SOURCE: "Pinter's 'The Homecoming: Displacing and Repeating Ibsen," in Comparative Drama, Vol. 15, No. 3, Fall, 1981, pp. 195-212.

In the following essay, Postlewait examines Harold Pinter's The Homecoming as a transformation of the drama of Henrik Ibsen, which explores "the sexual politics of bourgeois family life. "

Henrik Ibsen: "A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society. . . .

—Notes for A Doll's House

Teddy (to Ruth): "They're my family. They're not ogres."

—Harold Pinter, The Homecoming

I

What is a home? In drama it is often not a safe place to visit or return to. The homecoming theme, which is so central to the history of drama, reveals that the home is haunted by past crimes, usually concerning sexual matters and the misuse of power. Oresteia, Oedipus the King, Hamlet, Ghosts—here is the main line of the dramatic tradition. In this...