Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2000

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Pearce, Howard D.

Abstract

Harold Pinter's debt to Samuel Beckett is not a matter of direct copying or replication, but a natural progression of the postmodern dramatic form. Both Pinter and Beckett examine human violence, companionship, game playing, religion, and philosophy, culminating in a world-as-stage metaphor where characters are subtly aware of being both spectators and players. Pinter's and Beckett's mimetic representations, whether successful or not, capture the essence of existence as a continuous creative process: characters examine dreamlike memories of experiences for meaning and narrate the past in their present existence in order to bring purpose to their future. The creative process of defining the past influences the characters' present decisions: the phenomenology of being in time is the only certainty. Pinter and Beckett move beyond tragicomedy and absurdity to an ontological metaphor: play creates fiction as an epistemological truth.

Extent

111 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2000.|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT12677

Format

pdf

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