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- Name:- Zankhana .M.Matholiya
- Roll.No:-36
- Paper No.-9-The Modernist Literature.
- Topic :- The importance of the roles of Goldberg and McCann in The Birthday Party.
- Class:-M.A. Sem-3
- Enrollment No:-2069108420180036
- College:- Smt.S.B.Gardi Department of English
- Email ID :- zankhanamatholiya96@gmail.com
- Submitted:-Department of English M.K.University, Bhavnagar
v Introduction.
● The
Birthday Party Pinter’s first full-length play, [1958] This played to exactly
six main characters. Harold plays critics, confusing, obscure, and
unconvincing. There is most important play of the mid-twentieth century. The
play “The birthday party” was divided Three Act.
● Harold
was used by term “Comedy of menace” and comedy is most important part of the
play. The birthday party has been described as Irving Warble as a critic. This
play different theme, symbol, character, Absurd all discuss of the Harold view.
● Acts
are rural and individual and sophisticated.
In the nature of reality is very confusing of the way. The play is
Outdoor or texture of the play.
● Abused
are no beginning, no middle and not perfected end. There are related with the
play on theme of Absurd. It very common words of the Pinter play but they can
have use of different style or Absurd. The term applied to the different
characteristic of the play.
●
Mainly it is found in the characters of
Meg, Stanley and Lulu is unique character of the play. All character is very
disappointed and complains in your life.
Goldberg and McCann
Goldberg and McCann
● Two
unknown characters are Goldberg and McCann. Both are “agents” and they have
organist or unfamiliar presented to the party.
Goldberg and McCann are using the theme of ‘menace’ in the play.
Stanley’ mysterious past and they journey are unsuccessfully or not good. Goldberg and McCann was ask Stanley that time
frost for the ridiculous, and Stanley was agree and destroy in a mind.
●
Goldberg and McCann are two of the four
major characters in The Birthday Party, the other being Stanley and Meg.
Goldberg and McCann create a powerful impression upon our minds. Not only are
they formidable persons, beside whom Stanley and Meg seem insignificant, but
they are absolutely essential to the design of the play as are Stanley and Meg.
● Without
Goldberg and McCann the play cannot stand on its legs. It we take them away,
the play would fall to pieces. They lend solidity, weight, and depth to the
play and they impart much to its significance.
●
What
The Two Men Do or Say in act-1.
● Before
we go into the deeper significance of Goldberg and McCann, let us consider
their role in the action of the play and the importance they seem to have on a
superficial view of them. After arrival at Meg's boarding -house they have
casual conversation in the course of which they talk about the job which they
have come here to execute.
●
McCann is feeling uneasy about this job
but Goldberg tries to allay his fears about it by assuring him that it is not
risky or hazardous for either of them. Goldberg also here speaks to McCann
about his past life and about a generous uncle who used to take him to various
places for fun. It becomes apparent to us that Goldberg is the senior partner
in this two-man team and that McCann has reason to feel grateful to Goldberg
for latter's patronage of him.
● This
is followed by a dialogue between Goldberg and Meg, in the course of which
Goldberg suggests that a birthday party be held at night in honour of her
lodger, Stanley; and she readily agrees to suggestion. (lall)
Ă Their Role in Act-2.
· In
Act II, we find McCann blocking Stanley's way when Stanley wants to go out of
the boarding-house, and then both McCann and Goldberg bullying Stanley because Stanley
does not show himself to be a submissive sort of man and because Stanley wants
the two men to leave the boarding-house. Once again Goldberg gets into a
reminiscent mood and speaks of his mother who was one in a million, and of a
sweetheart whose voice was as sweet as a nightingale's song.
· Goldberg
also tells Stanley that a birthday should always be celebrated zestfully. Then,
finding Stanley defiant towards them, the two men subject him to virtual
barrage of statements heart whose voice was as sweet asa and questions which
have a demoralizing and devastating effect on him. When the birthday party
begins, an Goldberg plays a leading role in it, asking Meg to propose a toast
to Stanley making speech in appreciation of Meg's toast, speaking of his dead
wife and the wonderful funeral she had got, and giving directions in game
called blind man's buff.
· At
the end of this Act, the two men are seen advancing threateningly towards
Stanley who has tried to strangle Meg and to rape Lulu.
Ă Both Role In Act -3
● In
Act III, we learn that the two men had played havoc with Stanley after of the
barbarous treatment to the party had ended and that, as a result which they had
subjected Stanley; their victim is suffering from a nervous breakdown.
● The
two men are themselves feeling badly shaken by the brutal torture which they
had inflicted during the night. The two men again jointly subject Stanley to a
volley of quick-fire statements, and a little later take him away with them
despite Petey's effort to stop them.
Ă The Importance of Their
Contribution to the plot of the play.
● It
is evident that these two men make an enormous contribution to the plot of the
play. The very idea of holding a birthday party comes from Goldberg, and the
birthday party constitutes the central episode in the play and gives to the
play its title. The two men hold two brainwashing sessions with Stanley, each
time overwhelming him with a flood of verbiage and leaving him broken and
exhausted at the end. Goldberg orders whisky bottles and whisky-drinking has it
own share in making Meg and Lulu behave as they do.
● The
two men's harassment and bullying of Stanley before the birthday party begins
and their behaviour towards him during the game of blind man's buff has a lot
to do with Stanley's desperation and his attempted strangulation of Meg and his
attempted rape of Lulu. The torture, to which Stanley is subjected by the two
men after the birthday party has ended, reduces him to a physical and nervous
wreck so that he cannot speak a single word and can only produce some gurgling
sounds from his throat.
● Goldberg's
seduction of Lulu comes as a blow to her self-esteem and disillusions her about
the real character of the man who has 'used" her for a night in order to
satisfy his "ugly thirst".
● Eventually
the two men take Stanley away by force, ostensibly for treatment, but actually
to deliver him into the hands of the redoubtable Monty who will complete the
process of the disintegration of Stanley's mind and personality and reduce him
to an automation in his own hands.
Ă Their contribution to
the Comedy in the play
● Goldberg
and McCann contribute much to the comedy of the play. McCann amuses us by his
habit of tearing newspaper sheets into equal strips and also by some of the
questions he puts to Stanley and the remarks he makes about that man. Towards
the end of the play he speaks to Lulu in a tone of mockery, asking her to
confess her sins to him.
● Goldberg's
sense of humour is also seen in the way in which he insidiously flirts with her
and afterwards in the sarcastic remarks which he makes to her in connection
with his seduction of her.
Ă The Symbolic
significance of Goldberg and McCann.
● Even
if we were to stop here and say no more about Goldberg and McCann, we would
have said enough to show how important they the play. But there is something
more to be said. Apart from their obvious role as gangsters in a play which may
by treated as a mystery-cum-thriller, they possess also a deeper significance.
The two men can be looked upon as symbolic characters. symbolic significance
depends upon the way we choose to interpret the symbolic significance of the
play as a whole.
Ă Goldberg and McCann as
Agents of Society.
● One
way of looking at The Birthday Party is to regard it as depicting the light of
the artist in modern society. From this point of view Goldberg and McCann
become agents of society at large. The artist Stanley, a musician, had fled
from society in order to lead his own independent, but isolated, life. Society
treats such an individualistic artist as a danger to itself and sends its
agents to pull him back from this isolation.
● The
two agents use both coercion and persuasion to force the artist Stanley back
into the fold of society and they succeed. The first brainwashing session
represents coercion. The torture which is inflicted by the two men on Stanley a
little later is coercion taken to its extreme extent. Then comes the second
brain-washing session which contains an offer of materialistic rewards to the
artist if he comes back and agrees to lead a normal life of conformity to the
prevailing social code.
● In
this second session the two agents offer to Stanley the benefits of belonging
to a large corporation. Stanley's "submission" is seen as he puts on
the dress of bourgeois respectability-a dark suit and a white collar, besides a
clean shave. The social pressures coercion, physical violence, and material
temptations force Stanley back into the arms of society.
● The
artist, who had rebelled against society and had refused to lead a conventional
life, has been tamed. All this reminds us also of the way in which the artist
is treated in totalitarian States like Russia and China. Goldberg and McCann
then become even more sinister as agents of the Secret Police.
Ă Goldberg as a
Father-figure
● There
is yet another way of looking at Goldberg, If Meg be regarded as a
mother-figure with a subconscious incestuous desire for Stanley, then Goldberg,
with his exaggerated Jewish family feelings, is a father-figure par excellence.
In that case Stanley's fear of the avenging agents sent by "the
organization " would be an expression of his guilty feelings about his
incestuous impulses, and dread of punishment by the father-figure.
Ă Goldberg and McCann,
Symbolic of Animal Behaviour.
● The
Birthday Party has also been interpreted as showing that human beings behave
very much like animals. Goldberg and McCann invade Stanley's territory. Stanley
shows fear; he appease the invaders, struggles desperately, but finally
surrenders. The development of relationship between these three characters
seems to follow patterns of animal behaviour.
● The
conflict between Stanley and the two invaders is very similar to a conflict
between animals under the same circumstances. Stanley's final submission to the
enemy, once he realizes that escape is impossible, resembles the behaviour of a
rat which, on seeing that it cannot save itself from the attack of fellow-rats,
ceases to defend itself. (lall)
Ă Pinter'S Opposition to Symbolic Interpretations of
Characters.
● Pinter
himself might not endorse these various interpretations of the characters of
Goldberg and McCann. Pinter is on record as having said that to interpret a
character in symbolic terms is to emasculate him. But critics and readers
cannot be prevented from interpreting the characters in a literary work just as
they please if the author himself has offered no interpretation of his own.
●
The fact that The Birthday Party and
Goldberg and McCann can be interpreted in so many ways shows how rich and
complex the play is and how complex these two characters are. (lall)
v Conclusion
:-
· We
can say that Harold Pinter’s plays have many interpretations. His plays cannot
be bound in any single definition. When he get noble prize for it that time he
spoke this lines:
“I
have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say. Nor can I ever sum
up my plays, except to say that this is what happened. That is what they said.
That is what they did.”
· In
the last act Goldberg and McCann were seating and there Stanley comes and that
time he is come with some changes, with clean cloths, shaving and looking like
gentleman. That time Goldberg take his glass from his hand and give him offer
that we will give you all the facilities and luxurious life, but behalf of that
Stanley has to lost his creativity, freedom, his nature, his art, and we can
say his vision towards life after that he cannot live his life on his own rules
but he has to live on their rules. If he accept it than and then society or rigidity
accept it.
Works Cited
lall, Ramji. The birthday party by harold pinter.
Delhi: rama brothers india pvt.ltd, 2004.
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