Manipulation of Nonsense to Bring Sense: The Pinter Technique

Harold Pinter, the Nobel laureate, is a literary giant of modern drama in English. His plays are categorized as belonging to the absurd theatre along with the likes of Beckett. The absurd theatre makes use of language in a peculiar way to communicate the real predicament of human existence. Harold Pinter, as a chief exponent of the Absurd Theatre made a significant stamp on the theatrical language. His style is so unique that it led to the coinage of the word ‘Pinteresque’. The speeches in his plays are an interplay of both sense and nonsense. This article aims to analyze the language employed by Harold Pinter and in the process examine how absurd it actually is.