Michał Choiński
The Scissors and the Power : A Look
at Harold Pinter’s the Homecoming
Through Pragmatic Lenses
Kultura i Polityka : zeszyty naukowe Wyższej Szkoły Europejskiej im. ks. Józefa Tischnera w Krakowie nr 2/3, 234-242
Michał Choiński*
THE SCISSORS AND THE POWER
A Look at Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming Through Pragmatic Lenses
1H arold P in te r’s plays constitute an am algam o f realism (noticeable espe cially in dialogues) and absurd (noticeable prim arily on the situational level o f the plays); the playw right is know n as a representative o f the “Theatre o f the A bsurd”, y et still one o f the characteristics o f his oeuvre rem ains an excellent, realistic “ ear for dialogue” (Short 1996:181). This m ixture serves as a sub-textu- al fram ew ork for his plays and encourages the reader to “plum b into the depths o f the subtext and expose the hidden secrets o f motive, continuity, and intended m eaning” (C arpenter 1982:488). This article is an attem pt to look at the o pen ing scene o f P in te r’s The Homecoming adopting a socio-pragm atic approach to the analysis o f dram atic dialogue, and to describe the conflict betw een Lenny and M ax, the tw o characters w ho appear in the scene, as a typically “Pinter- esque” struggle for dom inance and power.
The analysis draw s on A u stin ’s speech act theory and his concept o f a p er form ative, a verb that is “not used to say things i.e. describe the states o f affairs, but rather actively do things” (Levinson 1984:228). By uttering it in specific circum stances, called felicity conditions, the speaker does not only com m ent on the extralinguistic reality, b u t actually influences it. A ccording to A ustin every speech act has its illocutionary, locutionary and perlocutionary force. The first being connected with the speaker’s intention, the second with the actu al utterance o f a given speech act and the third w ith bringing out o f the effects o f w hat has been said (A ustin 1970:251). It is beyond the scope o f this paper to give an exhaustive overview o f all the research into speech act theory in the context o f literature, however, it ought to be em phasized that speech act theo ry has been frequently applied to the study o f literature, and to the study o f dram atic text. U nderstanding the phenom enon o f speech acts is ’’dram atically im portant at the beginning o f plays w hen n e w characters are introduced as it allow s us im m ediately to grasp im portant social relations” (Short 1981: 184).
* M ichał Choiński, doktorant W ydziału Filologicznego U niw ersytetu Jagiellońskiego. Interesuje się socjo- pragm atyką, retoryką, literaturą brytyjską i am erykańską oraz przekładem .
1 The article is a m odified v ersion o f a p ap er delivered during th e 4th IA LS C onference: In Search o f (Non)Sense. Literary Sem antics and the R eated Fields and Disciplines, Kraków, 1 2-14 O ctober 2006.
TH E SCISSORS AN D THE POWER. 2 3 5
The com m unication betw een the characters provides the audience w ith essen tial contextual inform ation and constructs a fram ew ork fo r further action; a socio-pragm atic approach offers a fruitful theoretical background to investi gate not only single utterances b u t w hole dialogues o f a given dram atic text. F or the purpose o f the analysis o f the dialogues betw een the characters it also seem s fruitful to see h o w G rice’s C ooperative Principle and the M axim s o f C onversation: The M axim s o f Q uantity (i.e. one should not say too m uch), Quality (i.e. one should tell only truth), R elevance (i.e. one should talk to the point) and M anner (i.e. w hile talking one should be orderly and clear) (Grice: 1989: 2 6 -7 ) are flouted in the conversation to com m unicate a num ber o f sub- textual m essages and shape the relationship betw een the characters.
The notion o f dialogue in the context o f dram a is a m ost com plex issue b e cause o f the em bedded structure o f dram atic discourse. In a prototypical dram a there are tw o layers o f discourse: “The overarching level o f discourse is that betw een the playw right and the audience. C haracters’ talk is em bedded in the higher discourse, allowing the audience to ‘listen in ’ to what the characters say” (Short 1996: 196). In theatrical comm unication on the Addresser 2 (a character o f the play) - Addressee 2 (a character o f the play) level dialogue perform s its prototypical conversational function, but on the A ddresser 1 (the author) - A d dressee 1 (the ideal reader) level it serves as a m eans o f e.g. characterization, as the audience read betw een the characters’ lines to construct the characters’ im age and the im age o f the w orld they inhibit.
The text o f a play belongs to a w ritten code, y et as it enters the stage it un dergoes a profound change. The words are blended w ith theatre space and con nected with many other, non-verbal signs. A theater perform ance is an amalgam o f different m essages th at are coded in a num b er o f system s, this sem iotic com plexity m akes the perform ance the m ost com plex o f all m odes o f artistic expression2. The text o f a play offers a certain potential to its director and actors. They interpret the text in w hat they do on the stage and im print sense on the “raw ” m aterial that is given by the playw right. This article offers an interpre tation o f the play as one o f a num ber o f possible readings o f the text produced by Pinter. The analysis is by no m eans final, for the actors w ho perform the characters o f Lenny and M ax may interpret the text in their own, fully legitimate way, by changing the intonation o f their voices or the m im ic o f their faces and consequently, presenting a different reading o f the first scene o f The Homecoming.
W ords and dialogues are only one o f the num erous m edia o f the perform ance, as E zra P ound said “the m edium o f dram a3 is n ot w ords, but persons m oving about on stage using w ords” (H onigm ann 1989: 60). The pragm atic
2 cf. Lim on 2003: 113-134.
2 3 6 M ich a ł Choiński
analysis cannot account for the imm ense complexity and m ultim edia abundance o f a dram atic text perform ed on stage4, yet it m ay help to reconstruct in real istic psychological term s the speech act structure o f a dram atic conversation and its im plicature as w ritten in the text o f the play. It seem s fruitful to treat the text o f a dram a as “a series o f com m unicative acts, not ju st as a configura tions o f phonetic, syntactic and lexical patterns” (Short 1981: 183), to see the w ords uttered by characters on the stage as a live dialogue, w hich does not have to be treated as an artificial verbal construct. By adopting such an ap proach one m ay exercise a w ide array o f socio-pragm atic devices, to arrive at a literary interpretation.
According to Ham m ond, “P in ter’s dialogue preserves the surface o f realism though this in itse lf is ultim ately subversive because the conversation encour ages a penum bra o f accom panying expectations appropriate to realistic theatre that the plays often frustrate. In plays like The Homecoming, an uncannily ac curate m im esis o f ordinary conversation is form ed to conceal and to belie the extrem e structure o f feeling th at supports it” (H am m ond 1979). The play is am ong m ost controversial and w idely discussed w orks o f the dram atist. It is concerned w ith the return o f Teddy, a professor o f philosophy at one o f A m er ican universities, to a L ondon house in w hich lives his father, M ax and his brothers, Lenny and Joey. The mem bers o f family seem to function on the fring es o f w orking-class society and stand in m arked contrast w ith w ell-educated and respectable Teddy. In the course o f the play Ruth, Teddy’s wife, decides not to return hom e with her husband, but to stay in London with Teddy’s fam i ly and w ork as a prostitute. This decision is the dram atic clim ax o f the play in w hich the stable and gradual deconstruction o f the ordinary reaches its climax. This tension o f the play is constructed through a strategic use o f dialogue in w hich verbal skirm ishes push the action further, and detach it from the reality and the ordinary.
One o f such skirm ishes is to be found at the very opening o f the play. The Homecoming starts w ith a question “W hat have yo u done w ith the scissors?”, a m ost significant one for P in te r’s construction o f the w orld presented in the play and for establishing the relationship betw een the characters. The question is asked by elderly Max, who enters a room where Lenny is sitting in an armchair and reading a newspaper. Lenny does not answ er his father although the latter keeps on enquiring him , until finally the son, obviously im patient w ith his fa th er’s questions, attacks M ax and m ocks him. Pinter com m ented on the opening scene o f the play in the follow ing way:
Someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and was demanding their whereabo uts of someone else he suspected had probably stolen them. But I somehow knew that the per
TH E SCISSORS A ND THE POWER. 2 3 7
son addressed didn’t give a damn about the scissors or about the questioner either, for that mat ter... I saw a man enter a stark room and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a father and that B was his son, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (later to become Max), ‘Dad, do you mind if I change the subject? I want to ask you something. The dinner we had before, what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why don’t you buy a dog? You’re a dog cook. Honest. You think you’re cooking for a lot of dogs. ’ So since B calls A ‘Dad’ it seemed to me reasonable to assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this mean that there was no mother? I didn’t know. But, as I told myself at the time, our begin nings never know our ends5.
P in ter’s com m ent reveals a part o f his workshop: the first lines o f The Home coming are real-life and “dialogic”, in the respect that Pinter did not devise them word by word, but rather produced them as concrete chunks o f a conversation. This observation m akes the socio-pragm atic study o f the play even m ore legitimate.
W ith the first sentence o f the play Pinter characterizes Lenny and M ax, si m ultaneously constructing the fram ew ork for further action. The sentence “W hat have you done with the scissors?” is, from the grammatical point o f view, an interrogative, but it has the illocutionary force o f an accusation. The impli- cature o f the utterance is clear: by uttering this sentence M ax presupposes that Lenny has taken his scissors and hidden them som ewhere. By identifying this presupposition it is p ossible to interpret th e question as an accusation. The question: “W hat have y o u done w ith the scissors?” is obviously an enquiry about the scissors’ whereabouts, yet the m eans selected by M ax i.e. an indirect accusation, renders it a direct attack on Lenny. M ax ’s utterance does not contain any phrases or linguistic m eans w hich could be considered, in sociolinguistic term s, politeness strategies. The question is direct and short, it m ay be view ed as an invitation to strife, rather than an invitation to discussion.
It is possible to interpret the sentence as a kind o f a challenge M ax poses to him self, the old m an w ants to test his pow er in the household and confirm his, as he thinks, dom inant position. The facts that he m akes such an accusa tion m ay suggest that his position in the household is that o f power, it seem s logical to presuppose, on the basis o f pragm atic presupposition, th at M ax is legitim ate to com m and others (or, at least, that he thinks he is). This impression is verified a few m om ents later by the way his son reacts to his questions. It is interesting to take into account the way the characters are situated on the stage here. M ax tries to exercise his power, yet, it is he who is standing w hile his son is sitting. On the one hand, this arrangem ent m ay be seen as M a x ’s attem pt to dom inate Lenny, by virtue o f being “higher” than he is, yet, on the other hand, it also rem inds one o f a casual superior-subordinate relationship, w ith M ax
2 3 8 M ich a ł Choiński
standing as a “subordinate”, and Lenny sitting as a “superior” . A sim ilar tech nique is em ployed by Pinter in his sketch Trouble in the Works w here the p lay w right turns upside down the em ployer-em ployee relationship by playing with the superior-subordinate arrangement o f characters6. The struggle for superiority and dom inance is particularly im portant in the light o f the lines in w hich Max, in order to get his so n’s attention, threatens him with violence.
In the second utterance M ax m akes his point clear: “I said I ’m looking for the scissors” . H is clarification is intended to m ake his son answ er him. H e re peats the question: “W hat have you done w ith them ?”, but Lenny still does not bother to react to his father’s words and keeps on reading the newspaper. W hen L enny does not w ant to answ er his father, he is obviously violating the C oop erative Principle: he refuses to take part in conversational turn-taking, the nec essary condition for every conversational exchange. How ever, his refusal to com m unicate becom es a m essage in itself: he expresses his disregard for M ax and proves his superior position in the household. The old man, in turn, is caught in a vicious circle: paradoxically, the m ore pow er he w ould like to exercise over his son the more underm ined his position becomes. The pauses betw een M ax ’s utterances, in w hich he anticipates L enny’s response, gradually build the ten sion betw een the tw o characters, w hich m ay lead to an open conflict.
The young m an’s reluctance to answer his fath er’s rem arks does not neces sarily have to be governed by the intention o f avoiding this conflict. It is p o s sible to interpret L en n y ’s silence as a provocative encouragem ent for the old m an to go further; Lenny seem s to understands his fa th e r’s situation and to kn o w that by no t answ ering his enquiries and accusations he can turn them against him - his silence becom es a m eans o f showing disrespect and m anifest ing superiority. In this way Pinter gradually constructs the im age o f a m alicious m anipulator, w hom Lenny turns out to be in the course o f the play.
In his third attem pt to attract L en n y ’s attention M ax gives reasons why he needs the scissors: “D id you hear me? I w ant to cut something out o f the paper”. B y providing explanation for his demands he tries to legitim ize his request and attract his son’s attention. Also, the fact that he says too much, breaking the M ax im o f Quantity, m ight be view ed as a sign o f weakness, o f giving in to his son.
A t this point, for the first tim e Lenny answ ers his father: “I am reading the new spaper” . H is utterance has the illocutionary force o f a denial, Lenny flouts the M axim o f R elevance (L enny’s utterance does not contain the inform ation about the scissors whereabouts) thus emphasizing that he is not concerned about his father and focuses only on him self. On the one hand he m akes it clear that he does not w ant to be bothered as he is busy reading the new spaper, on the other hand he states clearly that the new spaper belongs to him and he has no
TH E SCISSORS AN D THE POWER. 2 3 9
intention o f giving it to his father. L en n y ’s answ er m ight be view ed as a m an ifestation o f strength: he does not respond to M ax’s initial question, but focuses on his independence and superiority to his father. The utterance is short and decisive, its straight, affirm ative form contributes to its m essage and helps L enny to control the situation.
In his next utterance M ax uses the word “paper” three times: “N ot that paper. I haven ’t even read that paper. I ’m talking about last Sunday’s paper. I was ju st having a look at it in the kitchen.” H is usage o f the w ord “paper” is em phatic and it could be acted out as a mockery, provided the actor adopts a proper in tonation. M ax flouts the M axim o f Quantity: he provides m ore inform ation that is needed, but here, unlike in the previous case he does not give in to Lenny. The old m an has finally m ade his son answer him and, it is possible to interpret his utterance as an attem pt to recover his alleged superior position.
H is trium ph, however, does not last long. Lenny keeps ignoring him ; after a pause M ax goes on: “D o you hear w hat I ’m saying? I ’m talking to you!” The exclam ations are aim ed at attracting L en n y ’s attention and m ake him answer the question that follows: “W h ere’s the scissors?” The question is repeated for the third tim e, this tim e, however, it is not in the form o f an accusation - it is a direct enquiry about the scissors’ whereabouts. Yet, even no w M ax is disre garded by L enny who answ ers “W hat d on ’t you shut up, y ou daft prat?” - this line ought to be uttered, as the stage direction indicates, quietly. Lenny is not concerned about his fath er’s question; his words are the ultim ate denial to take part in the conversation: the utterance carries the illocutionary force o f an insult, and it is recognized by M ax as an abuse. The utterance is also a clear breaking o f the C ooperative Principle and flouting o f the M axim o f M anner. The fact that the answ er is uttered calmly, rules out the possibility that Lenny m ay be governed by passion; the insult is another, calculated blo w in the struggle for power, w hich Lenny m akes use o f in order to control the situation.
The conversation becom es m ore violent as M ax answ ers the insult w ith a threat, he says “D o n ’t y o u talk to m e like that. I ’m w arning y o u ” while, as the stage direction says, lifting his stick and pointing at Lenny. H is attem pt to m anifest his pow er by a threat, “I am w arning you” , is rather feeble in contrast w ith L en n y’s calculated insult and the superiority he has show n so far in the conversation. M ax ’s utterance “I ’m warning you” contains a perform ative verb (when we utter the w ord “warn” we perform the action o f w arning somebody), which is, in Austin’s terminology, a misfire. M ax does not fulfill one o f the basic felicity conditions necessary to perform the act o f warning, i.e. w hen w arning one does have to have pow er to exercise his or h er threat. W hen M ax utters this sentence he is in a subordinate position and has no m eans to threaten his son, the stick he raises becom es therefore m ore a confirm ation o f his weakness than a serious m eans o f exercising violence. The fact that M ax resorts to
argu-2 4 0 M ich a ł Choiński
mentum ad baculum, a threat, could be interpreted as a p ro o f for his hopeless ness. Lenny is well aware o f that as he does not answ er his fath e r’s utterance and keeps reading the racing m agazine.
The conversation turns out to be nothing else but a struggle for dom inance. M ax uses the scissors as a pretext to begin a duel for power, w hich in the end he loses. His final utterance: “I ’m getting old, my w ord o f honour” w hich flouts the M axim s o f Quantity and Relevance (no one expected such a com m ent from him), should not be read as a com m ent addressed to Lenny, these are the words the old m an directs at him self; it could be interpreted as a reflexive conclusion he draws from the exchange in w hich his son exposed him his contem pt and malice. The offensive nature o f the conversation, w hich constructs the fram e w ork o f the play allows one to assum e that it is usual for the m em bers o f the fam ily to address one another in such a way. The characters are not capable o f conducting a casual, polite conversation and show ing respect to each other. The initial conversation helps to build an im age o f a corrupted hom e, w hich one actually w ould not like to return to; this adds to the complexity o f the theme o f the hom ecom ing, w hich functions as basis for the structure o f the play. In term s o f dram atic exposition the conversation also serves as a m eans o f im plicit characterization o f M ax and Lenny, efficiently constructing the images o f the m ain characters and their m utual relationship.
Critics agree that P in te r’s w orks (especially his earliest “ com edies o f m en ace” am ong w hich The Homecoming is ranked) are notable for the strategic use o f dialogue as well as the com bination o f verbal skirm ishes and banal, yet “strangely threatening atm osphere” (Alm ansi and H enderson 1983: 18). The playw right’s mastery o f dramatic dialogue resulted in coining a new term - “Pin- teresq u e” - to describe his style: “full o f dark hints, preg nan t suggestions, w ith the audience left uncertain as w hat to conclude”7. P in te r’s dram as abound in situations o f conflict and menace, in w hich the characters are lost in the com plex m aze o f the comm onplace and the unusual. In the exchange betw een Lenny and M ax com m on speech and everyday language cam ouflage the struggle for dom inance and power, w hich is the essence o f hum an relations in The Home coming. In this play the “Pinteresque” is not only about the situational arrange m ent o f characters and subversive com bination o f the ordinary and the extraor dinary, but prim arily about the com plexity o f the language o f characters and their conversations.
Such density o f m eanings w rought into the dram atic exchanges in m anage able only by the dram atist’s sensitivity to language and his ability to m aneuver meanings. According to M artin Esslin “P in ter’s dialogue is as tightly - perhaps m ore tightly - controlled than verse. Every syllable, every inflection, the suc
cession o f long and short sounds, words and sentences, is calculated to nicety. A nd precisely the repetitiousness, the discontinuity, the circularity o f ordinary vernacular speech are here used as form al elem ents w ith w hich the poet can compose his linguistic ballet” (1970: 43). In The Homecoming, )vst as in a n xm het o f P in te r’s plays, language is not used as a m eans o f com m unication, b ut as a m eans o f creating truly “Pinteresque” w orld o f uncanny contrasts.
Abstrakt
Artykuł jest próbą opisu funkcjonowania języka w dialogach w sztukach Harolda Pintera. Autor artykułu stosuje socjopragmatykę jako narzędzie analityczne, które pozwala na omówie nie dialogów z pierwszej sceny sztuki Powrót do domu w kategoriach aktów mowy. Dwie po stacie występujące w omawianej scenie, Lenny i Max, prowadzą pozornie trywialną konwersa cję, która okazuje się kluczowa dla przedstawienia ich wzajemnej relacji, jak również zawiąza nia akcji dramatu. Szczegółowa analiza implikatury konwersacyjnej wypowiedzi Lenniego i Maxa pozwala doszukać się w omawianej scenie typowych elementów Pinterowskiej sztuki prowadzenia dialogu w dramacie, jak, na przykład, zmiennej dynamiki konwersacji, narastają cego emocjonalnego napięcia pomiędzy bohaterami oraz bogactwa podtekstowych znaczeń obecnych w dialogach bohaterów
Abstract
The article is an attempt at describing the functioning of language in dialogues of Harold Pinter’s plays. The author uses the concepts of sociopragmatics to analyze the utterances of the opening scene of the Homecoming as speech acts. The two characters of the scene, Lenny and Max, hold a seemingly trivial conversation, which turns out to be crucial for establishing the relationship between them and for constructing the framework of the action of the play. Deta iled analysis of the conversational implicature of the utterances allows the author to highlight typical elements of “Pinteresque” manner of designing the dramatic dialogue, e.g., the chan ging dynamics of the conversational exchange, gradually increasing emotional tension between the characters, as well as the abundance of subtextual meanings of the dialogic utterances.
References
Almasi, G., Henderson, S H a ro ld Pinter, London, 1983. Austin, J.L., Philosophical Papers, Oxford, 1970.
Carpenter, C., 'Victims of Duty’? The Critics, Absurdity, and The Homecoming’, Modem D ra m a, vo l. XX, 1982.
Elam, K., The Semiotics o f Theatre a nd D ra m a , London, New York, 1980. Esslin, M., The People W ound, Lancaster, 1970.
Grice, P., Studies o f the W ay o f Words, Cambridge, 1989.
Hammond, B.S., ’’Beckett and Pinter: towards a grammar of the absurd” [in:] Journal o f Beck ett Studies, 1979, no 4. http://english.fsu.edu/jobs/num04/jobs04.htm.
242 Agnieszka Kotarba
Kempson, R.M., Presupposition a nd the D elim itation o f Sem antics, Cambridge, 1975.
Keenan, E.L., “Two kinds of Presuppositions in Natural Language” [in:] Fillmore, C.J., Lan- gendoen, D.T. (eds.), Studies in Linguistic Sem antics, New York, 1971.
Limon, J., M ięd zy niebem a sceną, Gdańsk 2003. Levinson, S.C., Pragmatics, Cambridge, 1984.
Pratt, L., Toward a Speech A c t Theory o f Literary Discourse, Bloomington, 1977.
Searle, J.R. Indirect Speech A c ts [in:] Cole, P. & Morgan J.L. (eds.) S y n ta x a n d Sem antics 3: Speech A cts, New York, 1975.
Short, M., Discourse analysis and the analysis o f drama [in:] Applied Linguistics 1 9 8 1 , no 2, vol. 11. Short, M., Exploring the language o f poems, plays a nd prose, New York, 1996.
Short, M., The dram atic text as a template fo r dram atic performance [in:] Verdonk, Short, M. and Culpeper, J. (eds.), Exploring the Language o f D ram a: From Text to Context, London, 1998. Strawson, P.F., Introduction to Logical Theory, London, 1952.
