Harold Pinter's Betrayal

English playwright Harold Pinter (b. 1930, d. 2008), is acclaimed for his work for both stage and screen. His plays are famous for their subtext and the internal life of the characters' psyches, rather than their ability to simply tell a story. Pinter was a son of a Jewish tailor and grew up in a middle class neighborhood in London. During his youth, Pinter experienced some of the harsh tolls of World War II. He witnessed buildings being bombed; this led to his refusal to enlist in the military as his national service.

Pinter found his beginning in theatre as an actor. He worked in regional theatres for a short time before becoming a playwright. In 1958 Pinter released his first full length play, The Birthday Party, for which he received savage reviews that caused the play to close within a week. Pinter's second play, The Caretaker, written two years later, received significantly better reviews. The play revolves around two brothers and the struggles they face after bringing home a homeless man. In 1965, five years later, Pinter would write The Homecoming, a play about a wife leaving her husband to stay with his family. This play would be performed on Broadway and result in Pinter winning a Tony award as well as lead to his first marriage with Vivien Merchant. Pinter also began screenwriting around this time; one of his most renowned adaptations is The French Lieutenant’s Woman in 1981 starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep.

In 1978 Pinter released Betrayal, one of his most well-known works due to its creativity and relevance to his actual life. Betrayal circles around the extramarital affair of Jerry and Emma; Emma was married to Jerry's best friend, Robert, and was acquainted with Jerry's wife Judith. During the course o the play it is revealed that Robert, too, was unfaithful. The piece touches on multiple concepts such as the difference in perspective regarding a married couple and his best friend. The play relates to Pinter’s life in regards to his affair with Lady Antonia Frasier who was married to a member of Parliament. After her divorce with her husband and Pinter’s divorce with his wife, Pinter and Frasier would marry in 1980.

In 2005 Pinter was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature but was physically unable to accept it due to being diagnosed with cancer in 2001. Pinter would succumb to the disease on December 24, 2008.

1) Throughout the play each scene is given a season. Do these seasons relate to the plot itself or is it just a random insert by Pinter? How so?

2) Why is Jerry throwing up and catching Charlotte so important to the plot?

3) Obviously, the play centers on the affair of Jerry and Emma. However, what other themes has Pinter factored into the piece?

4) William Butler Yeats was a very influential Irish poet and playwright during the 20th century. During his life, he was suspected of having multiple affairs while married to his wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees. She once wrote him a letter stating this: "When you are dead, people will talk about your love affairs, but I shall say nothing, for I will remember how proud you were." In one of his poems entitled A Deep Sworn Vow, Yeats says:

OTHERS because you did not keep
That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;
Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.

How does this relate to Betrayal?

5) The game of squash is brought up several times throughout the play. Why is it so important to Robert, Jerry, and Emma?

6) Do you think that Emma and Jerry ended the affair simply because of their inability to meet each other in afternoons or is there more too it?

7) Casey is mentioned a few times in the play. Why is Casey important to the plot?

8) Why didn’t Robert tell Emma about his infidelities when she told him about the affair?

9) The Pinter pause is an essential element to the rhythm and depth of this piece. However, by creating such a focus on the subtext had Pinter created an environment where the characters can’t actually speak a simple factual sentence? For example on page 53

Emma: I have a family too.
Jerry: I know that perfectly well. I might remind you that your husband is my oldest friend.
Emma: What do you mean by that?
Jerry: I don’t mean anything by it.
Emma: But what are you trying to say by saying that?
Jerry: Jesus. I’m not trying to say anything. I’ve said precisely what I wanted to say.

10) Emma lies to Jerry about the speed boat and Torcella. However, it is revealed that Robert took the speed boat. Why lie to Jerry about it being broken? In fact, how many lies are told throughout the play?