The Birthday Party Essay

This Study Guide consists of approximately 60 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Birthday Party.
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The Birthday Party Essay

This Study Guide consists of approximately 60 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of The Birthday Party.
This section contains 925 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Birthday Party Study Guide

In the following essay, Pountney provides an overview of Pinter's first full-length play, delineating the primary plot points and discussing the work's major themes.

The Birthday Party, Pinter's first full-length play, takes place at the home of Meg and Petey Boles and concerns their lodger, Stanley, whose past is obscure, though he fantasizes about having been a concert pianist. Meg gives Stanley a drum for his birthday, which he plays as though possessed as the first act closes. In Act II Stanley tries to get rid of some new lodgers, Goldberg and McCann, but they respond by subjecting Stanley to rapid-fire interrogation, until he is reduced to speechlessness. The act culminates in Stanley's birthday party, in which McCann breaks Stanley's glasses during a game of blind man's buff, the lights go out and, in a sinister climax, Stanley (encumbered by the drum, into which he has stumbled...

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This section contains 925 words
(approx. 3 pages at 400 words per page)
Buy The Birthday Party Study Guide
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The Birthday Party from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.