The Caretaker

Book Review by: CatherineGallagher

Original Author: Pinter, Harold

Summary rating: 3 stars (17 Ratings)
Visits : 1594
words:600
Comments : 0

This play takes place in London in a tiny cluttered apartment where two brothers live. The older brother,

Aston, takes in an old tramp, Davies, who had been in a fight and had just lost his job for his violent, prejudicial ways. Asked to stay and given a key, he sizes up the worth of some of Aston''s meagre possessions, until he enounters the younger man''s brother, Mick. Mick, although witty, intelligent, competent (he has his own business) and beautiful, is as cruel and sadistic as his brother is kind to the old man ,whom Mick sees as taking advantage of his older brother''s kindness, generosity and good nature. After a couple of encounters with this younger brother, Davies comes to trust him wrongfully. The old man puts his trust where he should not, and fails to trust the one who has proven his good will. When Aston confides, one night, that he has been to a mental hospital and received shock treatment, the old man uses this information as a weapon and, in an argument, pulls a knife on the kind younger man. Davies threaten Aston with his brother Mick''s displeasure, but finds to his dismay that blood is thicker than water, and that he has failed the tests Mick set up for a Caretaker--of his brother Aston even more than the house and grounds itself. Mick breaks the statue of the Buddha that his brother lovees and has set up in the room, and leaves. When Aston returns and tells Davies he must leave--because he makes too much noise--the old man turns back cringing to Aston, professing undying loyalty, but is left begging to stay and crying about what will become of him.
This play is essentially a character study of a querulous, bigoted, demanding old man, used to living a lie until it has become second nature, and then first--heartless, ungrateful, dishonest, lying, and misjudging everyone around him, as well as his relationship to them and their true feelings and ideas, not only about him, but about each other. He cares only for himself and is blindly heartless to the man who took him in and provided for him, beyond all measure of even common hospitality. He is mad and blind: spiritually, morally, ethically, socially, and worst of all to himself--his own behavior with respect to others and to himself as a human and a social being. He is manipulative, merciless, violent, and inescapable himself. He cares only for himself and lies constantly, using guilt to attempt to manipulate Aston, the man who takes him in. When confided in, he uses the information to wound and insult him, confirming, in his own eyes at least. his superior worth and his right to that which he covets, Aston''s place in life. This play is subtle, intense, demanding and almost unbearable real.

Published: May 02, 2007

Please Rate this Review :