A youth to Fortune and Fame unknown

 

These are the opening lines of the epitaph that poet writes at the end the poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. The poet writes this epitaph in the hope that someday when he would die, his body will lie in the same graveyard with that epitaph inscribed on his tombstone. These lines of epitaph indicate that in this grave is buried a young man who was neither famous nor achieved any financial success.

  The speaker calls himself a young person who is unknown both to Fortune (i.e., good luck or wealth—it could mean either) and to Fame. In other words, he was of humble birth. But at least he was no stranger to knowledge, or science, in spite of his humble origins. He was a scholar and a poet!

  An epitaph is a tribute written to someone dead. The epitaph of "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" is often taken to refer to Gray himself and what he thinks might be written about him after he dies. So It states: A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown. But the verse is also sometimes interpreted to simply be the epitaph to an anonymous poet. Therefore it is a riddle.  However, if it refers to Gray, it is significant because it shows that he identifies with all the humble, unknown souls lying in the country churchyard. He is not setting himself above them, but states he is equally obscure. Like them, he has not been born to fortune, which would be high rank or money.

However, given that he is praising these simple people for their worthy if unsung lives, he would appear to be equally praising himself in his epitaph. If he is praising himself for his obscurity, it is ironic, because he has become a famous poet, still read centuries after his death.

Explain the following extract with reference to the context: " Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul."

 

These line occur in "The Rape of the Lock" composed by Alexander Pope. Here Clarissa imparts a piece of counsel to Belinda who had become so much exasperated over the rape of her lock by the Baron. This lines means that physical charm of things—animate, inanimate, does strike the sight of an onlooker. Man cannot remain uninfluenced by the outer charm of things. If one looks at a beautiful human face one is impressed by the sparkling beauty. That is the weakness of man.

 

    Clarissa is the mouthpiece of Pope. Through her, he comments on the general truth about the life of a woman. She moralizes over the decay of human beauty, particularly feminine beauty. She states that beauty is short-lived and must decay one day. Locks of hair, whether formed into ringlets or left uncared for, must ultimately turn grey. A face, whether painted or not, must fade and wither with the coming of age. Not only that, a scornful woman who rejects all eligible suitors cannot gain a husband and must, therefore, die a maid (unmarried). So, the most sensible thing for women to do is to make the best use of their good humour whatever their loss may be. Clarissa is confident that it is only good humour that succeeds in the long run in winning love from men. A beautiful woman may not succeed in love making by casting amorous glances at men because the physical charms of a woman only appeal to the eyes of men, but the hearts of men can be captured by the beauty of mind alone. So, Clarissa asks Belinda to exercise her powers and charms over the Baron, keep up her good humour instead of being so much enraged and try to win over him to a successful marriage.

 

Explain the features of poetry and poet in relation to the poem "In Memory of W. B. Yeats".

 W. H. Auden was admired for his unsurpassed technical virtuosity and ability to write poems in nearly every imaginable verse form; his incorporation of popular culture, current events, and vernacular  speech in his work; and also for the vast range of his intellect, which drew easily from an extraordinary variety of literatures, art forms, social and political theories, and scientific and technical information.  The poet says that-

“In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start

In the prison of his days

Teach the free man how to praise.”

Here Auden tells about the function of the poet. When Europe is in the grip of the terror of war, nations are isolated by mutual hatred. People have no fellow feeling or sympathy At that time, the poets generally pursue the hidden truth, to explore the subliminal depths. With the gift of his poetry, of saying things in a powerful manner he can persuade mankind to rejoice even in the face of the curse of war. The great poetry can turn a curse into a blessing. It is great poetry that can illumine and transform the human soul, and make the fountain of love and sympathy gush out of it. The poet's own acceptance of life, and zest for it, alone can fertilize the human soul, and teach it to accept life and rejoice in this great gift of God. Thus poetry can have a transforming and ennobling influence on the human soul. He further says that-

“For poetry makes nothing happen; it surveys

In the valley of its making where executives

Would never want to temper, flows on south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs

Raw towns that we believe and die in, it survives

A way of happening, a mouth.”

 Here Auden launches into an attempt at relationship between outer landscape and inner states. Auden says that poetry makes nothing happen. The poetry of W. B Yeats could not change the destiny of the Irish people. Despite the great poetry of Yeats Ireland has remained the same. The people of Ireland still have their madness and their weather. His poetry fails to produce any revolutions or to make change in society. The poet is dead. But what lives after him is his style. It survives the death of the poet not for what the poet has said, but for the way in which he said it. It is the language, art and the manner of his poetry, which come to dwell in the sublime depths of human mind. It is the language, the way of saying, the style, survives as a voice as a way of expressing the human condition that is its real significance. 

Poetry is here compared to a river, which can fertilize only the soul, it cannot affect the outside world.

 

Finally poetry is described as ‘the healing fountain’, the water that nurtures our souls. Nightmares and barking dogs and hitting the rock bottom are some images of death, destruction and doom, which are all expected in an elegy.  Rhyme, form and meter are the poem’s blueprints. Each of the three sections of the

poem has unique formal characteristics. Auden uses the traditional elegy form, simple rhyming couplets as well as free form. Yeats himself was a master of form. He played around with everything from traditional Irish limericks and lyrics to epics. Auden’s poetic tribute alludes to Yeats’ technical skill.

 

In this poem the speaker is very close to the poet. The setting reflects the tone of the poem. The first section gives the grim details of dying in a hospital. However apart from the setting of Yeats’ actual death, the whole landscape of his life including Ireland is  depicted. The setting expands to include the world in 1939. Auden paints a vivid picture  of a world built of isolationists and the nightmarish oncoming of World War II. The three settings of the poem cover the mundane details of life even as it philosophizes on the  state of world affairs and the value of poetry.

 All of the above features the poet explain in relation to the poem” In Memory”.

How is the modern shield in "The Shield of Achilles" different from the classical shield? Explain.

 In “The Shield of Achilles”, Auden uses the image of Achilles’ shield being forged to comment on the effects that modernity has had on nature. Auden presents modern society as bleak and meaningless, constraining nature or creating perverse hybrids of the natural and the man-made, as well as humans and landscapes. By the final stanza the opposition set up between the classical age and modern society collapses through Auden’s association of the classic hero Achilles with modernity. Therefore, the poem presents modernity and this destruction in a negative and hopeless way, as it is an inevitable, natural progression from the classical age. The poet tells about the shield of Achilles who was according to Greek mythology, one of the Greek heroes of the Trojan War.      

 

At the beginning of the poem, Auden has described the Homeric shield of Achilles, on which the brightness and beauty of the Greek world has been inscribed. That is, the mother of Achilles, looks at the shield hung over the shoulder of her son. This shield was specially made for him by Hephaestus, the blacksmith of the gods. On the shield the artist Hephaestus had carved beautiful scenes depicting orchards, well governed cities with marble statues and calm seas with beautiful ship sailing on them.

 

  The shield of Achilles was much decorated with beautiful scenes mirrored Greek and sights carved upon it. In this way the shield mirrored Greek culture and way of life. The shield here is a symbol of art.

 

  Auden describes the classical shield of Achilles, on which beautiful scenes are carved. Then the poet describes the modern shield made by a modern blacksmith, and the scenes carved on it,

“ But there on the shining metal

His hands had put instead

An artificial wilderness

And a sky like lead.”

 

In these lines the past is contrasted with the present, and contemporary ugliness is stressed by means of a mythical technique.  Here the poet comments on the modern condition.

 

 

The scenes carved on it refer to the contemporary wasteland in which life is artificial, and people are the spiritually dead. It is all a spiritual desolation, and life is unnatural, empty and hollow. This symbolizes the ugliness of the contemporary urban-industrial civilization.

“A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,

Loitered about that vacancy; a bird

Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone;

That girls are raped that two boys knife a third,

Were axions to him, who’d never heard

Of any world where promises were kept,

Or one could weep because another wept.”

Here the poet tells about modern shield in  different from the classical shield. In the poem we are told that on the classical shield were carved pictures of athletes busy in their games, and men and women dancing rhythmically and sweetly On the modern shield, on the other had, there are no dancing floors or playgrounds but only weed choked fields. There are no sportsman but only a tattered boy callously throwing stones at birds, or girls being raped, or boys quarrelling among themselves and knifing each other. Life is brutal and beastly here, entirely lacking in the sympathy, love and friendship, which characterized life in the past.

 

In this way the poet tried to make difference between the modern shield and the classical shield which the poet has highlighted in the poem.

 

Explain the new kind of revealation in retaion to the poem "The Second Coming"

 The title refers to the Second Coming of Christ, as predicted in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Bible. It depicts the return of Christ to conquer Satan and the forces of evil, before presiding over a thousand-year reign of peace on Earth.

  The lyric opens with a typical Yeatsian image: a falcon flying in ever-widening circles (the pattern of a gyre), now tracing its widest circle and thus least subject to the control of the falconer, a symbol of the breakdown of society and order.   The phrase "the ceremony of innocence" appears several times in Yeats' poetry and generally refers to the rituals and symbols by which we live that give meaning and stability to our lives.

  The vision the speaker sees is an end of an era, the Christian era that culminated in a scientific rationalism.  A new era is at hand (they come, in Yeats’s view every 2000 years).  Appropriately the speaker describes the new era as the Second Coming, a term from the Book of Revelation that refers to the return of Christ after a time of great upheaval and disorder.  But this advent is not of Christ but of an anti-Christ–a Sphinx that presumably held sway during the twenty centuries before the birth of Jesus.  Christianity is finished, the poem says, and it will be replaced by some “pitiless” force that slouches toward Bethlehem to be born.

The Sphinx has been sleeping for the twenty centuries of the Christian era, the era that began with a “rocking cradle” at Bethlehem. Now that rocking cradle is the Sphinx’s and has vexed him to nightmare.  The Sphinx awakens and will replace Christ as the dominant force for the next historical period; its pitiless and blank gaze, its roughness, its slouch suggesting the quality of the next two thousand years, a  nature completely antithetical to the values we currently hold dear.

Many Yeats scholars believe that this poem is specifically about the Russian Revolution of 1917, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, which resulted in a bloody seven-year war that paved the way for the rise of the Communist party in Russia; it also certainly has echoes of World War I, which rocked the world to its core. But perhaps Yeats could see even further. Perhaps he could somehow sense the coming of further wars and violences—World War II, the atomic bomb, technologies that would reshape the world from the ground up. He knew the world would never be the same after the 20th century, and it certainly is not.

Yeats gives a name to this whole series of events, placing them under the umbrella of a "Second Coming." But instead of a second appearance of Christ, this event will be a birth of a creature as significant as Christ, who will completely alter the state of the world just as Christ did—but who will operate in a completely different way than the world has been operating since Christ arrived and civilization began to form.

So the second coming means the second coming of Christ. The state of the world points to the possibility that some revelation, the Second Coming, a supernatural invasion, is impending. Literally speaking revelation means the truths which man knows only from God, The poet contemplates a revelation heralding the coming of an age which will reverse all the achievements of the Christian era.

Justify the title of the poem "No Second Troy".

 

There is an allusion in the poem title ” No Second Troy ” because W.B. Yeats brings out the Greek mythological beautiful striking lady ”Helen of Troy” for making a comparison with his beloved Maud  Gonne. From the Greek mythology, we know that Helen was taken to troy from Greek by Paris. Therefore, the long lasting fierce 10 years Trojan War broke out,  and the city of troy destroyed devastatingly by this war. So the beautiful Helen becomes the reason of destructive troy.

 

Like Maud Gonne, Helen, a legendary character from Homer's Iliad, was considered to be one of the most beautiful women of her age. She was also partly responsible for starting the Trojan War, which eventually led to the burning of the great city of Troy.  A fiery beautiful revolutionary women in Irish national movement . She rejected the poets love proposal and filled him with misery. Her beauty is said to be like a tightened bow. Her mind is made simple as a fire of nobleness. Maud Gonne holds a different personality which is contradictory to Helen while talking about the terrifying beauty of Maud Gonne yeats says,

That nobleness made simple as a fire with beauty like a tightened bow.

Yeats proposed Maud Gonne several times, but his love was not answered by Maud Gonne.

He cannot blame her for tormenting his soul. He mention it in the poem “ No second Troy”.

 

“ Why should I blame her that she filled my days with misery”

Or that she would of late have taught to ignorant men most violent ways”

 

Yeats further says, a women who is taking the ignorant Irish men to the way of revelation for their freedom. And leading from the front in the strike of revaluation the actually cannot blame her for not accepting his love making proposal.

 

Poet is asking the question for Maud Gonne will it be another Troy to burn. The poet alludes it at the end of the poem. What could she have done being what she is? Was there another troy for her to burn?

Finally the author says, there is no chance to burn another Troy for Maud Gonne because Maud Gonne because Maud Gonne is unlike Helen is nature, likewise Paris, Yeats does not have a courageous brother as Paris had Hector and Irish people are coward thus they will not fight 10 years as the Trojan Warriors did for Paris.

 

Yeats final remark is though his beloved Maud Gonne is a fearless dame, whose knowledge and beauty is incomparable to others, and he loves her from the bottom of his heart. But for this very reason there will not be second troy to burn even though his beloved furious beauty and strong personality has been the reason of burning his heart.

 

Thus, the title “ No Second Troy” is significant for expressing poet fascination and deeper love toward Maud Gonne.

What are the significances of the characters of Vladimir and Estragon? Describe how these two friends try to commit suicide.

 The significances of the characters of Vladimir and Estragon are describe below: Vladimir and Estragon are the main protagonists of the play, Waiting for Godot. In hearing the play read, even the most experienced theater person will often confuse one of the characters for the other. Therefore, the similarities are as important as the differences between them.

Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for Godot: some indication that life is meaningful or an escape. Both are tramps dressed in costumes which could be interchanged - big boots which don't necessarily fit, big bowler hats, baggy and ill-fitting suits. Their costumes recall the type found in burlesque or vaudeville houses. The opening scene with Estragon struggling with his boots and Vladimir doffing and donning his hat to inspect it for lice could be a part of a burlesque routine. Such comic episodes continue until the characters — and the audiences — are bored with it.

Vladimir would be the equivalent of the straight man in burlesque comedy. He is also the intellectual who is concerned with a variety of ideas. Of the two, Vladimir makes the decisions and remembers significant aspects of their past. He is the one who constantly reminds Estragon that they must wait for Godot. Vladimir seems to know more about Godot. Vladimir often sees religious or philosophical implications in their discussions of events, and he interprets their actions in religious terms; for example, he is concerned about the religious implications in such stories as the two thieves who were crucified on either side of Jesus. Vladimir correlates some of their actions to the general concerns of mankind. In addition to the larger needs, Vladimir also looks after their physical needs.

In contrast, Estragon is concerned mainly with more mundane matters: He prefers a carrot to a radish or turnip, his feet hurt, and he blames his boots; he constantly wants to leave, and it must be drilled into him that he must wait for Godot. He remembers that he was beaten, but he sees no philosophical significance in the beating. He is willing to beg for money from a stranger (Pozzo), and he eats Pozzo's discarded chicken bones with no shame. Estragon, then, is the more basic of the two. He is not concerned with either religious or philosophical matters. First of all, he has never even heard of the two thieves who were crucified with Christ, and if the Gospels do disagree, then "that's all there is to it," and any further discussion is futile and absurd.

Estragon, however, is dependent upon Vladimir, and essentially he performs what Vladimir tells him to do. For example, Vladimir looks after Estragon's boots, he rations out the carrots, turnips, and radishes, he comforts Estragon's pain, and he reminds Estragon of their need to wait for Godot. Estragon does sometimes suggest that it would be better if they parted, but he never leaves Vladimir for long. Essentially, Estragon is the less intelligent one; he has to have everything explained to him, and he is essentially so bewildered by life that he has to have someone to look after him. Vladimir is more masculine and contemplative and Estragon is more feminine and emotion-driven of the duo.

The relationship of Vladimir and Estragon is contrasted with that of Pozzo and Lucky, who represent the antithesis of friendship. Theirs is also a relationship of intertwinement and dependence, but one of servitude, inequality, and dominance.

Worse than waiting is waiting alone, and loneliness is a form of blindness and invisibility, not seeing or being seen. The play emphasizes the fact that the minimal unit of the human is not the one, but the two, and though the picture is a bleak, unsettling, and painful meditation upon our shared loneliness in the absence of Godot, the fact that we share this loneliness, this eternal waiting, with our friend is what can possibly turn our cries into laughter and our ontological loneliness into love.

Two friends try to commit suicide:  A tragic effect is produced also by the constant repetition by Vladimir of the fact that he and Estragon are “waiting for Godot.” The first time we learn that the tramps are waiting for Godot, Vladimir’s remarks hardly produces any effect on us. But thereafter whenever Vladimir says that they cannot leave because they are waiting for Godot, the effect is one of pathos because Vladimir's wards are a repeated reminder to us of the two tramps state of hopelessness or vain expectancy. Estragon's nightmares and his fear of the “Others” add to the poignancy of the situation. The “Others” are the Unknow, mysterious persons who have been beating Estragon and of whom he feels terribly afraid, with Vladimir being the only one to provide him consolation and protection. In fact, we learn this fact about the beatings at the very opening of the play when Estragon says that he spent the night in a ditch and was beaten by the same lot of persons. On three occasions-at the outset, at the end of Act I,  and at the close of Act II-the tramps plan suicide. The attempted suicide proves abortive but their very thought of it makes them pathetic characters. We are also informed that once, in days gone by, Estragon had jumped into the Rhone to drown himself and that he had been rescued by Vladimir. Vladimir's speculations about the thief who was “damned” and the one who was "saved” have also an ominous ring. There is Something pathetic about Estragon's lament: “Nothing happens, nobody comes. nobody goes, it's awful," and "All my lousy life I ‘have crawled about in the mud !And you talk to me about scenery

 The general or over-all 
impression that the play produces in us is one of helplessness and the boredom
which human beings have to experience in life. The author effectively conveys
to us the pointlessness of human lite in our times. Human existence is devoid
of meaning and purpose. Thus a feeling of despair dominates the play, and this
is in itself tragic even though farcical situations are employed to suit the
author's design of a tragi-comedy.

 

 Certain elements in the play have a dual character: they are simultaneously tragıc and comic. Such is the attempted suicide of the tramps. The possibility of their deaths is tragic, but their failure to commit suicide is comic: on one occasion they feel that the tree is not strong enough; on another occasion they do not have a suitable rope for the purpose. Then there is the monologue of Lucky-horrifying because it foretells mankind's extinction but funny because of its incoherence and disconnectedness. It is amusing also to find that Lucky can “think" only when he puts on his hat, so that when he has to be stopped from continuing his rhetonic, his hat has to be snatched away from him. The decision of the tramps to go away at the end of both Act I and Act II and their immobility in spite of this decision are likewise tragic and comic at the same time.

What is an absurdist play? Evaluate Waiting for Godot as an absurdist play.

 

A form of play that emphasizes the absurdity of human existence by employing disjointed, repetitious, and meaningless dialogue, purposeless and confusing situations, and plots that lack realistic or logical development.

 

Martin Esslin wrote a book titled “Theatre of the Absurd” that was published in year 1961. It dealt with the dramatists who belonged to a movement called “Absurd Theater” though it was not regular. Samuel Beckett was one of those dramatists who had largest contribution in “Absurd Theater”. His play “Waiting for Godot” also belonged to the same category and was called absurd play.

 

   The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1950s, as well as one for the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. Their work expresses the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down. In an absurd drama human condition is shown as meaningless. There are disjoined, meaningless dialogue, and incomprehensible behavior. In an absurd drama plot has no logical or realistic development.

 

  Beckett's Waiting for Godot is an allegorical absurd play. There is no particular time and place in the play. It reveals the despair, nothingness, frustration of the post-war generation and its appeal becomes bitter as the plots are established on a false imagination. The play actually is full of nothingness, restless tiredness and  childish fun. The for-nothing waiting of the characters and their activities give the play a rich tone of absurdity.

 

  An absurd work is a frightening one. It has in itself no norms, no absolutes, no consoling certainties and no direction, It simply exists. Nothing and nobody living in it has any pre-ordained scene or purpose. The absurd dramatists are all concerned with the failure of communication of the modem humanity which leaves man alienated. They are also concerned with the lack of individuality and the over emphasis on conformity in our society.

 

  Characterization and characteristics of a play are not drawn and seen in Waiting for Godot. Conflict and collision of characters, psychological and inner suffering and developments of characters, turning point of any particular event and fascinating dialogues are the important characteristics of a play which are not found in this play. Instead of it, the play goes through nothingness with false wish which is a new trend in drama and it is absurdity.

 

  The play starts with the waiting for Godot. We do not know what or who the Godot is. Two passers-by - Estragon and Vladimir wait for Godot when the play comes to an end. The time-difference of the play is just one day and there are two acts in it. But it seems to us that time has become stopped; the including characters cannot remember anything; even, they cannot identify the same place. This absurdity, uncertainty and the destruction of time and place show the meaninglessness of human existence. The opening statement of Estragon is very significant: "Nothing to be done."

  

   In Waiting for Godot, we observe the use of symmetry in the incidents. We meet Pozzo and Lucky in each of two acts before the presence of the boy. In every case, we get the boy-messenger who says that the Godot will not go that day; he will go the day after. Symmetry is everywhere in the drama- inwardly and outwardly - which is an important characteristic of an absurd play. The stage itself is divided into two parts and the tree is in the middle. Symmetry is also presented as an opposite ideology in the play. In Act-I, we hear a long lecture of Lucky; hard to get, but suggestive And in Act-II, we get Lucky as disabled, he can't speak.

    The use of language is very remarkable in the play and it serves Beckett's purpose significantly. The nothingness of life and the impatience mentality of human being are sincerely expressed by Beckett's own language skill.

  In the play, we see another absurd feature, the half comic-grotesque. Comic tone is heard from the very beginning i.e. to catch the boot, to see something by the cap etc. In the last scene the falling down of Estragon's trouser is very comic though the desire is to commit suicide where there is no scope of fun.

 From the above discussion, we may conclude that Waiting for Godot is an absurd play because of its absurd characters, their meaninglessness of life, language, repetitiveness etc.

Make a comparative analysis between the characters of Stanley and Goldberg.

 

The comparative analysis between the characters of Stanley and Goldberg are described below:

 

Stanley Webber is ostensibly the protagonist of the play. He is the only boarder at the Boles's boardinghouse, and is initially defined by laziness, unkemptness, and smug cruelty towards Meg. The many details of his past are never confirmed - he might be a musician, might have been famous, etc. - although there is a sense that he has sins unatoned for. His aggressive depression transitions into a nervous breakdown when Goldberg and McCann arrive, until he is nothing but a bumbling idiot in Act III.

 

A man who has been living for the past year in Meg and Petey Boles’s boarding house. Stanley is reclusive and unkempt, wearing filthy old pants and a pajama top. If Meg didn’t go out of her way each morning to make sure he ate breakfast and drank his tea, it seems he would never leave the comfort of his bedroom. This is perhaps because he has come to this seaside town in order to hide from his past life, although Pinter never clarifies what Stanley is running from. All the same, he leads an isolated existence, refusing to venture beyond the boarding house and claiming that he’d have “nowhere” to go even if he did leave. Having become accustomed to this kind of solitude, Stanley is distraught when Goldberg and McCann come to the boarding house and start interrogating him, making him feel guilty despite the fact that they never actually reveal what he’s done. Unfortunately, Meg and Petey hardly notice the effect these newcomers have on Stanley, even when he finally has a mental breakdown as a result of their tormenting. At the same time, the darkness Goldberg and McCann bring out in Stanley is shocking, as he eventually tries to strangle Meg and rape Lulu (one of his acquaintances). As such, Pinter portrays him as someone who has either always been dangerous, or who has been pushed to the edge by Goldberg and McCann’s psychological games. Indeed, by the end the play, Stanley is completely unhinged, finding himself incapable of communicating or standing up for himself, which is why he allows Goldberg and McCann to escort him out of the boarding house and away from his sequestered life.

 

 

On the other hand Nat Goldberg, aslo called  “Simey” and “Benny,” is a Jewish gentleman who works for an unnamed “Organization” that has employed him to take Stanley away from the boardinghouse. He is defined by his outwardly polite and suave demeanor, which stands in stark contrast to that of his associate McCann. However, he ultimate reveals an angry, violent streak beneath this suave demeanor.

A charming, swift-talking man who arrives at Meg and Petey’s boarding house with his associate, McCann, with the intention of locating Stanley Webber. Goldberg introduces himself as Nat, but he frequently refers to himself as “Simey” while telling stories. Confusingly, he also calls himself “Benny” at one point, suggesting that his past is just as jumbled and inscrutable as Stanley’s. In fact, these two men seem to know one another, though when Stanley asks McCann if either he or Goldberg have spent time in Maidenhead, McCann upholds that they haven’t. Nonetheless, Goldberg later references the same Maidenhead tea shop that Stanley has already talked about, suggesting that he is indeed from the same town. Regardless of whether or not they hail from the same place, though, talking about the past is something Goldberg does quite often, speaking wistfully about old acquaintances and relatives and telling his listeners about the life advice he received from these people. This, it seems, is what Goldberg wants most: to be the kind of person who’s full of wisdom. Unfortunately, though, he himself has very little to offer in the way of life advice, and this is something that upsets him. Still, he’s smooth and socially confident, as made evident by the fact that he easily wins over Meg by complimenting her dress. He also gains the affection of Lulu, with whom he flirts during Stanley’s birthday party. The next morning, they have a frank conversation in which she lampoons him for having sex with her without intending to begin a relationship. However, Goldberg has other matters on his mind, focusing first and foremost on psychologically disturbing Stanley and taking him away from the boarding house.

 

“You’re dead, You can’t live, you can’t think, you can’t love. You’re dead. You’re a plague gone bad. There’s no juice in you. You’re nothing but an odor.”

 

During the bizarre interrogation scene in Act II, Goldberg gives this assessment, one of the play’s most poignant. It is poignant because it is true not only of Stanley, but ostensibly of everyone in the play, as well as of the apathetic post-war Britain that Pinter was commenting on. Too many of the characters choose comfort because it is safer, but the flipside is a depressing apathy. And, as the play suggests, the truth of life never goes away and will sooner or later rear its dangerous  ugly head.

Examine the major themes of the play The Birthday Party.

 The Birthday Party is the first full-length play by Harold Pinter, first published in London by Encore Publishing in 1959. It is one of his best-known and most frequently performed plays. Various themes are found in Harold Pinter “The Birthday Party” some majors themes are going to be discussed below. 

 

Confusion and Chaos:

A key element of "the absurdist theater" is its focus on confusion and chaos. In The Birthday Party, these elements manifest constantly, especially through its characters.

 

The primary way in which the themes manifest are through the ambiguities of lives and pasts. Stanley has some sort of mysterious past that deserves a violent reckoning, but nobody really provides its details When Stanley describes his past to Meg in Act I, there is even the sense that he himself is confused about its particulars. Goldberg’s name and past seem shrouded in mystery and delusion, and Meg convinces herself to believe things about her life that are clearly not true, Further, because of these type of confusions, the situation devolves into total chaos. From the moment Goldberg and McCann arrive, the audience can sense that the simplicity of the boardinghouse is about to be compromised, and indeed, the chaos at the end of Act II confirms it.

 

The only truth of The Birthday Party is that there is no truth, only chaos and confusion from which we make order if we choose.

 

Complacency:

 

Perhaps the most pessimistic aspect of The Birthday Party is that the only alternative Pinter gives to chaos and confusion is a life of apathy and complacency. The play's opening sets this up Petey and Meg reveal a comfortable but bland life in which they talk in pleasantries and ignore anything of substance. Stanley might be more aggressive than they are, but he too has clearly chosen the safety of complacency, as he makes no effort to change his life. His lethargic lifestyle reflects the attraction comfort has for him. When Goldberg and McCann arrive, they challenge this complacent lifestyle until the whole place falls into chaos. Ultimately, Petey chooses to refortify the complacency of the boardinghouse over bravely fighting for Stanley; neither choice is truly attractive.

 

Language:

The precision Pinter employs in crafting his rhythmic silences is enough to Justify language as a major theme, but he moreover reveals how language can be used as a tool. Each of the characters uses language to his or her advantage. In effect, characters manipulate words to suggest deeper subtexts, so that the audience understands that true communication happens beneath language, and not through words themselves. When Stanley insults Meg, he is actually expressing his self-

hatred and guilt.
Goldberg is a master of language manipulation - he uses speeches to deflect
others questions, to redirect the flow of conversation, or to reminisce about
past events. His words are rarely wasted. Meg, on the other hand, repeats
herself, asking the same questions over and over again in a bid for attention.
Even though she often speaks without affectation, her words mask a deep
neurosis and insecurity. These are just a few examples of instances in which
language is used not to tell the story, but to suggest that the story is
hidden. In essence, language in The Birthday Party is a dangerous lie.

 

Atonement: 

One of the great ironies
in this play is that it uses what appears to be a fairly undramatic, realistic
setting which nevertheless hides a surplus of guilt. The theme of atonement
runs throughout the play. Stanley's past is never detailed, but he is clearly a
guilty man. He is vague about his past, and does anything to distract Goldberg
and McCann. He does not wish to atone for whatever he did, but is forced to do
so through torture. Goldberg, too, wishes to avoid whatever sins torture him
but cannot fully escape them; his mood in Act III shows that he is plagued by feelings
he does not wish to have. In the end, all of the characters are like Lulu, who
flees when McCann offers her a chance to confess - everyone has sins to atone
for, but nobody wants to face them.

 

Nostalgia

Perhaps most fitting for
a contemporary audience who would see this play as something of a period piece,
the theme of nostalgia is implicit but significant in The Birthday Party.
Goldberg, particularly, is taken by nostalgia, frequently waxing poetic both on
his own past and on the 'good old days' when men respected women. Certainly,
Goldberg tells some of these stories to contrast with the way Stanley treats
women, but they also suggest a delusion he has, a delusion that breaks down
when he himself assaults Lulu between the second and third acts. He idealizes
some past that he cannot live up to.

 

Other characters reveal an
affection for nostalgia as well. During the birthday party, Meg and Lulu both
speak of their childhoods. However, their nostalgic feelings have darker sides.
Meg remembers being abandoned, whereas Lulu's memories of being young lead
Goldberg to bounce her perversely on his knee. Similarly, the characters play
blind man's bluff specifically because it makes them nostalgic, but the
sinister side of such nostalgia is inescapable in the stage image of Stanley
preparing to rape Lulu. Nostalgia is lovely to feel, the play seems to suggest,
but more insidious in its complexities.

Violence: 

The Birthday Party is 
full of violence, both physical and emotional, overall suggesting that violence
is a fact of life. The violence is doubly affecting because the setting seems
so pleasant and ordinary. Most of the men show their potential for violence,
especially when provoke. Stanley is cruel and vicious towards Meg, But much
more cowardly against other men. Both McCann and Goldberg have violent
outbursts no matter how hard they try to contain themselves. Their entire
operation, which boasts an outward civility, has an insidious purpose, most
violent for the way it tortures Stanley slowly to force him to nervous breakdown.
In both Acts II and III, they reveal how language itself can be violent in the
interrogation scenes  

 

Much of the violence in
the play concerns women. Stanley not only intimidates Meg verbally, but he also
prepares to assault Lulu. Goldberg in fact does assault Lulu. Finally, the
threat of violence is ever-present in the play. Even before we realize that
disaster might come, we can feel the potential through the many silences and
tense atmosphere. 

 

Sex

Sexual tension is
present throughout the entire play, and it results in tragic consequences. Meg
and Stanley have a strange, possible sexual relationship that frees him to
treat her very cruelly. The ugliness of his behavior is echoed when Goldberg
calls him a "mother defiler" and "a lecher." In fact, Goldberg
suggests that Stanley's unnaned sin involves his poor treatment of a woman.
Lulu seems interested in Stanley as well, but is quickly attracted to Goldberg
in Act II. Her innocence makes her prey to men's sexuality. Her openness leads
to two consecutive sexual assaults, and yet she is nevertheless upset to learn
that Goldberg is leaving. All in all, it is a strange, perverse undercurrent
throughout the play -sex is acknowledged as a fact of life, and yet does not
ever reveal positive aspects of the characters.

 So the major themes in the Birthday Party
include confusion and chaos, complacency, Language, atonement, nostalgia, violence,
Sex etc.