The Dumb Waiter

Author: Harold Pinter

Title: “The Dumb Waiter”

Editorial: Faber and Faber

Year and place of publication: 1957, London

Dramatis Personae:

   - Ben: Protagonist, besides Gus, is passive, cold, conformist, very impatient and domineering with Gus but more intelligent. In addition, he ignores many things Gus says or thinks of their life, their passed life and their present life. Their boss manipulates him.

   - Gus: The other main character. He is forgetful ungainly, absentminded, curious, enthusiast and more dumb than Ben, he needs his job partner to tell him all clearly, He does not stop to ask questions, sometimes with sense at the same time others doesn’t, besides he depends a lot of Ben, because de does not know what to do if  Ben do not say him. Neither does he know how to react to unforeseen situations. Moreover, when he and Ben have a verbal duel, he is nervous and talks too fats (especially when he thinks important things of their lives), after he lost the discussion.

Plot:

   All starts in a basement room with two beds, a kitchen, a bathroom and a serving hatch. Ben and Gus are in their own beds; Ben is reading a newspaper and Gus tying his shoelaces with difficulty. They are waiting the orders by their chief Wilson, because are murderers on a salary.

While they wait, they comment on strange news, one of an old man who crosses the road and an other of a child who kills a cat. Beginning from here the conversations are more stupid, in the sense they do not have importance; like when Ben and Gus talk about the room or where Ben had parked the car, or when they talk about what they would do in their free time. It’s to say both talk to pass the time. However, conversations sometimes initiated are interesting because they should worry both, but only Gus is, like their jobs or aspirations in their lives.

After they will discover a little lift which carries menus for cooking. Every time they received more menus while they make what they can, without much success. Also there is a tube through they talk with Wilson. Gus begins to think all is a joke or a game because this things do not are proper of a murderer.

The play ends with the order by Wilson to Ben, who possibly must kill Gus, because Ben is armed and Gus not, at the same time the first stare at the second.  

Space and time:

The play happens in a single place, that basement room, a closed place that is usual, simple and dark, and in one time, a day in the present with continuity. Sometimes characters remember things of the past.

Recourse:

   Pinter had used a dark place, with simple characters who use a colloquial language with many clichés, with also a hard communication and often they do not understand between them. For it, author creates a situation where main characters cannot talk on a fluid way; in the sense