1. Structure of Life What structures your life in the present?
How does this structure compare with the structures you have been subjected to in the past?
How do you predict this structure is going to change, possibly in the near future (for instance, upon graduation)?

2. Agency and Structure
Note that I wrote “what structures” rather than “how do you structure.”
What does this usage imply?
Does anyone in fact structure his or her life? I mean anyone.

3. Historical Structure
Many people have more freedom now than in the past.
How has the historical structuring process differed from modern possibilities?
What is the basis of this difference, keeping in mind that it is not different for everyone.

4. Beckett Revisited
You may recall watching Act without Words II—we will look at a few minutes of that play now.
How does trivial routine and ritual behavior function?
How is such routine complementary to work?
Why is work the central problem—and why does it remain so in a world that does not require work?
How is work thematized in the Beckett play?

5. Empty Time
The “empty” time between one shift and the next is filled in various ways, but really, once one thinks about it, in fairly narrow ways.
This state of affairs has gone so far that no one questions it, despite our tremendous wealth, technological ability, overeducation for the jobs that most of us do, in short, despite the fact that we don’t need to work in such a way.
This ideology of labor remains unquestioned. Why?

6. Applications
Think of some ways in which this way of thinking work confronts you, even though you have probably not emerged fully into the workforce.

7. Dumb Waiter What is a dumb waiter? Where is one found?
What is its function?
How might its set up function symbolically?

9. Harold Pinter ( )
The Dumb Waiter (1960)

10. Recommendations The Birthday Party The Caretaker The Homecoming
Betrayal
Nobel Prize acceptance speech

11. Characters
Ben
Gus
[offstage character(s)]

12. First Part of The Dumbwaiter

13. Theme: Boredom
Whereas Beckett’s plays often turn around missing information or contexts which block understanding (i.e. solipsism), some of Pinter’s work turns on boredom, on the almost mechanical and blind interchange of commonplaces.
Do you find evidence of this claim in The Dumb Waiter?
Why would someone stage (or watch) such a situation?
passage: 129 (stage directions)

14. Everyday Life
One reason we are willing to suspend our disbelief in most fiction probably reflects our lack of interest in the subject matter of everyday life.
The dead time of waiting for something, especially something that requires effort, concentration, or heightened interest, is a period of distraction.
passages: 130 and later 131, etc.

15. The Undramatic
The time in-between—in this sense, between gainful work—is also something that has to be filled in modern society.
This not only seems undramatic, and therefore not worth representing, but also tells us something about how we organize ourselves and find purpose.

16. Application How do Gus and Ben illustrate this problem of time?
What behaviors do they engage in, including the subject matter of their conversations and memories?
possibilities: plumbing, newspaper reports, soccer games, hobbies, hotel rooms, disputes over language usage

17. Characters and Individuality
How do Gus and Ben differ as types?
Should they be read as tendencies, perhaps within the same individual?

18. Plot
As with Beckett, we are given so little to go on that we are may be inclined to over-interpret the objects and actions that we are given.
The central problem of what the two men are doing, what they are waiting for, is not that obscure, even though the details are missing.
What plot can you provide?

19. Off-Stage Space
Given the jobs they do, their behavior in respect to the dumb waiter and the demands made by some off-stage character are surprising if not confusing.
Do the dumb waiter and the communication tube suggest something straightaway?
passages: 138 (envelope), 147ff

20. Compliance/Complicity
Why are these men so willing to comply, to the best of their ability, with the ridiculous requests that are made?
What is the source of Ben’s apparent consternation at not being able to fulfill these requests?
Is a symbolic interpretation in order?

21. Allegory
There is one moment in the play which seems to point towards an allegorical reading, possibly a theological one.
passage: 161

22. Conclusion What happens at the end? What will happen next?
Is the idea of closure relevant to a play like this one (which seems to lack conflict of a meaningful sort)?

23. Nobel Recipients
Our last few playwrights, we find that Eliot, Sartre, Beckett, and Pinter have something in common—all received (or were offered) the Nobel Prize for literature.
You might view this Prize as a political gesture, but nonetheless, what makes these authors worthy of this honor?

24. Reading Sophocles, Antigone Moliere, The Misanthrope
Ibsen, The Wild Duck
Strindberg, The Father
Theories: Aristotle, Freytag, Szondi
Shaw, Major Barbara
Kaiser, The Protagonist
Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral
Sartre, No Exit
Beckett, Ohio Impromptu, What Where
Pinter, The Dumb Waiter

25. Generalizations
What types of plays have we read—first, in terms of genre and purpose, but also in any other sense that comes to mind?
What has happened to the traditional forms of tragedy and comedy over time?
What theoretical milestones have we examined?

26. Generalizations
What themes, if any, seem to remain fairly constant over time (given the limits of our few plays)?
What themes seem specifically related to an historical moment, and thus are unavailable to other times?
What range of attitudes has expressed the human condition in these plays?

27. Generalizations
Which plays or styles have you enjoyed the most or preferred?
Where might the drama go from here?