Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Valerie Minogue

Critical Essay by Valerie Minogue

SOURCE: “Taking Care of the Caretaker,” in The Twentieth Century, Vol. 168, No. 1003, September, 1960, pp. 243-48.

In the following essay, Minogue argues that reviewers of The Caretaker focused too much on Pinter's style and ignored the content of the play.

A man went rushing into a building. ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’ he cried. ‘Hell! the flaming house is on fire!’ Those who lived in the house had been trained in the New Criticism. ‘Splendidly vivid. Lower-class idiom,’ said one. ‘Repetitive but racy,’ said another. ‘Over-emotional of course, but dramatic,’ said a third. And they all went on with what they were doing. The funeral was a quiet affair.

This fable aptly represents the relations between Harold Pinter's play The Caretaker, and its critics. Although many have praised the production, the evocation of atmosphere, and the accurate reflection of lower-class talk, most have seen it as a sort of specialized...
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