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Verbal Strategies, Bodily Violence and Power: An Interpretation of The Dumb Waiter from the Perspective of Macro Power

Author(s)

Tianyi Yang

Affiliation(s)

Department of Foreign Language, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, Hubei, China

Abstract

Winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005, Harold Pinter’s unique Pinteresque style and unparalleled contribution to contemporary drama writing have always caught literal critics’ attention. One of his early dramas, The Dumb Waiter tells the story of two killers in one basement room waiting for the final order to come, ending in a quite unexpected way because it turns out that one killer is exactly the target. As one of his earlier works which seems to be distant from grand narrative, The Dumb Waiter is more known as the typical “comedy of menace” in the field of literature criticism. Recently, however, those early works’ potential value in the view of macro power is more recognized. This article, in this light, will attempt to shed light on the drama’s macro power by analyzing the complex relationship among the verbal strategies, bodily violence and power embodied in the work.

Keywords

Harold Pinter; Power; Grand Narrative; Bodily Violence

References

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