One Man's Absurdism is Another Woman's Life

Okay Women & Lit.
It's official.

I cannot see anything without thinking about gender, relationships, and constructivism.

Last night I went to A.C.T. in San Francisco. I knew it wasn't going to be an easy night of theatre, as we were going to see Harold Pinter's play The Homecoming, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

The play is about a family of men: a father, an uncle, and three brothers, and how they relate to each other. The oldest brother moved to the United States several years before, and is returning, unannounced to the home where the rest of the family still resides.

Why unannounced?

Well he never says why, but if I were part of his family, I don't think I would ever return. The father dishes out brutal language, constantly putting down everyone around him. The father is a genius at hate: he finds a weakness: exaggerates it, pours salt on it, and then spits in it.

The sole woman in the show is the wife of the oldest brother. They have been living in the United States for six year together. The wife has never met any members of the family. When the oldest brother returns, he brings his wife. She meets the family for the first time, and she has a power over the men,. Whatever sense of reality the play had, is left behind.

The words the characters speak and the stories they tell in the play are relentlessly offensive. The scenes are shocking in their outright chauvinism, but are so over the top, I can't help but believe there must be a deeper point.

Through a series of absurd, shocking, ironic scenes the power dynamics shift between the males and finally to the female. The father who once reigned the house with abusive language and violence is now usurped by his son's wife. As her husband goes to leave, the wife agrees to stay, take care of the house, the men in it, and work as a prostitute.

If the audience just took what was happening on the surface, it would be seen as a disgusting diatribe against women.

It is shocking when a middle class woman is whored out by her brother's family.

But why isn't it shocking when a poor woman is a prostitute?

It is appalling to imagine that a woman would choose the life of a prostitute when given the opportunity to return to her husband and be a mother.

But isn't it appalling that a woman would have more freedom as a prostitute?

Why does our society accept and allow gender and class to predetermine one's future?

What is Pinter saying with these apparently chauvinistic scenes? Just because a writer portrays violence, patriarchy, and oppression, doesn't mean he is endorsing it. Pinter is exposing the everyday oppression women face by calling it out. There are (and were especially then) few choices for women. During that time period, especially, a woman was defined by her relationships to men, generally a wife or a whore.

In The Homecoming Pinter demands his audience look at the way women are treated. By taking oppression of women to the extreme, Pinter forces the audience to be appalled and recognize the lack of choices for women at that time period.