Estrangement, Violence , and Language of Deceit In Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party
Kawa Othman Omer Ahmed
Department 0f Translation, College of Languages, University of Sulaimani
DOI: https://doi.org/10.25130/Lang.8.11.19
Keywords: Conflict, Control, Deceit, Estrangement, Identity
Abstract
Literary reviewers have given Printer's The Birthday Party much attention in the past ten years. This is primarily due to the dramatist’s challenge of the conventional method of character portrayal. However, the extent of the players' rhetorical style in the play as tools for deceit, manipulation and confusion has not received much attention from critics. Thus, the current research investigates the play’s violent and perplexing use of language by multiple characters in the play. Moreover, the research highlights the connection between characters’ lack of communication in a domestic space and the growing sense of estrangement by the main protagonist. Methodologically, the research focuses on close reading method, particularly the ‘Formalist Approach’. In so doing, the research specifically examines the rhetorical strategies used by the two primary antagonists in the play to linguistically subjugate and control the main protagonist. The research is significant, for it offers new reading of the text , particularly, the way language is used as a method of deception and manipulation by various characters.
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