-stillness and motion
-Caretaker By Pinter "Drama is not made up of words alone, but sights and sounds, stillness and motion, noise and silence." While this quotation is relevant to all areas of drama, it is particularly pertinent in absurdist theatre and is important in the construction of Harold Pinter's, The Caretaker. Through these conventions, sight, sound, stillness, motion, noise and silence, the idea of a random and lonely world is portrayed. The notion that we are born alone and die alone and fortuitous, unrelated events happen in between is created by the use of these techniques throughout the play. The setting is a key aspect in revealing the ideas from which the play is based. "...a couple of suitcases, a rolled carpet, a blow-lamp, a wooden chair on it's side, boxes, a number of ornaments, a clothes horse, a few short planks of wood, small electrical fire and a very old electric toaster..." this is an excerpt from the description of the room in which Aston and Davies live. The room is full of "junk", unconnected things that have been collected over the years and presently have no real meaning. This is a comment on life and the experiences a person has, each experience and memory may seem important at the time, like the gathering "junk" in Aston's room may once have, yet after some time they are no longer significant and become isolated and dimmer. "...a kitchen sink, a step-ladder, a coal bucket, a lawnmower, a shopping trolley, boxes side board drawers," the setting also adds to the idea that people are lonely and isolated beings, each item is completely unrelated to the others, like people they are a mixture of things, and therefore can be nothing but isolated.