Aloysius College
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GCE (A.L) English Literature
The Caretaker by Harold Pinter
The Caretaker is a play in three acts by Harold Pinter.
Although it was the sixth of his major works for stage and television, this
psychological study of the confluence of power, allegiance, innocence, and
corruption among two brothers and a tramp, became Pinter's first significant
commercial success.[1][2] It
premiered at the Arts Theatre Club in London's West End on
27 April 1960 and transferred to the Duchess
Theatre the following month, where it ran for 444 performances
before departing London for Broadway.[2] In
1964, a film version of the play based on
Pinter's unpublished screenplay was directed by Clive Donner.
The movie starred Alan Batesas Mick and Donald
Pleasence as Davies in their original stage roles, while Robert Shaw replaced Peter
Woodthorpe as Aston. First published by both Encore Publishing and Eyre Methuen in 1960, The
Caretaker remains one of Pinter's most celebrated and oft-performed
plays.
Act I
A night in winter
[Scene 1]
Aston has invited Davies, a
homeless man, into his flat after rescuing him from a bar fight (7–9). Davies
comments on the flat and criticises the fact that it is cluttered and badly
kept. Aston attempts to find a pair of shoes for Davies but Davies rejects all
the offers. Once he turns down a pair that doesn't fit well enough and another
that has the wrong colour laces. Early on, Davies reveals to Aston that his
real name is not "Bernard Jenkins", his "assumed name", but
really "Mac Davies" (19–20, 25). He claims that his papers validating
this fact are in Sidcup and that he must and will return there to retrieve
them just as soon as he has a good pair of shoes. Aston and Davies discuss
where he will sleep and the problem of the "bucket" attached to the
ceiling to catch dripping rain water from the leaky roof (20–21) and Davies
"gets into bed" while "ASTON sits, poking his
[electrical] plug (21).
[Scene 2]
The LIGHTS FADE OUT. Darkness.
LIGHTS UP. Morning.
(21) As Aston dresses for the day, Davies awakes with a start, and Aston
informs Davies that he was kept up all night by Davies muttering in his sleep.
Davies denies that he made any noise and blames the racket on the neighbours,
revealing his fear of foreigners: "I tell you what, maybe it were them
Blacks" (23). Aston informs Davies that he is going out but invites him to
stay if he likes, indicating that he trusts him (23–24), something unexpected
by Davies; for, as soon as Aston does leave the room (27), Davies begins
rummaging through Aston's "stuff" (27–28) but he is interrupted when
Mick, Aston’s brother, unexpectedly arrives, "moves upstage, silently,"
"slides across the room" and then suddenly "seizes Davies'
"arm and forces it up his back," in response to which
"DAVIES screams," and they engage in a minutely
choreographed struggle, which Mick wins (28–29), ending Act One with the "Curtain"
line, "What's the game?" (29).
Act II
[Scene 1]
A few seconds later
Mick demands to know Davies'
name, which the latter gives as "Jenkins" (30), interrogates him
about how well he slept the night before (30), wonders whether or not Davies is
actually "a foreigner"—to which Davies retorts that he "was"
indeed (in Mick's phrase) "Born and bred in the British Isles"
(33)—going on to accuse Davies of being "an old robber […] an old
skate" who is "stinking the place out" (35), and spinning a
verbal web full of banking jargon designed to confuse Davies, while stating,
hyperbolically, that his brother Aston is "a number one decorator"
(36), either an outright lie or self-deceptive wishful thinking on his part.
Just as Mick reaches the climactic line of his diatribe geared to put the old
tramp off balance—"Who do you bank with?" (36), Aston enters with a
"bag" ostensibly for Davies, and the brothers debate how to fix the
leaking roof and Davies interrupts to inject the more practical question:
"What do you do . . . when that bucket's full?" (37) and Aston simply
says, "Empty it" (37). The three battle over the "bag" that
Aston has brought Davies, one of the most comic and often-cited Beckettian
routines in the play (38–39). After Mick leaves, and Davies recognises him to
be "a real joker, that lad" (40), they discuss Mick's work in "the
building trade" and Davies ultimately discloses that the bag they have
fought over and that he was so determined to hold on to "ain't my
bag" at all (41). Aston offers Davies the job of Caretaker, (42–43),
leading to Davies' various assorted animadversions about the dangers that he
faces for "going under an assumed name" and possibly being found out
by anyone who might "ring the bell called Caretaker" (44).
[Scene 2]
THE
LIGHTS FADE TO BLACKOUT.
THEN UP
TO DIM LIGHT THROUGH THE WINDOW.
A door bangs.Sound of a key in the door of the room.
DAVIES enters,
closes the door, and tries the light switch, on, off, on, off.
It appears to Davies that
"the damn light's gone now," but, it becomes clear that Mick has
sneaked back into the room in the dark and removed the bulb; he starts up
"the electrolux" and scares Davies almost witless before
claiming "I was just doing some spring cleaning" and returning the
bulb to its socket (45). After a discussion with Davies about the place being
his "responsibility" and his ambitions to fix it up, Mick also offers
Davies the job of "caretaker" (46–50), but pushes his luck with Mick
when he observes negative things about Aston, like the idea that he
"doesn't like work" or is "a bit of a funny bloke" for
"Not liking work" (Davies' camouflage of what he really is referring
to), leading Mick to observe that Davies is "getting hypocritical"
and "too glib" (50), and they turn to the absurd details of "a
small financial agreement" relating to Davies' possibly doing "a bit
of caretaking" or "looking after the place" for Mick (51), and
then back to the inevitable call for "references" and the perpetually
necessary trip to Sidcup to get Davies' identity "papers" (51–52).
[Scene 3]
Morning
Davies wakes up and complains to
Aston about how badly he slept. He blames various aspects of the flat's set up.
Aston suggests adjustments but Davies proves to be callous and inflexible.
Aston tells the story of how he was checked into a mental hospital and given
electric shock therapy, but when he tried to escape from the hospital he was
shocked while standing, leaving him with permanent brain damage; he ends by
saying, "I've often thought of going back and trying to find the man who
did that to me. But I want to do something first. I want to build that shed out
in the garden" (54–57). Critics regard Aston's monologue, the longest of
the play, as the "climax" of the plot.[3] In
dramaturgical terms, what follows is part of the plot's "falling
action".
Act III
[Scene 1]
Two weeks
later [… ]Afternoon.
Davies and Mick discuss the flat.
Mick relates "(ruminatively)" in great detail what he would do
to redecorate it (60). When asked who "would live there," Mick's
response "My brother and me" leads Davies to complain about Aston's
inability to be social and just about every other aspect of Aston's behaviour
(61–63). Though initially invited to be a "caretaker," first by Aston
and then by Mick, he begins to ingratiate himself with Mick, who acts as if he
were an unwitting accomplice in Davies' eventual conspiracy to take over and
fix up the flat without Aston's involvement (64) an outright betrayal of the
brother who actually took him in and attempted to find his
"belongings"; but just then Aston enters and gives Davies yet another
pair of shoes which he grudgingly accepts, speaking of "going down to Sidcup"
in order "to get" his "papers" again (65–66).
[Scene 2]
That
night
Davies brings up his plan when
talking to Aston, whom he insults by throwing back in his face the details of
his treatment in the mental institution (66–67), leading Aston, in a vast
understatement, to respond: "I . . . I think it's about time you found
somewhere else. I don't think we're hitting it off" (68). When finally
threatened by Davies pointing a knife at him, Aston tells Davies to leave:
"Get your stuff" (69). Davies, outraged, claims that Mick will take
his side and kick Aston out instead and leaves in a fury, concluding
(mistakenly): "Now I know who I can trust" (69).
[Scene 3]
Later
Davies reenters with Mick
explaining the fight that occurred earlier and complaining still more bitterly
about Mick's brother, Aston (70–71). Eventually, Mick takes Aston's side,
beginning with the observation "You get a bit out of your depth sometimes,
don't you?" (71). Mick forces Davies to disclose that his "real
name" is Davies and his "assumed name" is "Jenkins"
and, after Davies calls Aston "nutty", Mick appears to take offence
at what he terms Davies' "impertinent thing to say," concludes,
"I'm compelled to pay you off for your caretaking work. Here's half a
dollar," and stresses his need to turn back to his own
"business" affairs (74). When Aston comes back into the apartment,
the brothers face each other," "They look at each other. Both are
smiling, faintly" (75). Using the excuse of having returned for his
"pipe" (given to him earlier through the generosity of Aston), Davies
turns to beg Aston to let him stay (75–77). But Aston rebuffs each of Davies'
rationalisations of his past complaints (75–76). The play ends with a "Long
silence" as Aston, who "remains still, his back to him
[Davies], at the window, apparently unrelenting as he gazes at his garden
and makes no response at all to Davies' futile plea, which is sprinkled with
many dots (". . .") of elliptical hesitations (77–78).
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