Betrayal by Harold Pinter - Analysis

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Themes

·       Art
·       Popularity
·       Money
·       Metaliterary criticism
·       Suspicion
·       Tension


Style and devices

·       Answering a question with a question
·       Repression/ reluctance to deal
·       The scenes are ordered backwards in time, except for scenes 5, 6, 7 which are in chronological order.
·       Dialogue that occurs on two levels because the knowledge of both sides doesn’t agree.


Response

·       Tension regarding intellectual things – Emma has an inferiority complex?
ROBERT: Oh… not much more to say on that subject, really, is there?
EMMA: What do you consider the subject to be?
ROBERT: Betrayal.
EMMA: No, it isn’t.
ROBERT: Isn’t it? What is it then?
EMMA: I haven’t finished it yet. I’ll let you know.
ROBERT: Well, do let me know.

·       Perhaps alcohol is symbolic of guilt, an emotion which is never expressed but implicit (or at least, ought to exist in the context of the era…)

·       Jerry constantly misremembers the past: the location in which he tossed up Emma's daughter, the color of Emma's dress.



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