Miseries of Modern Man as depicted by Harold Pinter in the play The Caretaker

Why Absurd is Meaningful?

Definition of modern man: Modern Man is indefinable. He is bunch of certain capabilities which are flexible and one is frequently replaced by another when caught in the whirlpool of flux of society.

1. Any man is a Modern man if he is capable of dropping the Hydrogen Bomb and Atom Bomb on innocent people without any shame or guilt. While doing the act he thinks that he is playing God.

2. Any man who is buying land on the Moon and Mars is a Modern Man.

3. Modern Man thinks that once he was Ape Man and in the future one day he would be Super Man, only he has to grasp more than he can hold. He believes in the Theory of Evolution.

4. Modern Man believes in his Negative Capability. He has infinite strength to face uncertainty. The world is not a closed rational system, the erratic and eccentric stand a better chance of understanding the world than a rational man.

5. Modern Man is proud of agnosticism, commercialisation, technology, anything that widens the gap between rich and poor.

Modern Man has three faces- Mike, Aston and Davies in The Caretaker by Harold Pinter. Mike and Aston are brothers and Davies is a tramp. All of them are directionless. In the play Shoes have been used symbolically. They are symbolic of the right path, action and destination, which all the three are utterly lacking. Despite being aimless they are ready to lend shoes and thus show path to others without caring for its appropriateness.

All the three suffer from isolation. At the beginning of Act I Mike is alone on the stage and at the end of play Davies stands alone on the stage. Mike rejects the audience and walks away after thirty seconds without uttering a single word. He attracts the attention of the audience at the garbage scattered in the room. Davies stands alone rejected by both, the brothers as well as the audience. The means of communication have decreased the capacity of Modern Man for genuine communication. Fear of rejection is due to lack of genuine communication.

All the three are opportunist and leave no chance to take advantage of each other. Aston has not brought Davies home out of charity. He wants to use him as an assistant and take his help in constructing a shed in the backyard of the house which is his long awaited dream. He collected Davies as he collects all other junk with the objective of putting them to use someday. Davies after realising that Mike is the owner of the house plays tricks to separate brothers. Mike is using his imbecile elder brother as caretaker.

Since society is always undergoing a transformation and time has lost its sanctity as Past, Present and Future, Modern Man feels loss of identity. All the three characters are insecure due to loss of identity. They either do not have any past history or they were oblivious of it. Mike was declared as mental patients and electric shocks were given to him whenever he tried to talk sensibly. He suffered from erratic memory lapses and lost his identity as a complete rational man. Davies confesses that original papers establishing his true identity are at Sidcup for the last seven years and he is living with a false name-Bernard Jenkins. Papers have become the only source of identity of Modern Man. The true identity of real self has lost the meaning.

Mike is mysterious and no one knows where he lives and what does he do?

Modern Man is a great planner and same is true for all the three characters. Mike is planning to renovate the house, Aston is planning to construct a shade in the backyard and Davies is planning to collect his papers from Sidcup. All are waiting for appropiate time, which never comes.

All the three characters are Biblical. Davies is Dionysus or the wandering Jew, Mick is dark angel and Ashton is bright angel as well as Christ himself as carpenter trying to build a church. Expulsion of Davies is also allegorical to the expulsion of Adam from Garden of Eden.

All the three have invisible parents, which shows that parents have become aliens for Modern Man. Beside this all the three suffer from racial hatred, fear of rejection, distrust, hallucinations, confinement, distorted values, sexual perversions(exchange of notes between Aston and Davies) and ennui which is the hallmark of Modern Life. The birth of new theories like Absurdism, Cynicism, Skepticism Nihilism and atheistic existentialism is consequential.  

In the end Mick hurls the Buddha statute against the gas stove and it breaks. This is highly symbolic. Buddha is a symbol of peace and compassion. The broken statute is symbolic that the option of peace is now obsolete. All the compassion which both the brothers demonstrated for Davies is also lost. It also symbolises that iconoclastic faith prevails in aimless and purposeless life.

Mike passionately outbursts '' I got to think about expanding...in all directions. I don't stand still. I am moving about ,all the time. I am moving...all the time. I have got to think about future...".

That's the damnable misery of it

Just an absurd thought:

Wriggle if you cannot walk: Walk if you cannot run ~Vipin Behari Goyal

References:

1.Thomas Nagel: Mortal Questions, 1991. ISBN 0-521-40676-5

2. Barrett, William (1977). Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-8371-9671-X.

3.Esslin, Martin (1961). The Theatre of the Absurd. OCLC 329986

4.Great moments in the theater By Benedict Nightingale

262 pages. Oberon Books

© Vipin Behari Goyal

Other related Post

Waiting for Godot

Waiting for Godot: An Absurd Drama by Samuel Beckett

How absurd is meaningful? 

It’s all about waiting. The waiting is the only talked-about activity. The waiting is endless! The waiting is crucial! The waiting is commitment! There is no alternative but to wait.

So here, in ‘Waiting for Godot’ waiting is an action.

Let us contemplate on a few verses from Geeta. Geeta is the only religious book which is purely philosophical in nature.

"What is action? What is inaction? Even the wise are confused in this matter. This action, I shall explain to you, having known which, you shall be released from evil” (4:16)."

"The real nature of action is hard to understand” (4:17)."

“One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is intelligent among men, and he is in the transcendental position, although engaged in all sorts of activities.”(4:18)."

Science says every action has a reaction, but those actions that do not reproduce reactions are inaction. But there is one condition. The action is performed in a transcendental position.

Now, philosophically transcendental means “asserting a fundamental irrationality or supernatural element in experience.”

Waiting is a fundamental irrational experience not only for the characters on stage, but also for the audience. This is also evident in repetition of the same dialogue between two characters at the end of Act 1 and Act II, in reverse order.

At the end of Act 1 in "Waiting for Godot".

"Estragon says: Well, shall we go?

Vladimir replies: Yes, Let’s go.

[They do not move.]

While in the end of Act 2

Vladimir says: Well, shall we go?

Estragon replies: Yes, Let’s go.

[They do not move.]"

Both of them said“Let’s Go”, but did not move. To say is an action which does not cause any reaction. In transcendence action is inaction and inaction becomes action.

Many dimensions of waiting have been explored and many yet remain to be explored. 

The waiting is in reference to time.

"Vladimir: That passed the time.

Estrogen: It would have passed anyway."

French Philosopher Henry Bergson in his theory of duration(la duree) established that time can be grasped through intuition and imagination only since its is permanently in the state of  ‘movable and incomplete’.

"Estragon: Simply wait.

Vladimir: We are used to it.

Waiting is habit. It is a conditioning of mind. It is Comfort zone. It is an identity fixation since ‘billions are doing it everyday."

Waiting is passion, and whole human life is passion. Man starts his journey with ‘doubt’:

"Estragon: You gave me a fright.

Vladimir: I thought it was he.

Estragon: Who?

Vladimir: Godot.

Estragon: Pah! The wind in the reeds.

Vladimir: I could have sworn I heard shouts.

Estrogen: And why would he shout?

Vladimir: At his horse."

Through doubt man wants to reach a 'belief '. The faith is a miracle. Waiting is for that miracle to happen. There are some pseudo-references in all religion that miracle do occur.

"Estragon: I remember the map of Holy Land. Coloured they were. Very pretty. The dead sea was pale blue. The very look of it made me thirsty. That’s where we will go, I used to say, that’s where we’ll go for our honeymoon. We will swim. We’ll be happy."

Waiting is hope that everything will be better tomorrow. 

Waiting is for 'Second Coming’, that would solve all their problems, waiting is for salvation and that is why they repent. The repeated references from the Old Testament and the New Testament reminds us of Christian Existentialist, Soren Kierkegaard. 

Does man suffer despair for want of faith in God.

Waiting is an escapism from the struggles and the nothingness of life.

Waiting is a journey from essentialism to existentialism.

Meaningful phrases from the play and lessons they teach:

1. Vladimir: Be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle.

2. Vladimir: (He buttons his fly)Never neglect the little things of life.

3. Vladimir: Hope deferred maketh the something sick.

4. Vladimir: Blaming on his boots the fault of his feet.

5. Vladimir: The essential doesn't change.

6. Pozzo: Think twice before you do anything rash.

7. Pozzo: From the meanest creature one departs wiser, richer, more conscious of one's blessings.

8. Pozzo: I might just as well have been in his shoes and he in mine.

9. Vladimir: To every man his little cross.

10. Vladimir: Let us not waste our time in idle discourse.

T.S.Eliot in his poem "The Four Quartets" says

"I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting."

Faith,Hope and Love are in waiting. Not only in waiting but poet suggests a sort of perpetual waiting. In "Tall Man Small Shadow" this poem has been quoted from an existentialist point of view.

Use of Sex Symbols in Waiting for Godot:

Carrot:

ESTRAGON 
Fancy that. (He raises what remains of the carrot by the stub of leaf, twirls it before his eyes.) Funny, the more you eat the worse it gets.
VLADIMIR 
With me it's just the opposite. 

Vladimir and Estragon have a relationship which seems to be more than friendship. Temperamentally they are different, but they are bound by some invisible bond which could be Sex. There are subtle hints for that.

Firstly, the waiting itself can be seen as an impotent act. Vladimir is sterile and suffers erectile dysfunction. His offer of carrot is symbolic . Estragon holds the stub of carrot and by the stub of leaf and twirls it before the eyes, is enough to demonstrate his opinion about Vladimir impotency.

Fly:

Estrogon's unbuttoned fly is not simple abrupt humour. It has some implications. It could be pain and suffering caused by sexual incompetence. T. S. Eliot has ridiculed sterile relationship and mechanisation of sexual act in The Wasteland'.Similarly, Beckett also makes a mockery of meaninglessness and uselessness of fly in sterile relationship.Vladimir seems to be suggesting something more when he said "Never ignore little things in life". It may be his pain or suffering for being ignored due to "little thing".

Pants Off:

In the end of the play the last conversation which usually concludes the theme of the play is:

Vladimir: Pull on your trousers.
Estrogon: What?
Vladimir: Pull on your trousers.
Estrogon: You want me to pull off my trousers.
Vladimir: Pull on your trousers.

As if the audience is also being asked to buckle up their pants since the show is over.



© Vipin Behari Goyal

Advocate, Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India