SOURCE: “Pinter's Homecoming: The Shock of Nonrecognition,” in The Hudson Review, Vol. 21, No. 3, Autumn, 1968, pp. 474-86.

In the following essay, States examines the use and significance of irony in characterization, situation, and language in Pinter's The Homecoming.

Teddy: You wouldn't understand my works. You wouldn't have the faintest idea of what they were about. You wouldn't appreciate the points of reference. You're way behind. All of you. There's no point in my sending you my works. You'd be lost. It's nothing to do with the question of intelligence. It's a way of being able to look at the world. It's a question of how far you can operate on things and not in things. I mean it's a question of your capacity to ally the two, to relate the two, to balance the two. To see, to be able to see! I'm the one who can see. That's...