Politics in Harold Pinter's One for the Road

Abstract

Pinter's play One for the Road (1984) is considered one of his important plays because
it focuses on political issues, which he has not presented overtly before. Generally speaking,
Pinter's early plays describe man's existential fear of an unnamed danger which might be
represented by an intruder who invades the characters' solitude , threatens their peace, and
brings their hidden fears to the surface. Pinter began to write political plays as a result of his
political attitudes and his involvement in political activities over the last three decades.
Pinter's One for the Road deals with the oppressive and authoritarian operations of
state power. This play and Pinter's political plays which followed it, like Mountain
Language(1988), Party Time(1991),and Ashes to Ashes (1997)were greeted by reviewers and
critics alike as signaling a shift in his career and showing his concern with the more public
terrain of politics.
In One for the Road, Pinter presented a character that is accused of an unnamed crime
by an unnamed government and that is exposed to physical and psychological torture.
Through the play, Pinter criticized modern political systems which he accused them of
practicing similar ways of torture.
The present study throws light on Pinter's One for the Road as a political play.
Besides, it explores Pinter's political views and how they contributed to making a shift in his
theatrical career. Part one of the study deals briefly with Pinter's early plays. Part two deals
with his political activism and part three is an elaborate discussion of Pinter's One for the
Road as a political play.