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Variations on History and Herstory: An Invisible Intruder’s Politics in Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes Heejung Na (Chonnam National University) The Polish-Jewish playwright, Harold Pinter (1930-2008), was influenced by the traumas of World War II, and the memories of that violence deeply affected his internal landscape. These traumatic memories are not easily transformed into narrative or welded into dramatic prose. These unsettled narratives evolved for over 40 years in Harold Pinter's works. Except his Revue Sketches, Pinter's works consistently introduce various “intruders” in his twenty-nine oeuvres. The amorphous natures of Pinter's intruders are the source of many of his plays' intense dynamics. From absurdist intruders to political intruders, Pinter's plays encompass a wide spectrum of these intruders. Pinter's plays are generally categorized into three stages. The three phases generally agreed upon by critics are: Comedies of Menace (1957-1966), Memory Plays (1967-1982), and Political Plays (1984-2000). In Ashes to Ashes, a Political Play, the intruder is Rebecca's “remembered” Nazi lover, who most probably did not exist. Here, Pinter, engaged in the representation of history and political issues, and chooses to investigate the problems of representing and receiving history, rather than simply assumes that the stage is a proper forum for dispensing historical information, fostering identification, or engendering compassion for the victims of “wrongful” politics and history. The present work is an investigation of the “Invisible Intruder,” who exists solely in the memories of Rebecca and Devlin. In Ashes to Ashes, Pinter interweaves an examination of a difficult personal relationship with public and political issues. By adopting a more malleable view of history, by deforming the conventions of realism, and by not settling the theme of personal reconciliation with the outside world, Pinter ultimately shapes an obscure and political landscape, and thus his play resonates with the audience in ways that are not always easy to identify.