No Mans Land Harold Pinter English Literature Essay

The major characters in the play include Hirst, Spooner, Foster and Briggs. Hirst is a prominent writer of poetry who is in his sixties and lives in Hampstead together with Foster and Briggs who are his workers. Hirst has been successful in his career as a poet and he live in a grand house that was common only to upper class people. However during his olden days, Hirst has become an alcoholic who does not care anymore about people around him. The life of Hirst complicated and regardless of Briggs being his worker, it appears that they could be lovers too. On the other hand, his friend Spooner is a failed down at heel poet who has nothing to show out of his work. As the play begins, Hirst picks him in a pub in Hampstead and he invites him to his home as a guest for the night. Spooner had claimed to be a fellow poet of Hirst who had known him back at the university and with whom he had shared mutual male and female acquaintances and relationships. The age of Spooner and his convincing claims make Hirst, who is drunk and out of control, to agree to take to his house for more drinking (Pinter 2008).

Communication is believed to provide solution to many of the man’s problem. However, in this play it is evident that communication is the cause of the most problems experienced by man. In other words, it is not the failure of communication but its success that is so disturbing. Basically, when human beings are able to communicate among one another, social life is strengthened and there is cohesion in the society. However there are times when this communications becomes the cause of many disturbances in the society. When effective communication is not used rightly, it becomes the medium for spreading social evils rather than good values that are meant to improve how people relate with one another in a community.

It is due to effective communication network that Hirst is able to meet his long time friend Spooner. Though they are both in their sixties, Hirst is able to recognize Spooner though he does not remember him fully due to influence of alcohol. It is clear that Hirst had made his fortune through writing as a poet which shows effective he was while communicating with his readers through writing. However, it is ability to communicate that led to his high life and being proud with no feeling about people around him. He lives an extravagant in a society where majority of his neighbors are not well up economically. This has resulted to social imbalance since many people feel that he is out of place and don’t like him much.

On the other hand, Spooner is an irritating, boring person who claims to have been everywhere before and to have done everything before. He is the kind of a person can ‘top’ every one of your amusing stories. When he meets with Hirst in the pub, Spooner decided to use his communication skills to sweet talk Hirst and probably have himself more drinks from him. He goes ahead to lie to him that he was his colleague at the university and they had many mutual friends in common. The intentions of Spooner were to appease Hirst, who was known for his rudeness, so that he could win his generosity and enjoy his company and more drinks. Surprisingly, Spooners’s tricks become fruitful because he is not only bought more drinks but was also invited by Hirst to spend the night in his prestigious house. This is actually abuse of communication since it is used to achieve unethical goals in the society.

That night Spooner was garrulous due to influence of alcohol unlike his host Hirst who went directly to his bed with assistance of his workers Foster and Briggs. His ability to communicate most while drunk contributed to his problems as Hirst workers, Foster and Briggs, realizes that he was only a low life person and not a prominent writer as he had claimed before. Foster and Briggs are able to expose him as a potman (busboy) at a Chalk farm public house hence taunting him with threats of violence. This show how communication has contributed to more disturbances on no man’s land rather than providing solution to people’s problems. It is Spooner too much talking while drunk that makes his stay at Hirst’s house less comfortable. This is surprising because we expect him to be more sociable due to his abilities to interact easily with workers whole are believed to belong to a lower class in the society ( Begley 2005)

Communication becomes more disturbing in the following morning when Spooner resumes the responsibilities of the host in his first visit in Hirst’s house. He is not patient enough to be served for breakfast and he starts complaining about the time and the ingredients of his breakfast. Spooner checks on the vintage of his champagne breakfast. His remarks are not welcome by Hirst workers who feel that Spooner is a good for nothing who is taking advantage of their boss’s generosity (Guido & Henderson 1998).

More disturbances arise as Hirst enter the following morning for breakfast. He does not recall Spooner and he seems to mistake him for Charles who was his friend since when they were youth. This kind of communication makes Hirst uncomfortable because it reminds him of the sexual affair he had with the wife of Charles. This is odd because we expect Hirst to be more comfortable by remembering his youthful long time friend. On the other hand, Spooner takes advantage of the situation and he invents himself as Charles in order to make his host feel more uncomfortable. On seeing this, Foster and Briggs are annoyed with Spooner’s behavior and they become violent causing havoc as if in a public place. All these incidences show how presence of communication could also be a cause of disturbance among people (Guido & Henderson 1998).

Generally, ‘In no man’s land’, Pinter has used a writing style that creates more disturbances to his readers, rather than creating more awareness and knowledge to them. He uses an abusive language that either puts the readers off or creates a long impression of Pinter. Like all of his plays, there is power play and it shifts between the characters and menace in the juxtaposition of talk about violence and the sinister use of in appropriate and delicate language. For instance, we see Foster in a Cockney accent, “It is world of silk, of organdie of flower arrangements and eighteenth century cookbooks”. The importance if of such effects is to disconnect the audience with language which has the effect of seeming surreal or dreamlike to make us laugh. However, the behavior of the players and the words that they use is not friendly to majority of the audiences who are not scholars and go to the theatres to be entertained. However, the play is liked by academicians who feel that Pinter has used his poetic knowhow to prove his prowess in modern literature (Chiang 1984).

Generally, the play provides a clear illustration of how communication can be a cause of disturbance to the community rather than causing harmony and cohesion among the society members. In the play communication has contributed to a lot of disturbance among different characters. It is knowledge of some facts that by leads to many problems experienced by main characters in the play and the audience. Basically, the play shows how communication can also disturbing when not well used.