The Caretaker - Language

Language

See also: Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work#"Two silences" and Characteristics of Harold Pinter's work#The "Pinter pause"

One of the keys to understanding Pinter's language is not to rely on the words a character says but to look for the meaning behind the text. The Caretaker is filled with long rants and non-sequiturs, the language is either choppy dialogue full of interruptions or long speeches that are a vocalized train of thought. Although the text is presented in a casual way, there is always a message behind its simplicity. Pinter is often concerned with "communication itself, or rather the deliberate evasion of communication" (Knowles 43).

The play's staccato language and rhythms are musically balanced through strategically placed pauses. Pinter toys with silence, where it is used in the play and what emphasis it places on the words when they are at last spoken.

Read more about this topic:  The Caretaker

Famous quotes containing the word language:

    This is an approach to that universal language which men have sought in vain.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.
    Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)

    Just as language has no longer anything in common with the thing it names, so the movements of most of the people who live in cities have lost their connexion with the earth; they hang, as it were, in the air, hover in all directions, and find no place where they can settle.
    Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926)