The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter: character analysis

   

Stanley Webber 

Until his enemies Goldberg and McCann appear, Stanley is the only lodger at the Boles’ run-down seaside boarding house. The basis of his relationship to Goldberg and McCann, is never fully revealed, but their coming finally destroys Stanley’s mark of self-control. Near the play’s end, when they have reduced him to insanity, they haul him off in Goldberg’ s car to face the ‘‘Monty,” some vague, ominous fate. 

Stanley, in his late-thirties, is an unemployed musician, reluctant to leave the boarding house, which has become a kind of refuge from ‘‘them,” the nebulous persecutors who, in the past, destroyed his career as a concert pianist. He has grown both untidy and aimless, and although he fantasizes about playing in great cities on a world tour, he has no real hope. Lacking a piano, he cannot even practice. 

Stanley’s dread of what lies beyond the boarding house traps him in a trying relationship with Meg, for whom he must act as both wayward child and surrogate husband. He is not always able to mask his disgust with this relationship and is prone to express his contempt for her in cruel verbal jibes and petty behavior. He also teases her. For example, he tells her that ‘‘they” are coming in a van with a wheelbarrow, looking for someone to haul off, presumably Meg. His hostility finally takes a more violent form, when, during the birthday party, he tries to strangle her but is stopped by McCann and Goldberg. 

Stanley, the nominal protagonist of The Birth day Party, barely struggles against his persecutors, quickly succumbing as if before some inevitable doom. Although he never evidences any guilt for his betrayal of the unspecified cause, he responds to his inquisitors as if he knows that there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. At the end, although unable to voice his feelings, he seems resigned to his unknown fate.

 

Meg Boles

Petey’ s wife, Meg Boles is a good-natured woman in her sixties. If only from a lack of any reference to offspring of her own, it is implied that she and Petey are childless, thus she fills the emptiness in her life by turning the Boles’s boarding-house tenant, Stanley Webber, into a kind of surrogate child. She insists on calling him ‘‘boy and mothering him. She even takes liberties appropriate to a parent.

At the same time, Meg flirts with Stanley, trying to fill a second void in her life. Her marriage to Petey has settled into mechanical routine, as their listless and inane dialogue that opens the play reveals. Meg tries to win Stanley’s approval of her as a woman, shamelessly fishing for compliments. Stanley, in his mildly perverse manner, responds by teasing her, knowing that she is both vulnerable and gullible.

As the play progresses, it becomes clear that Meg, though a mental lightweight, is a decent woman. She is also rather sentimental. Although it is probably not even Stanley’s real birthday, she insists that it is, determined to help Stanley outlook his self-destructive despondency. She also seems to be his last hope, and her absence when he is taken away near the end of the play intensifies her broken heart.

 

Petey Boles

Like his wife, Petey Boles is in his sixties. He is a deck-chair attendant at the unidentified seaside resort where he and Meg own their boarding house. Petey is dull and ambitionless, no more inclined than his wife to find challenges beyond the confines of their boarding house. The pair have simply settled into a humdrum existence appropriate to their mundane minds.

Because it is his chess night, Petey is not present during the birthday party. He leaves before it begins, then appears the following morning, when he makes a feeble attempt to prevent Goldberg and McCann from taking Stanley away, though he backs down when the two men suggest that they might take him as well. Petey’s decency is finally as ineffectual as Meg’s. At the play’s conclusion, he can do nothing but slip back into vapid conversation with his wife, who reveals that she was not even aware that he had completely missed the party. 

 

Nat Goldberg 

Nat Goldberg, in his fifties, is the older of the two strangers who come to interrogate and intimidate Stanley before taking him away. He is a charming character, a gentleman in appearance and demeanor. He is nostalgic, too. He fondly and affectionately recalls his family and events in his early life. He also insists that Meg and the others honor Stanley with a birthday party.

Goldberg’s soft-heartedness is, however, pure fake. His outward charm and polite manner conceal a sadistic nature. This cruelty is first revealed in his initial interrogation of Stanley. His ugliness is further betrayed by his unspecified carnal use of Lulu, who complains the morning after the party that Goldberg subjected her to some deviant sexual experiences inappropriate even for wives. It is this discrepancy between Goldberg’ s calm appearance and his vicious interior that makes him the more sinister of Stanley’ s two persecutors. 

 

Lulu 

Described as a “girl in her twenties,” Lulu is a neighbor who first appears carrying Stanley’s birth day present, the toy drum and drum sticks that Meg had bought for him. On the flirtatious side, she is self-conscious about her sexual appeal and cannot sit still for long without taking out a compact to powder her face. To her looks are obviously important, and she sees Stanley as a “washout” because he seems to care nothing about his unkempt appearance. Behind her glamour, there is some youthful innocence to Lulu. She is blind to Goldberg’ s predatory nature and is drawn into his charm. She sits on his lap and flirts with him, a foreshadowing of what occurs between them later that night. That she is some sort of sexual sacrifice is also suggested in the conclusion to the bizarre events that take place when the lights go out during the party. When they are restored, she is revealed “lying spread-eagle on the table,” with Stanley hunched over her giggling insanely. In the last act, Lulu seems broken by the night’s experiences, but she was also angry. 

 

Dermont McCann 

McCann, in his thirties, is Goldberg’s younger associate. Unlike Goldberg, who reveals a Jewish heritage, McCann is a immoral Irish Catholic, possibly a defrocked priest. Like Goldberg, he exercises careful self-control, a quality which contributes to the sinister impression of both men. He is also methodical and compulsive, as is revealed in his ritual habit of carefully tearing Petey’s newspaper into strips. He differs from Goldberg in important respects, however. More reticent, he is not as superficially warm or outgoing, and when he does speak he seems more inclined to echo Goldberg than to offer new observations. He is also physically more intimidating than Goldberg, who deliberately covers his viciousness with a mask of fatherly interest in the others and disarms everyone with his nostalgia. It is McCann who shoves Stanley at the party and snaps and breaks his glasses. When he does talk, McCann usually just adapts to the mood set by Goldberg. Usually, too, he defers to Goldberg’s age and authority, even obeying the older man’s peculiar request. However, at times he seems more Goldberg’ s equal partner, especially during the interrogations of Stanley, when, just as voluble, he become Goldberg’ s co-inquisitor.

 

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter : detailed summary

 

Act- I

The Birthday Party begins in the living-dining area of an unnamed seaside resort in England. Petey and Meg Boles, the proprietors, chat while she prepares his breakfast and he reads the newspaper. Their talk is about silly and ridiculous things, based on their tenant, Stanley Webber. Petey also tells her of two strangers who might come to rent a room.

 

Meg decides to wake Stanley for breakfast and goes to his room. Unshaven and half dressed, Stanley comes downstairs and sits at the table to eat. After Petey goes off to work, Stanley teases Meg about her “succulent” fried bread, but when she becomes affectionate, he gets irritated and complains that her tea is “muck” (good for nothing) and the place is a “pigsty” (dirty and untidy).

Meg tells Stanley about the two men who may be new tenants. At first he is worried but then suspects this information as a “false alarm.” Meg gets Stanley to speak of his musical career. He tells her that once, after a piano concert, he had been “carved” up by persecutors identified only as “they.” He then scares her by saying that the strangers will soon arrive, bringing a wheelbarrow in a van, looking to spoil her away.

After Meg leaves to shop, Lulu enters with a package. She airs out the room, then sits at the table and scolds Stanley for his unkempt appearance and anti-social behavior. He rejects her offer of going out. When she leaves, Stanley goes to the kitchen to wash his face. Through the hatch separating the two rooms, he spies Goldberg and McCann entering through the backdoor and slips off. Goldberg advises McCann to relax and speaks of his family ties and his partnership with McCann, who responds as if Goldberg were his mentor. McCann, still uneasy, asks whether their current job will be the same as their previous ones, and Goldberg reassures him with official-sounding double talk.

Meg returns, carrying some parcels. Politely and gently, Goldberg introduces himself and McCann, then begins asking after Stanley. She says that it is Stanley’s birthday, prompting Goldberg to insist that they have a party. Delighted, Meg leads the two men upstairs to their room.

 

Stanley returns just before Meg comes back. He asks her about the men, trying to find out if she knows who they are. He also denies that it is his birthday, but he accepts her present. It was a toy drum. He straps it on his neck, then marches around banging on it. Just before the curtain, his beating becomes erratic and violent finally “savage and possessed.”

 

 

Act II

It is evening of the same day. McCann, at the living room table, methodically tears Petey’s newspaper into strips. Stanley enters and begins a polite conversation. When McCann mentions the birthday party, Stanley insists that he wants to celebrate alone, but McCann says that, as the guest of honor, Stanley cannot skip out on it.

When Stanley tries to leave, McCann blocks his path. Stanley angers him by picking up one of the strips of paper. McCann, now even more intimidating, contradicts Stanley’s claim that they had met before. Unnerved, Stanley starts speaking of his plans to return home, asserting that he is the same man he was, despite his heavy drinking. Frustrated in his attempts to find out why McCann and Goldberg have intruded, he grows almost frantic. He finally grabs McCann by the arm, saying that what he has told him was a mistake. McCann observes that Stanley is in a bad state and that he is ‘‘flabbergasted” (greatly surprized ) by Stanley’s behavior. Stanley then speaks of his admiration for the Irish.

Goldberg enters with Petey, prompting a new round of introductions. Goldberg talks about his youth, confessing that he was then called ‘‘Simey. When McCann exits, Stanley tries to convince Goldberg to pack up and leave, but Goldberg simply talks about celebrating life, implying that late risers, like Stanley, miss out on a lot. Stanley cuts him off and orders him to get out, but Goldberg does not move. McCann re- enters, and he and Goldberg order Stanley to sit down. Stanley repeatedly refuses until McCann threatens physical violence.

 The two intruders then begin interrogating Stanley with rapid-fire questions that range from the accusatory to the ridiculous. When they tell Stanley that he is dead, he screams and tries to fight back by kicking Goldberg in the stomach and threatening McCann with a chair, but they all suddenly revert to civility when Meg enters beating on the toy drum. She is dressed for the party, and gratifies under Goldberg’s complements about her looks. She fetches glasses for toasting Stanley, and, prompted by Goldberg, McCann turns out the lights and shines his flashlight on Stanley’ s face while Meg extends her wishes and tributes ‘‘the birth-day boy.”

With the lights back on, Lulu arrives and the celebration begins in earnest. Goldberg insists that Stanley sit down and then begins a meandering, sentimental speech. McCann turns out the lights and once more shines his flashlight in Stanley’s face. When the lights are on again, Goldberg entices Lulu to sit on his lap while Meg tries to get Stanley to dance. Rejected, Meg settles for dancing by herself. While Lulu flirts with Goldberg, Meg breaks into a nostalgic reverie about her girlhood room, after which McCann talks of his heritage and sings an Irish ballad.

The characters then start playing blind man’s bluff. When it is Stanley’s turn to be the blind man, McCann takes his glasses from him and deliberately breaks them. He also makes Stanley trip over the toy drum, which catches on Stanley’s foot. Stanley drags the drum around, then finds Meg and begins choking her. As McCann and Goldberg rush to interfere, the lights go out again. In the confusion, McCann once more shines his flashlight, but Goldberg knocks it to the floor and becomes dark. McCann finds the flashlight and shines it at Stanley, who appears on verge of sexually assaulting Lulu. Stanley backs away, giggling uncontrollably.

 

 

Act III

It is early the next morning. As before, Petey sits at the table reading the newspaper. Through the hatch, Meg explains that Goldberg and McCann had eaten all the breakfast food. She enters to pour Petey some tea and spots Stanley’s present, broken and discarded in the fireplace. She plans to fetch Stanley down, observing that she had gone up earlier and found him talking to McCann. Meg asks Petey about Goldberg’s car and the suspicious wheelbarrow, which, he tells her, does not exist.

As Meg prepares to go shopping, Goldberg enters. She asks after Stanley and then about Goldberg’s car, which he praises for its ample room. She leaves, and Petey inquires about Stanley’s health. Goldberg tells him that Stanley had suffered a sudden, unexpected mental breakdown. Petey, growing suspicious, says that if Stanley does not improve, he will fetch a doctor, but Goldberg assures him that things are under control.

 

McCann arrives with two suitcases and tells Goldberg that he gave Stanley back his broken glasses. Petey suggests that they repair the busted frames with tape, then asks again about a doctor. Goldberg says that they will be taking Stanley to “Monty,” and that the doctor is not needed.

 

Petey goes out, and McCann begins tearing the morning paper into strips again, annoying Goldberg. The two men try to decide whether to bring Stanley down, but the matter seems to depress Goldberg. When McCann, trying to console him, calls him Simey, he explodes with anger. McCann then decides to get Stanley.

When Lulu enters, McCann excuses himself and exits. Lulu refuses Goldberg’s familiar advances, claiming that she has had enough games. She speaks of her first love, Eddie, then laments that Goldberg, during the night, taught her things that no girl should know. McCann returns and tries to get Lulu to confess to him. She is encouraged by Goldberg, who claims that McCann is an unfrocked priest. As the men advance on her, Lulu retreats through the back door.

McCann then goes off and returns with Stanley, now dressed in a suit and clean, collared shirt. He appears defeated and docile. The pair make him sit and he can only emit nonsensical, gagging sounds. When they begin to take Stanley away, Petey enters and tries to interfere, but they back him off with threats. The pair take Stanley out.

Meg enters and asks about Goldberg and McCann. Petey confirms their departure, but when Meg asks about Stanley, Petey tells her that he is still in bed. The pair chat briefly about the party.