Harold Pinter and Buddhism. A study of the Buddhist concern in the play &quote;The Caretaker&quote;

Essay from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, , language: English, abstract: The plays of Harold Pinter, particularly his early plays are generally considered as 'comedies of menace' and sometimes they are associated with the Theatre of the Absurd as they deal with the universal human existence in a contemporary world lurking with menacing horror and anxiety. Although Pinter is placed as a playwright who has extended and excelled in the genre of absurd drama after Samuel Beckett, his dramatic world is seldom identified with its connection to Buddhism in spite of his certain use of the statue of Buddha explicitly on stage. In the play The Caretaker a statue of Buddha, employed as a stage prop amidst the several bric-a brac and finally thrashed into pieces, invites different outlooks to interpret his drama that always remains ambiguous and equivocal to establish a generalised meaning to the plays of Pinter.