Meaninglessness

Pinter illustrates the play's major theme, meaninglessness, in his adroit construction of the play. In the absurd prison world, nothing makes sense. The prisoners, referred to as "s—houses" and "enemies of the state" are being held for unnamed crimes. The narrative suggests that they have been imprisoned because they are "mountain people" who speak an outlawed language. When the officials discover that Charley, Sara's husband, is not a mountain person, they decide he has been put into the "wrong batch" but do not question his guilt.

The play presents an existentialist vision of the condition and existence of men and women as it deconstructs the traditional view that humans are rational beings existing in an intelligible universe. The characters repeatedly question the prison rules, trying to determine a logical structure to the system but are continually thwarted because there is no logic behind a world that...