English Literature / Unit 17 ENL 1618 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Harold Pinter
Captions available
The idea
Harold Pinter's plays, including The Birthday Party, The Homecoming and Betrayal, use pauses, ambiguous identity and unexplained threat; critics called his early work "comedy of menace." In The Birthday Party, intruders torment a lodger in a seaside boarding house. He won the Nobel Prize in two thousand five.
In practice
Pauses, menace, a boarding house.
Where people slip
"Comedy of menace" is a critics' label.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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