Study of English Drama: Major themes in The

Birthday Party by Harold Pinter

Theme of Anxiety

The greatest quality of the play lies in the wealth and diversity of the comments which it
seems to make on life, not explicitly but by implication. The play can also be regarded as
an image or metaphor of the author's existential anxiety. The ravages of anxiety upon
the human spirit is Pinter's perennial theme in his plays. He knows that anxiety is a
primal force, one that can impel the mind into growth or into retreat. The Birthday
Party portrays Stanley's psychological disintegration under the pressure of extreme
anxiety. Stanley's neurotic anxiety is presented as one of a man in a trap. He is pursued
by Goldsberg and McCann whom Martin Esslin calls "the team of terrorists". They
appeared in Act-1 with the apparent purpose of "doing a job" on Stanley and of fetching
him back at the behest of whatever organization they represent. The ambivalence
between the two concrete reality of the two men and their simultaneous force as symbols
or dream-images or thoughts is an important aspect of the play.

The deepest roots of Stanley's neurotic anxiety appear to be psychosexual and Oedipal.
He is torn between the smothering attentions and ministrations of Meg, the mother figure
and the threats of Goldberg, the punitive father whose purpose is to make a man of
Stanley. Some of his gestures in Act-1 suggests as if he was a child. He "yawn broadly,
his trunks falls forward, his head falls into his hands", and he lights a match and watches
it burn, just as a child might do. At the end of Act-1, Meg gives him a boy's drum as his
birthday present. The following lines conveys Stanley;s neurotic anxiety and his
infantilism.
"Stanley looks into the parcel. He takes out drumsticks. He taps them together. He looks
at her.
Stanley: Shall I put it round my neck?"
Stanley's wearing of the glasses, his removing them and their final destruction is
suggestive of his darkening perception, his rising anxiety and his final breakdown. After
the loss of his glasses, Stanley Quickly losses emotional control. He screams and
becomes violent and inarticulate. The play is a tragedy of soul in extreme anxiety,
struggling unsuccessfully to achieve a free and independent identity.


Theme of Social Pressures and Demands

Pinter's The Birthday Party, has been much interpreted. It has been seen as a social
allegory. The artiste, Stanley a musician is forced to conform to the materialistic society
which he had tried to reject. The values o society are voiced by Goldberg and its
pressures applied by McCann. They offer Stanley, the benefits of belonging to a large
corporation. Stanley will be "watched over" and "advised" which clearly denotes Stanley's
terrible loss of freedom and breathing space. Stanley has been robbed off of all traces of
individuality and turned into automation. They offer assurance that the company's
benefits includes treatment in case of breakdown or industrial disease. And the statement
made is that society simply does not understand individuality and cannot allow for it.

Stanley's submission is seen as he dons the uniform of a respectable, middle-class
gentility the well cut suit, the white collar and the bowler hat. Stanley was an artiste
having doubts about his creative ability. Stanley has defied the conventions of society by
his mod of living and he has refused to accept the values of society. Society would like to
pull back this man from the mode of life which he has adopted because he might pose a
threat to society and because his example might encourage other people also to revolt
against the prevailing social standards of conduct and behaviour. The author's
sympathies are naturally withy the artiste who has thus been treated by society with
interests of conformity.


Theme of Decadence

Other critics see in The Birthday party man's decay into death; life as a process of loss.
Stanley first loses his sight, then his powers of speech and finally ceases to exist as a
living man. He is taken away dressed in funeral clothes by two men in a large black
hearse. As Goldberg says to him, "You are dead. You can't live, you can't think, you can't
love. You are dead."

In this way the play depicts man's decay into death, and life as a process of loss.
Goldberg's black car is like the black negro carrying a suggestion of death. The killers are
devoid of human values; they are pathological terrorists deriving immense satisfaction
from the distress of innocent, peace loving people. Stanley's correct dress, his blindness
and his speechlessness makes an image of him as a dead body. Goldberg and McCann
could then be messengers of supernatural powers sent to transposrt a human being into
the realm of death.


Theme of Growing up

The Birthday Party, viewed from another angle may be seen as an image or metaphor for
the process of growing up; of expulsion from the warm, cozy world of childhood with a
combination of motherly affection and sexual desire for Stanley. Meg is a mother figure
seen from the viewpoint of an Oedipus complex. Stanley is unwilling to leave the warm
seedy nest which Meg has built for him. Stanley is even afraid of sexuality outside of the
cozy mother-son relationship and thus refuses to go out with Lulu. And that is why at the
climax of his mental crisis, he first attacks Meg, the mother figure because she has not
opposed the destruction of his relationship with her, although it was because she wasn't
at all aware of the meaning of the visits of Goldberg and McCann. Stanley's removal in
the garb of a respectable gentleman would, from this angel become an image of the
adult's nostalgic leave-taking from the cozy, comfortable, warm world of his childhood.

It is also possible to see that the play as demonstrating the individual's reluctance to
leave the warmth of the womb and be born into a world which is hostile. The recurrent
theme, 'the need for security' had its origin in one of Pinter's earlier plays called The
Room. In this play, a blind negro called Riley shatters this security, while in The Birthday
Party the security is shattered by some outsiders Goldberg and McCann. Pinter,
through this tries to make the readers see that all people yearns for security and create
as world which shuts out the hostile world. However, the security and sanctuary created
are shattered by the violent forces of the outside world.


Minor Themes

There are also other themes that persists in the play. Loneliness is one among them.
Stanley, despite his relationship with Meg was essentially lonely. Meg will be lonely after
Stanley's departure. Personality and its dual aspect constitutes yet another theme.
Stanley represents a distinct personality in the boarding-house; a disappointed concert
pianist held back by his enemies and yet of a person more intelligent than and superior
to Meg, Petey and Lulu. But this image loses its validity after being reduced to
nothingness and destroyed by Goldberg and McCann. The play is also seen as an allegory
of death presented through the story of the protagonist who is snatched away from the
area that can shut out the outside malignant forces. The Birthday Partyspeaks of the
tragedy that springs from lack of understanding between people on different levels of
awareness. It speaks plainly of the individual's pathetic search for security in a world of
secret dreads and anxieties.