A summery of HAROLD PINTERS The Caretaker
A summery of HAROLD PINTER’S
The Caretaker
The play ids divided into three acts, with a minimum of plot. The action takes place in a single room over the course of two weeks. Pinter has created a tense, dramatic situation in which three working-class men confront each other. While the room of The Caretaker is inhabited by Aston (described briefly as “in his early thirties”), it actually belongs to Mick (‘in his late twenties’). Immediately before the start of the action, Aston meets a tramp (‘an old man’) by the name of Davies in a nearby café. Aston has saved Davies from a fight and he now offers to give him a bed for the night.
ACT ONE: A NIGHT IN WINTER.
The play opens with mimed action as Mick is seen looking carefully around the room. The place is filled with miscellaneous objects: paint bucket, planks of wood, nuts, screws, and boxes. There is even a Buddha sitting incongruously in a gas strove. Upon hearing the noise of somebody approaching, Mick quickly goes out. Aston and Davies enter the room. Davies is angry about how he has been treated in the café and declares his hatred for ‘Poles, Greeks, and Blacks’. He tells Aston that he needs a new pair of shoes as he would go to Sidcup to pick up his papers. He reveals that he has been passing himself off under the false name of Bernard Jenkins but now wants to establish ‘his real identity’. He claims that his real name is ‘Mac Davies’. Davies takes off his trousers and gets into bed. Aston sits on his own bed mending a plug, and the light fades.
The next morning Aston is the first to get up. He immediately shakes Davies awake, complaining bitterly that he has been unable to sleep because Davies has been making noises in his sleep. Aston prepares to leave, but first gives Davies a door-key. Once Aston has gone out, Davies locks the door and begins investigating the objects in the room. As he does so, Mick silently enters, pocketing his own keys. He watches Davies for a while and throws him viciously to the flour. Mick checks Davies’s trousers under the blankets. The act finishes with Mick Davies, ‘What’s the game?’
ACT TWO: A FEW SECOND LATER
Davies is still in the floor, with Mick seated watching him. Davies tries to explain to Mick that his name is Jenkins that he wants his trousers back as he needs to go to Sidcup to retrieve his papers. He adamantly claims that he is not an intruder, having been invited to stay in the room. Mick engages in an erratic interrogation of Davies, during which he insists that he is the owner of the house. Aston arrives with Davies’s bag, which he had left in the café. A frantic game of piggy-in-the-middle ensues, during which the two brothers take delight in denying Davies’s bag. Finally Davies manages to get hold of it and retreats to his bed. Mick leaves the room. Aston tells Davies that the room does indeed belong to Mick. He adds that he is meant to decorating the upper part of the house, once he has finished the shed (to be used as workshop) that ha is building in the garden. Aston offers Davies a job as a caretaker. While Davies is worried about how he is to cop with callers, he is obviously pleased with the offer.0 the lights fade to blackout.
In a half-light Davies can vaguely be seen entering the room. He drops his matches and make a sudden start as realises he is not alone. The terrifyingly loud noise of a machine can be heard. After a few seconds the sound stops, the light go on, and Mick can be seen standing on Aston’s bed, holding the electric plug of a carpet cleaner. Mick is friendly and confides to Davies that Aston is lazy and refuses to work. Mick offers Davies the job of caretaker, on condition that he can provide satisfactory character references. The lights dim.
It is morning and Aston can be seen dressing. He wakes Davies, reminding him for his plan to go to Sidcup. Aston gets ready to go out, when mention of a nearby café reminds him to the time he had spent there prior to being admitted to a psychiatric hospital. In a long monologue, he chillingly describes his experience in hospital, where he was given electric shock treatment against his will. This has left him slow-thinking and plagued with headaches .he wishes the person responsible for his treatment, but first he resolves to finish the garden shed.
ACT THREE: A FORTNIGHT LATER
Mick is lying on the floor, while Davies sitting comfortably, is complaining about Aston, with whom he is unable to have a decent conversation. Mick describes his plans for converting the house into an expensive penthouse apartment, with Davies’s help. Davies tries to dissociate himself from Aston and seeks allegiance with Mick. Aston returns with a pair of shoes for Davies, who ungratefully complains they are without laces and therefore of no use to him. He grudgingly accepts a pair of brown laces instead of black ones, but just the same he says he cannot go to Sidcup. The lights fade to dim.
Aston wakes up in the middle of the nigh, unable to sleep because of Davies’s groaning. He wakes Davies up, and the tramp furiously turns on him, claiming that he and Mick are now allies. He threatens Aston that he will have him readmitted to the psychiatric hospital. Having pulled out a knife, he threatens to attack Aston, but the latter stands his ground unflinchingly. Buoyed up his newly established alliance with Mick, Davies accuses Aston of wasting his time in the building what he describes as ‘a stinking shed’. Aston grows angry and begins packing Davies’s things into his bag. Davies leaves, saying he is going to find Mick, who will deal with Aston. The lights fade to dim.
Next morning Mick and Davies can be seen retuning to an empty room. Initially Mick is friendly, but when Davies starts talking unsympathetically about Aston’s electric shocks treatment he grows angry. He tells Davies to leave, and in a fit if anger he throws the Buddha to the floor, where it shatters into tiny pieces. He says he is tired of looking after the house and making plans to renovate it, and he now intends allowing Aston to do exactly what he wants with it. Aston returns, the two brothers exchange faint smiles, and Mick leaves without saying a word. Recognizing that Mick has now rejected him, Davies tries to ingratiate himself with Aston once again. He begs Aston to be allowed to stay in the room. The play end with Davies standing silent and forlorn, and Aston, having turned his back on him, refusing to talk. Blackout.