Character Analysis of Harold Pinter’s the Caretaker

Erlina Suwardi 2009-031-055 Character Analysis of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker In drama, characters play a dominant role in order to present the scenes. Whether good or bad the characters are, they are the ones who make the play and without them, there will be no play can be presented. In this play , there are only three characters, the brothers, which are Aston and Mick, and the old tramp, Davies. It begins with Aston who brings Davies to his place owned by his brother, Mick. Aston allows and offers Davies, who seems to be homeless, to stay in his room.From the very beginning of the play until the end, the characters do not allow themselves to form good relationship with one another, as they come and go without certain purpose, and also their conversation seems often has no relevance to the situation they are in. Aston, the person who brings Davies to his place, is a mentally retarded man because of the brain treatment given to him forcefully by his mother and brother. Actua lly, Aston was a very talkative person before he was given the therapy. As he says, â€Å" I thought†¦they understood what I said. I mean I used to talk to them. I talked too much. That was my mistake.The same in the factory. † (p. 906, line 58-60). He used to question about the certain things in society and thus he is made mentally retarded. After that, Aston not only loses questioning ability but also hard to communicate properly (p. 907, line 54-71). In my opinion, Aston’s weakness is trusting people too much. Aston even believes a person like Davies. As a result, he is betrayed by not only an intruder like Davies but also by his mother and brother. On the other hand, Davies is an old tramp which is homeless, in need of companionship and a place to stay. It is Aston who shows some kind of kindness to Davies.He gets the opportunity to stay in Aston’s room. However, instead of enjoying what he has already got and being thankful, Davies always complains abo ut a number of thing, for example like shoes (p. 891 line 36-57; p. 910, line 40-60) and the window (p. 906, line 16-20). Davies is a kind of back-stabber person when he turns against Aston and asks Aston to leave from his own place, â€Å".. Find somewhere else?.. Me? You talking to me?†¦ Not me man, you! .. You better find somewhere else.. I live here. I been offered a job here.. I’m going to be his caretaker, he’s going to run this place, and I’m staying with him†¦ (p. 911 line 81- p. 912 line 5). He also seems to be racist person not only to Black people but also Greeks, Poles and Scotch eventhough they do no harm to him (p. 888 line 29-38; p889 line 19-20; p. 894 line48-54). Mick, who plays the role of Aston’s brother, is the one who is actually responsible to treat Aston with brotherly affection. However, Mick treats Aston as the outsider. Moreover, Mick is also not a responsible person because he is trying to switch responsibility from h imself to Davies by offering Davies to be a caretaker eventhough he knows that Davies is not a qualified person. Related essay: â€Å"Stand and Deliver Character Analysis†Though there is a hope between the brothers to communicate each other again when Mick smiles while looking Aston at the end of the play (p. 914, line 47-52), he does not stay or live with him. He chooses to leave Aston at the end. For overall, with these three different characters, the whole story just simpy does not make any sense. It is illogical, conflictless, plotless and meaningless and that is what it meant by the absurd play. Everything is pointless and beyond human rationality to understand. Absurd play came after the World War II to represent freedom.It rebels against conventional plays which used to deal with language as a tool of logical communication and cause and effect relationships. However, the absurd authors seem to have reasons for the fight against the society. They want to explain the society, the world, and the life using a different point of view that life is indeed absurd. In this play, Pinter als o reflects the life, the absurdness of the world and the poor communication among the characters. The play finally ends as it begins. All the three characters remains separated from each other and continues to live the life on their own.