Chapter I

Introduction

1.0 - Hypothesis

T he present study aims at tracing the influence of Kafka

in the works of Harold Pinter the Absurd dramatist. It

is well-known that both the writers are exponents of the

intellectual and philosophical movement called Absurdism

which in turn derives its sustenance from perhaps the most

influential school of philosophy in the twentieth century,

Existentialism. Thanks to the pioneering work of Martin Esslin

Absurd Drama is no longer a puzzle to readers. After his

anthology of Absurd plays with a very useful explanatory

introduction to this bewildering form of drama and also after

that his compendium The Theatre of the Absurd (1968) the

connection between this new drama and the Existential

philosophy became widely known and acknowledged. Kafka of

course has been seen right from the start as the main exponent

of the Absurd. It would be seen therefore as labouring the

obvious if one strives to trace the implicit presence of Kafka in

the works of the Absurd playwrights. In fact, the presence of

Kafka in Harold Pinter's plays has been indicated before.

... like Beckett and Kafka, Pinter's attitude to his work is

that of an existentialist, the mode of a man's being

determines his thinking ... and the nature of his own being

that fundamental anxiety which is nothing less than a living

being's basic awareness of the position of the threats of

non-being, of annihilation... (Martin Esslin: 1976: 35)

Naturally, therefore, one may legitimately ask as to what

justifies a thesis of such a type. Now in defence of a venture

like this, one may point out that the Kafka-comiection in

Pinter's work has been suggested only in the form of hints and

guesses; no detailed study of the relation between the Czech

novelist and the English playwright has so far been undertaken

certainly not in the manner this study proposes to do. In tracing

Kafka's influence in Pinter's works the study not only goes to

their common intellectual and philosophical roots but also

examines the whole phenomenon from a psychological

perspective. It, thus, aims at bringing out the psychology of

such writers in being influenced by particular philosophies. In

other words, the literary manifestations of the Existential

philosophy as reflected in the works of two major figures like

Kafka and Pinter are studied in relation to their psychological

needs and compulsions. Thus the study can be seen as an

exercise in psycho-existentialism from the viewpoint of a

student of literature.

1.1 - Survey of Recent Scholarship

A rapid survey of the recent books on these authors will

show in what way this study departs in important ways from

them. First and foremost are the works of Carl Jung. In his

Modern Man in Search of a Soul (first published in 1933, rpt.

1990) Jung in his essay "Psychology and Literature" shows

how psychology helps the study of literature in important ways

as both the subjects have common object of study, viz; the mind

of man. And the human psyche is the womb of all sciences and

arts. Thus psychology can explain the formation of a work of

art on the one hand and on the other reveal the factors that make

a person artistically inclined. In his later book The

Undiscovered Self (195S) Jung states that no problem is more

basic to the Western society than the phght of the individual in

the highly organised and mechanized world of today. Modem

man has surrendered more and more of his freedom to the

subjugating forces of a mass civilization. Resistance to this

organized mass civilization can be made only by one who is as

well organized in his own individuality as the mass itself Jung

explores the roots of the 20^ century man's anxieties which are

the major factors in most of the psychological cases that come

up to the psychiatrist's couch. Jung's observations in this book

are particularly helpful in understanding the schizoid

personalities of a Joseph K. or a Stanley.

The Divided Self (1965) by Dr. Laing is another useful book

on psychology which is a unique study of the human situation

as it makes the process of going mad comprehensible. He

offers a rich existential analysis of a person's alienation from

the view point of psychology. According to him the outsider, a

stranger from himself and others cannot experience life like

other people. So he invents a false self for himself which is his

defence mechanism in dealing with both the outside world and

his own despair. Like Jung's books Dr. Laing's study of the

divided self is particularly useful in relation to the confusion of

names in The Trial and The Birthday Party.

Conversations with Kafka (1971) by Janouch which

contains an introduction by Max Brod notes the writer's

conversations with Kafka on various occasions from 1920 to

1924 and is particularly helpful in grasping the ethos of the

Kafka world not only the external one but also the inner

landscape of Kafka's mind. Kafka has talked to Janouch

practically on all important subjects like art, poetry, society,

religion, freedom and law. With such valuable autobiographical

revelations the book is one of the major sources of this study.

The Complete Stories of Kafka (1971) has a useful foreword

by the American novelist John Updike who reviews Kafka's

ideas based on the influence of his father, of the First World

War and of Kierkegaard. Updike believes that Kafka spoke for

millions in their new unease. According to him, Kafka is the

supreme fabulist of modem man's cosmic predicament,

combining fantasy and horror in his narratives of quotidian life

in a way that has come to symboUze the terrors and anxieties of

the 20* century man.

Erich Heller's classic study Kafka (1974) is immensely

helpful in getting an insight into Kafka's works. He relates the

events in the novels to Kafka's personal life. For instance,

Heller shows that before Kafka began to write his masterpiece

The Trial, we find an entry in the diary for 11* November 1911

which shows Kafka writing about his pleasure in imagining that

a knife was being turned in his heart. Heller shows how this

remark is directly related to the way Joseph K. dies at the end of

The Trial.

Kafka's Other Trial (1974) by Canetti focuses its attention

on documents like Kafka's Diaries,^ Letters to Melina and

Letters to Felice and others and interprets Kafka's dominant

ideas. Canetti argues that in The Trial degradation of K. issues

from a superior source, the court. Once it has made K. feel its

presence the court veils itself in a secrecy which no effort can

unravel. According to Canetti, in The Trial the question of the

guilt originates only in ceaseless endeavours to find out about

the court. This book is useful for understanding the origins of

Kafka's sense of guilt which forms the basis of his angst.

The Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Trial (1976)

edited by James RoUeston offers an introduction of extreme

philosophical sophistication. Along with the classic essay of

Eric Heller "Man Guilty" it contains two very insightfiil

interpretations of the novel which are discussed in detail in the

third chapter of this study.

Introducing Kafka (1977) by Mairowitz and Crumb helps

the reader to see beyond the clichaic "Kafkasque" and to peer

through the glass wall at the unique creature on display there.

Kafka's friends used to describe him as man living behind a

glass wall. The writers place Kafka in the tradition of the great

Yiddish story-tellers whose stock-in-trade was bizarre fantasy

tainted with hilarity and self-abasement. What Kafka brought

to this tradition was an almost unbearably expanded

consciousness. Alienated from his roots, his family, his

surroundings and primarily from his own body, Kafka created a

unique literary language in which to hide away, transforming

himself into a cockroach, an ape, a dog or a mole.

 Meghdadi in his book Knowing Kafka (1990) examines

Kafka's relation with surrealistic and expressionistic schools.

The section dealing with Kafka's own viewpoint about The

Trial and with those of others has been most helpful for this

study. According to Dr. Meghdadi The Trial is in fact a mental

trial and happens in the unconscious mind of Joseph K. He

bases his argument on the perceptive observation of Dauvin

who has drawn attention to the fact that Joseph K.'s nightmares

occur only on Sundays which is quite significant. On this

universal holiday the normal daily stresses do not occupy the

conscious half of the mind. In another chapter Dr. Meghdadi

studies the terror of Joseph K. which is symptomatic of the fear

that gripped the world after the First World War.

In 2002 there came out The Cambridge Companion to

Kafka edited by Preece. Giving a comprehensive account of

Kafka's life and work the book offers a well-rounded appraisal

of this most distinctive modernist from the Central Europe.

Contributions to this volume cover all the key texts and discuss

Kafka's writing in a variety of contemporary critical contexts

such as Feminism, Deconstruction and Psychoanalysis. The

essays "The Exploration of the Modem City in The Trial" by

Foebel and "Kafka's Writing and Our Reading" by Constantine

have been especially useful for this study.

Like the books on Kafka, books on Pinter in particular and

Absurd Drama in general are numberless. To make a selection

of them is indeed a Herculean task. In his book The Theatre of

the Absurd (1968) Martin Esslin has given us a most fruitful

approach towards the plays of dramatists like Beckett, lonesco

and Pinter. He defines the term Absurd as something that is

"out of harmony". His chapter on Pinter is particularly useful

in a tangential way for he indicates how writers like Beckett

and Pinter are influenced by Kafka in that we see their

characters in the process of their essential adjustment to the

world at the point where they have to solve their basic problem,

whether they will be able to confront and come to terms with

reality at all. Esslin has another book which is of a more direct

relevance to this study. His Pinter: The Playwright (1988) was

originally The Peopled Wound. He shows how in Pinter's

plays the existential fear is never presented as a philosophical

abstraction only but it is based on some experiences of a Jewish

 10

boy in the East End of London, of a Jew in the Europe of Hitler.

This study is immensely indebted to Esslin's interpretation

especially of The Birthday Party.

Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, (1972) by Gale focuses

on the different analyses of the play. In addition there is a

chapter on Pinter's dramatic techniques and devices. The

interpretation by Arlenne Syke of The Birthday Party is

particularly relevant to this study as it points out that the

dramatist's main concern is to show the destruction of Stanley

at the hands of the menacing forces symbolized by Goldberg

and McCann. This is half way between the menace of Ka&a

involving the hidden, the inner world of guilt and fear and its

encounter with the agents of menace represented by the outside

world.

Scott in his book Harold Pinter (1986) has edited a variety

of critical essays on Pinter's plays including two essays by the

playwright himself on The Birthday Party. According to Pinter,

Stanley fights for his life, he does not want to be drowned but

he is not articulate. Stanley cannot perceive his only valid

justification which is that he is what he is; therefore he certainly

 11

can never be articulate about it. He knows only to justify

himself by dream, by pretence, by bluff and finally by fight.

One of the contributors to this volume, Peter Hall, interestingly

says that he heard the voice of Kafka when he first read The

Birthday Party. The voice was the terror, the terror of the

unknown. The study is naturally indebted to this perceptive

comment.

The study by Jenkins(1998) of Pinter's art as reflected in the

three plays The Birthday Party, The Caretaker and The

Homecoming is helpful in grasping the basic themes, structure

and style as employed by Pinter. Jenkins argues that although

Pinter was seen as a New Wave writer in the mid 1950s his

plays have nothing in common with those of John Arden and

Osborne. In the three plays under study the protagonists are

shown caught in the net of life and Pinter refuses to offer them

the consolation of an escapist route.

The Cambridge Companion to Pinter (2001) edited by

Rally examines Pinter's life and works in all their wide-ranging

dimension, Pinter has written for the theatre, radio, television

and screen and is regarded as a highly successful actor and

 12

director. Anthony Roche, Cave and Stokes in their essays refer

to the influence of Kafka on Pinter. The book has been used as

one of the main sources for this study.

1.2-Plan of the Thesis

From this survey of recent publications on Kafka and Pinter

as well as of books of a general nature on the philosophy

governing their works and psychology it will be clear that there

is still some place for a study that aims to show the implicit

presence of Kafka in Pinter's plays. As a precautionary measure

the study sought to test the hypothesis by examining Kafka's

presence in the most obvious example of The Birthday Party

but during the course of research Kafka's shadow began to

lengthen and spread to other plays as well. Hence works like

The Room and The Caretaker are also included here as they go

to prove the point of the thesis all the more.

The plan of the thesis is as follows. The next chapter will

outline some of the major tenets of Existentialism along with

the literary manifestations thereof in earlier literature and try to

place Kafka and Pinter in a perspective. Chapter three will

concentrate on the major works of Kafka like The

 13

Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle along with the

psychological factors and motivations behind such works. This

chapter especially applies concepts like the sense of guilt,

divided self, alienation, the unconscious and awakening and the

unknown forces (menace). The fourth chapter deals with the

works of Pinter mentioned above and applies the same concepts

with the aim of showing, through textual analysis, their mode of

being which is analogous to that of Kafka's works. The

penultimate chapter brings out the similarities and differences

between Kafka and Pinter especially in the way they react to the

phenomenon of Absurdity and shows how Kafka's shadow

haunts the plays of Pinter in a detailed examination thereof The

final chapter forms the Conclusion of the thesis which sums up

the major points made in the study and shows how Kafka's

presence is implicit in Pinter's plays not only in matters of

literary technique but also in the psychological make-up.

Since the study employs many terms drawn from the fields

of philosophy and psychology it has been found necessary to

give a glossary of certain technical terms so as to facilitate

clarity of thought and stabilization of semantic contours. The

 14

tenns are given in alphabetical order and in the sense they have

been used throughout the study unless otherwise indicated.

1.3 - Glossary of the Terms Used in the Thesis

Absurdism: This term has been derived from the Latin word

"Absurdus" which etymologically means deaf or stupid. Now

the word is generally understood to refer to anything which is

devoid of purpose - cut off from his religious, metaphysical and

transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become

senseless, useless, absurd.

Alienation: It is the act of estrangement or disengagement. The

word itself defines an individual who tends to become isolated

both from himself and from the world without.

Angst: Abnormal apprehension and fear often accompanied by

doubt about the nature of reality, the nature of the threat itself

and finally by self-doubt.

 15

Awakening: This is a term used with a specific meaning in the

study. Awakening refers to the moment when repressed desires

surface to the conscious mind. Thus it involves the process of

an individual waking up to his id or unconscious.

Birth: Generally understood as the beginning of life. In

existentialist philosophy it is a contingent affair.

Disintegration: It is the breaking of the identity of an

individual into fragments thus destroying the notion of a well-

organized individual.

Dread: A Kierkegaardian term which means a feeling of

general apprehension of some unknown and unknowable

menace.

Ego: In Freudian psychology ego is the rational and logical

part of the psyche which is governed by the reality principle in

contrast to the pleasure principle of the id.

 16

Existential Fear: It is the fear of nothingness and the

impossibility of finding the ultimate justification for life or

existence. In Derridean terms the fear is caused by the absence

of any ground referent or the transcendental signified.

Guilt: Normally understood as responsibility for acts of

omission and commission. However in the works of Kafka and

Pinter the feeling of guilt does not stem from any such

awareness but is as it were co-existent with birth involving

responsibility towards one's inner self as well as towards

others.

Humiliation: This means injury to one's self-respect. In this

connection it is useful to remember how Kafka felt humiliated

in the presence of his domineering father.

Judaism: A religion developed among the ancient Hebrews and

marked by monotheism and by the moral laws in the form of

Ten Commandments given by Moses. Secular Jewish thinkers

like Gunter Anders and Kafka considered God, an extension of

 17

the Father as the source of all Evil. The Father absorbs and

annihilates the identity of everyone who comes in contact with

Him.

Judeo-Christian: A religious tradition deriving from The Old

and The New Testament based on the patriarchal structures

with their implicit assumption of the innate social and sexual

superiority of the male.

Kafkaesque ( Kafkaian) : This adjective is usually associated

with notions of terror and bitter anguish caused by the faceless

inscrutable bureaucratic infrastructure. The word has acquired

almost mythic proportions in modem times, irrevocably tied to

phantasmagorical fantasies of doom and gloom.

Power: Kafka's novels portray in lucid deceptively simple

prose man's desperate struggle with an overwhelming power,

one that persecutes its victim as in The Trial or one that may be

sought after and begged for in vain as in The Castle.

 18

Schizoid Personality: This term refers to an individual the

totality of whose experience is split in at least two main ways.

In the first place there is a rent in his relations with his world

outside and in the second there is a disruption of his relation

with himself. Such a person is not able to experience himself

"together with others" but on the contrary he experiences

himself in despairing aloneness and isolation.

Self-Abasement: One makes oneself lower in status and

esteem, or demeans oneself

Sub-Conscious: A term from Freudian psychology. The sub-

conscious is that part of the mind which affects thought and

behaviour without actually entering the realm of the conscious.

Social Threat: Some have seen in the social threats the

inhumanity of the powerful and their agents, the violence and

the barbarity that lurk beneath the veneer of social intercourse

as the heart of Kafka's work.

 19

Unconscious: According to Freud unconscious plays a major

role in the formation of neuroses. He attributes practical

significance to dreams as direct expression of unconscious

psychic activity. In other words, the difference between the

sub-conscious and the unconscious is that the former can

sometime be admitted into the presence of the conscious mind

but the latter is forever banished and can make its presence felt

only in dreams.

Underground Man: The concept and the word 'underground'

come fi'om Dostoevsky's Notes From the Underground. The

protagonist of this work revolts against social norms and

prevailing forces.
 20

Notes and References

1. Canetti, Elias, "Kafka's Other Trial" in Franz Kafka

Letters to Felice (New York: Schocken Books Inc.

1974).

2. Esslin, Martin, The Theatre of the Absurd, (London,

Pelican Books, 1968)

3. Esslin, Martin, Pinter : The Playwright, (London:

Cox & Wyman, Ltd. 1976)

4. Gale, Steven H. Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party

and Other Works (New York: Monarch Press, 1972)

5. Heller, Erich, Kafka (London : Wm Collins Sons &

Co. Ltd. 1974)

6. Janouch, Gustav, Conversations With Kafka

(London: 1971, Translated by Faramarz Behzad, Tehran :

Kharazmi Press, 1952)

7. Jenkins, John, Harold Pinter: Three Plays (London:

Macmillan Press Ltd. 1991).

8. Kafka, Franz, Complete Stories with a foreword by

John Updike (New York : Schocken Books Inc, 1988)

 21

9. Laing, R. D., The Divided Self (London : Cox &

WymanLtd, 1965)

10. Mairowitz, David Zane and Grumb, Robert,

Introducing Kafka (Australia, McPherson's Printing

Group, 1993.)

11. Meghdadi, Bahram, Knowing Kafka (Tehran :

Nashre-e-Gophtar, 1990)

12. Preece, Julian, (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Kafka

(Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002)

13. Rally, Peter, (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Pinter

(Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001)

14. Rolleston, James, Twentieth Century Interpretations

of The Trial {Englewood Cliffs : Printice-Hall, 1976)

15. Scott, Michael, (ed.) Harold Pinter, The Birthday

Party, The Caretaker, The Homecoming : A Casebook

(London : Macmillan Press, 1986)