Laughter and Terror in The Caretaker by Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker is a play about two brothers and a vagrant. The play deals with power in human relations by means of laughter and terror. Failure in communication between the characters produces many amusing situations. Everything, however, is not as amusing in reality as it may first seem to be. The play’s audience is disturbed with their own reactions as they notice what it is that they are really laughing at; the abuse of power by terror and bullying. The play changes its mood suddenly back and forth between innocent amusement and real terror, which creates a feeling of guilt as a result of enjoying and laughing at a situation that turns out to be not so innocent and amusing, after all. The play shows how thin the line between what is funny and what is quite the opposite of it can sometimes be. Thus judging by universal human values, it is rather difficult to tell whether the play is amusing at all, because compassion and malicious delight are both fundamental parts of human nature, and the audience undoubtedly has to go through a disturbing

Another especially cruel act of terror is when Mick chases Davies around in the dark with a vacuum cleaner. He kicks Davies’ matchbox out of reach making him unable to recognize his enemy. This nightmare-like scene is a source of sadistic psychological horror. Human perception relies heavily on sight and when the most important of senses is taken away, a feeling of complete helplessness and paranoia emerges. Anyone would be terrified in Davies’ position. When Mick finally puts the light bulb back in, he acts as if there’s nothing strange and wrong with what he has just done. He actually even implies that he did it for Davies’ own interest

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