by Robin M. Fiedler (Author)
Harold Pinter's debt to Samuel Beckett is not a matter of direct copying or replication, but a natural progression of the postmodem dramatic form. Both Pinter and Beckett examine human violence, companionship, game playing, religion, and philosophy, culminating in a world-as-stage metaphor where characters are subtly aware of being both spectators and players. Pinter's and Beckett's mimetic representations, whether successful or not, capture the essence of existence as a continuous creative process: characters examine dreamlike memories of experiences for meaning and narrate the past in their present existence in order to bring purpose to their future. The creative process of defining the past influences the characters' present decisions: the phenomenology of being in time is the only certainty. Pinter and Beckett move beyond tragicomedy and absurdity to an ontological metaphor: play creates fiction as an epistemological truth.