Deeley‟s opposition to Anna is
very much evident when we see him cross
questioning her about herself. He does not
believe in her, nor does he pay any
attention to her description of a picture
perfect life with a rich and stylish husband.
Deeley is more interested in projecting
himself as an eminent globe-trotting film
director thereby making himself a more
important and credible person than Anna,
whose version of the past should be more
credible and dependable.
The action develops into a duel of
wits between Deeley and Anna; each
seems to be using his memories and
reminiscences to put the other at a
disadvantage. Eventually, it is Kate who
achieves control over herself and her
husband and friend, particularly because
both Deeley and Anna have made efforts
to control her and ended up in loosing
control over themselves. The main concern
in the play is on the discrepancies between
the various accounts of actions which are
supposed to have occurred twenty years in
the past. Near the end the initial situation
is reversed. Instead of Deeley asking
questions and Kate, reluctantly, answering
them, now it is Kate who takes active part
in the action. Anna speaks less and less,
and it is Kate who brings the facts to
surface.
Old
Times
illustrates
the
description of characters who attempt to
reconstructure the past in order to provide
themselves with a present in which they
can establish a relationship that is vital to
them. The husband and the wife‟s former
room-mate discuss each other‟s marriages,
infidelity, previous relationships and
promiscuity, all in order to devalue their
opponent so that they can control Kate and
either maintain or replace the other in a
relationship with her. Anna‟s attempt to
destroy the marriage fails, even though
Deeley is not strong enough to repel her,
because Kate wants the marriage to
continue. During the last two or three
minutes of the play no words are spoken,
yet the emotional power generated by the
characters‟ exposed need is so great that
the audience is left overwhelmed. Deeley‟s
sobbing reflects his sadness at having lost
the sexual, passionate pleasures in life, his
realization of his vulnerability, his
recognition of Kate‟s power in contrast to
his weakness, and his sense of relief thathe
has been chosen to remain over Anna and,
thus, the former room-mate can never
threaten his marriage again.
Deeley‟s and Anna‟s hostility
towards each other increases throughout
the play. Pinter also hints at a lesbian
relationship between the two friends.
However, Deeley‟s suspicions about any
such relationship between the two women
may even derive solely from his
insecurities. He faces a lot of struggle in
his attempt to penetrate the friendship his
wife has with Anna. In his fight to gain
control over Kate, Deeley truly identifies
himself with the movie title, Odd Man
Out.
The combat for territory between
Deeley and Anna for the possession of
Kate with all her individuality emerges
gradually from their glib conversation and
soon explodes into the uncomfortable,
rather surrealist, memories of the past.
Old Times upholds the usual male-female
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Power of the Past: A Study of Harold Pinter’s Old Times
scuffle found in Pinter's world and
endemic to human race as well. The play
Old Times deals with the element of time,
space and the related concept of memory
of the dim distant past. The play attempts
to recapture the past, and to recreate the
effect of the past on the present through
memory lane. Its dialogue relates to the
past of all the three characters, and is
broken up by extended stories which in
their turn relate again to the past with
reference to space in time.
From the very beginning, Pinter
tries to mark the past relationships
between the three characters. All the
characters think over the past, truly or not.
Old Times is constructed on shared
memories that contradict each other, and
the past determines the present behaviour.
Old Times contains drama in presenting a
clash of personalities, a battle for the
affections of a woman by her husband and
best friend; moreover, the mood of the
play is one of recall of things past, one of
Pinter‟s main earlier themes re-emerges:
the theme of the intruder who disturbs the
peace of a home and a safe relationship.
References:
Baker, William and Stephen Ely Tabachnick. Harold Pinter. Edinburg: Oliver and Boyd,
1973, Print.
Bold, Alan, Harold Pinter: You Never Heard Such Silences, U.K: Vision and Barnes and
Noble, 1984. Print.
Esslin, Martin, Pinter: A Study of His Plays, Eyre Metheun, London, 1977, Print.
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