Multidimensional Dialogues in Harold Pinter’s Old Times
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The Criterion: An International Journal in English
ISSN 0976-8165
Multidimensional dialogues in Harold Pinter’s Old Times
Dr. Dinesh Panwar,
Department of English, Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, GZB, India
Pinter 's dramatic dialogue is based on both the colloquial and a neatly structured manipulation of the vernacular. In reviewing the Brimingham, Repertory Theatre 's 1993 production of Old Times, Michael Billington stresses the important theatric impression inherent in, this quality of Pinter 's language. It 's a sign of the production 's quality that, without violating Pinter 's verbal rhythms, it fines (sic) new resonances in this haunting play. As Peter Hall has it, Pinter 's "repeated patterns of speech create rhythms where the precise accenting of words is crucial", and in addition Pinter 's pauses", often put form into nearly colloquial speech". F.J. Bernhard also stresses rhythmic stylization, and holds that any. Single line of dialogue might be taken as realistic prose. But in the pattern of the play as a whole, the words have a consistent rhythmic construction and symbolic charge that lift them beyond conventional realism. There is thus an ambiguous relationship between the naturalistic effect of Pinter 's dialogue and other effect of stylization. Old Times is no less distinguished by pauses and silences that invest the Pinterian dialogue with arrange ambiguous meaning. The play, underlining the subtle struggle for psychological power, steeped in an atmosphere which blends everyday reality with dream-images. The play also introduces an intruder, as do the earlier plays, which threatens the prevailing peaceful mode of life, and registers similar battle for territory – for possession of an individual. Besides, the play has a strong undercurrent of sexual overtones. In Old Times Pinter 's dialogue creates the appropriate dramatic tone which is new and poetically compelling. The shifting perspective on the
The Criterion: An International Journal in English
ISSN 0976-8165
Multidimensional dialogues in Harold Pinter’s Old Times
Dr. Dinesh Panwar,
Department of English, Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, GZB, India
Pinter 's dramatic dialogue is based on both the colloquial and a neatly structured manipulation of the vernacular. In reviewing the Brimingham, Repertory Theatre 's 1993 production of Old Times, Michael Billington stresses the important theatric impression inherent in, this quality of Pinter 's language. It 's a sign of the production 's quality that, without violating Pinter 's verbal rhythms, it fines (sic) new resonances in this haunting play. As Peter Hall has it, Pinter 's "repeated patterns of speech create rhythms where the precise accenting of words is crucial", and in addition Pinter 's pauses", often put form into nearly colloquial speech". F.J. Bernhard also stresses rhythmic stylization, and holds that any. Single line of dialogue might be taken as realistic prose. But in the pattern of the play as a whole, the words have a consistent rhythmic construction and symbolic charge that lift them beyond conventional realism. There is thus an ambiguous relationship between the naturalistic effect of Pinter 's dialogue and other effect of stylization. Old Times is no less distinguished by pauses and silences that invest the Pinterian dialogue with arrange ambiguous meaning. The play, underlining the subtle struggle for psychological power, steeped in an atmosphere which blends everyday reality with dream-images. The play also introduces an intruder, as do the earlier plays, which threatens the prevailing peaceful mode of life, and registers similar battle for territory – for possession of an individual. Besides, the play has a strong undercurrent of sexual overtones. In Old Times Pinter 's dialogue creates the appropriate dramatic tone which is new and poetically compelling. The shifting perspective on the
References: Harold Pinter Plays: Two, Methuen, London, 1977. p. 112. Harold Pinter Plays: Three, Methuen, London, 1979, p. 214. Arnold Kettle, An Introduction to the English Novel (London Hutchinson, 1953) Vol. 2, p. 91. Martin Esslin, Pinter the Playwright (London: Methuen, 1992), p Ronald Bryden, "Pinter 's New Pacemaker," The observer, June 6, 1971. Qtd. Plays in Review 1956-1980, ed. Gareth and Barbara Lloyed Evans (London. Batsford Academic and Educational, 1985), p. 179. William Baker and Stephen Ely Tabachnich, Harold Pinter (Edinburgh. Oliver and Boyd, 1973), p. 137. Guido Almansi and Simon Henderson, Harold Pinter: Contemporary Writers Series (London: Methuen, 1983), p. 91.