What Is British about Contemporary British Fiction - Essay Example

What is British about contemporary British Fiction Discuss with reference to any two from the second half of the Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Harold Pinter's The Caretaker. The question of "what is British about contemporary British Fiction" is an interesting one in a number of ways. First of all, the nature of what it means to be "British" needs to be considered, or even whether the term is so generic as to render it meaningless. Second, are there common features to be found within very contrasting works of literature that can be said to be normative If the first two questions are answered satisfactorily, can the term British be applied to the works being considered This essay will analyze Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and The Caretaker. Both of them are distinctive, and in many ways ground-breaking plays written by playwrights who are , in their way, regarded as quintessentially 'English' or 'British' in nature: if such as thing as British literature exists, it would be found within their work. First of all is there such a thing as "being British" At the most basic level "being British" would be someone who is born, raised or who hold British nationality. In this case both Pinter and Stoppard meet this crude "British" definition. Being British is also essentially an idea rather than a reality. It can be seen as adherence to a number of supposed national norms that the British display. Eccentricity, independence, an indomitable nature, reserve, politeness, intelligence, genius, empire, arrogance are all characteristics which can be said to be 'British', and thus it can be seen to be a number of often contradictory things. 'Contradiction' is one of the hallmarks of Absurdist Theatre and thus it is apt that The Caretaker is one of the first works of drama to be written within the genre called The Theatre of the Absurd. What can be said to be particularly 'English' about this work. First of all, the characters inhabit a very British world with literal reference to anything outside of working-class culture within London. The play tells the story of the conflict and attempt to find dominance among three characters: two brothers and a homeless man who comes to live with them. There is a mixture of threat, comedy, hopelessness and an ironic commentary upon working class lives that are based often upon endless combative exchanges of words. The characters make fun of their situations in a manner that is both vaguely threatening and funny. For example, Mick gives an exaggerated description of what the hopelessly run-down house could be: MICK: We could turn this place into a penthouse. For instance this room. This room could have been the kitchen. Right size, nice window, sun comes in. I'd have I'd have teal-blue, copper and parchment linoleum squares. I'd have those colours re-echoed in the walls. I'd offset the kitchen units with charcoal-grey worktops. Plenty of room for cupboards for the crockery. We'd have a small wall cupboard, a large wall cupboard, a corner wall cupboard with revolving shelves. You shouldn't be short of cupboards. You could put the dining-room across the landing, see Yes. Venetian blinds on the window, cork floor, cork tiles. You could have an off-white pile linen rug, a table in... in afromosia teak veneer, sideboard with matte black drawers, armchairs in oatmeal tweed, a beech frame settee with a woven sea-grass seat... (sits up) it wouldn't be a flat it'd be a palace. (Pinter, 1998) Mick is making fun of his brother's (as well as the tramp's) ridiculous plans for the house, and goes from the reasonable to the absurd in his descriptions. Take the description of the cupboard, which soon turns into a "large wall cupboard" and then on to the absurdly ambitious "cupboard with revolving shelves" (Pinter, 1998). Pinter is also commenting upon the pretentious of the English middle-class, and those such as his brother and new 'caretaker' who would want to be one of them. The details of this pretension, seething with sarcasm as they are, contribute in an odd way to the sense of threat that Mick brings to the whole play. This threat is subtle, understated, and a person might sensibly argue, almost uniquely "British" in nature. It is the threat found within the pause and the silence which makes this play so powerful and so unique. Pinter himself has suggested that his characters, as well as people in general, speak a lot within their silence, in fact they communicate much more than with their words. He has stated that "words are desperate, rearguard actions to conceal the truth" (Begley, 2005) - a truth that is presumably revealed within the silences and pauses which fill this play. To be "British" is often regarded as the tendency to be reserved, to be unable to express oneself in an open and transparent manner to those around one. In The Caretaker the characters often reveal themselves through their tendency to silence, pauses, vague insinuation and arguments over absurd objects such as the toaster, the Buddha, and whether a pair of shoes fits. In psychological sense this would be regarded as 'transference' of conflict that cannot be openly expressed. In many ways the whole play can be seen as an attempt by Mick and Aston to gain dominance, with the hapless Davies as the pawn within their ongoing game. Advantage is gained through apparently useless "triumphs" such as when Mick physically forces Davies into the corner of the room and does not allow him to leave until he has admitted that he is "useless" (Pinter, 1998). The materialistic nature of the British is also implicitly criticized by Pinter as Davies always seeks rather meaningless material rewards, is completely ungrateful for the help that Ashton so altruistically offers him and is constantly just about to leave to retrieve his "papers", which he apparently views as magical talisman of his future good fortune. Overall, The Caretaker might be seen as an allegory upon the nature of British society, class politics and culture at a time (The Caretaker was first performed in 1960) when Britain was perhaps uniquely lacking in confidence: rapidly losing its empire, still economically depressed from WWII, culturally bereft and essentially in search of an identity. If The Caretaker is a clear example of a play expressing a peculiar British malaise at a specific period of British history, then Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead seems to be set at no particular time and place (beyond the amorphous setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet), and can be regarded as an extended riff illustrating the brilliance of an essentially "British genius". The basic premise of this play is both simple and brilliant: it takes the walk-on characters of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from Hamlet and weaves a play around those moments within Shakespeare's play in which they are offstage. Stoppard's preoccupations within this play are multiple in nature. First, there is a positive existentialist slant to the play, as the two men (who are often unsure of who is called what) wait for something to occur, but are not entirely sure what. Echoes of Waiting for Godot exist, and yet in this play they are even more ambivalent towards their place within the world: at least Vladamir and Estragon know who they are waiting for, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern aren't even sure of that. The two characters know that they part of an enormous drama going on outside of them, they know what is occurring to them and how much they may be effected by it, but they make no effort to escape. Again, within the humor of the play (which is much more evident than the far darker The Caretaker), there is a sense of hopelessness and desperation. The "British" sense of a kind of dour humor at the absurdity of life when we all know that we are going to do is accentuated within this play. The absurdity of chance:- with the play starting with an impossible run of coin tosses brilliantly introduce the theme of chance versus predestination. Just as there is a sense within The Caretaker that Davies, Mick and Aston are doomed to carry on their conflict, and make no apparent effort to escape it (the British position within the world) so Rosencrantz and Guildenstern wander their way aimlessly towards what are their certain (and imminent) deaths. If a certain fatalism mixed with stoic acceptance at the absurdity of life is a British characteristic then both these plays exhibit it. The following exchange between the two main characters of Stoppard's play might be compared to the absurdity of Mick's description of how the house can be improved: Rosencrantz: Did you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it Guildenstern: No. Rosencrantz: Nor do I, really. It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box. One keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn't it I mean, you'd never *know* you were in a box, would you It would be just like you were asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you. Not without any air. You'd wake up dead for a start, and then where would you be In a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it. Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you Stuffed in a box like that. I mean, you'd be in there forever, even taking into account the fact that you're dead. It isn't a pleasant thought. Especially if you're dead, really. Ask yourself, if I asked you straight off, "I'm going to stuff you in this box. Now, would you rather be alive or dead" naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all, I expect. You'd have a chance, at least. You could lie there thinking, "Well, at least I'm not dead. In a minute somebody is going to bang on the lid, and tell me to come out." [bangs on lid] Rosencrantz: "Hey you! What's your name Come out of there!" Guildenstern: [long pause] I think I'm going to kill you. (Stoppard, 1969) (emphasis added) The whole of this "eloquent" discussion on the nature of existence inside a "box" (i.e. coffin) is of course absurd, particularly the part highlighted. This is a perhaps a uniquely morbid British humor, one that has been repeated in many different works from Monty Python back to Shakespeare (see the skull scene in Hamlet) and on to the present day in the Twenty-First Century. Yet overall Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead can be seen as a less essentially "British" play than The Caretaker. First of all the characters are not British, and indeed the only mention made of the country is through the fact that this is where they are being sent to their unfortunate deaths. While the style, complexity, word-play and unapologetic brilliance of the piece may be "British", it is not actually set in England. The setting of the play is not recognizably an particular place, unlike the very specific setting of The Caretaker. Yet taken together these two plays do reveal that there was, at least in the 1960's, a recognizably English preoccupation with language, ideas and certain Absrudist dramatic style. In many ways these two plays reveal the sheer range of what can be regarded as the British outlook, one that is perhaps characterized more by its diversity and eclecticism than a commonly recognizable subject-matter. It might seem self-serving, but perhaps the best definition of a uniquely British literature (or in this case specifically, drama) is that it defies definition outside of its excellence, originality and apparent relevance to audiences throughout the world. Both plays have often been revived since their opening runs in the 1960's, and both propelled their writers to the forefront of world drama, a position that they have not vacated since that time. To conclude, Tom Stoppard shows a characteristic intellectual exuberance and dazzling originality within Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead while Pinter reveals the dark but hypnotic nature of his claustrophobic dramas that were to fascinate audiences for decades after the first appearance of this play. They are contrasting plays but undeniably and recognizably "British". The fact that it is difficult to define exactly what that "Britishness" is does not make it in any sense less real. In many ways it serves as a defining feature of a drama that is constantly evolving and changing, while remaining essentially the same in its excellence and originality. ________________________________ Works Cited Begley, Varun. Harold Pinter and the Twilight of Modernism. University of Toronto Press, Toronto: 2005. Pinter, Harold. The Caretaker. Mass Market, New York: 1998. Stoppard, Tom. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Evergreen, New York: 1969 Read More