earticle

영어

The relationship of a married
couple has frequently assumed a core role in Pinter's plays. In Landscape, he uses desolate
separation of stage designs and verbal tension to imply the distance and friction within
characters' relationships. This visuality emphasizes the contrast between the two different
mental landscapes, between the preoccupations of a married couple. Two incompatible people,
once loving, are isolated from each other and live in completely different mental worlds. Beth's
role embodies some primitive and repressed desires, but social rules do not allow the mixing
of certain roles, diffusion of inner passion and docility. Therefore, her life can be seen, to a
certain degree, as self-deceptive, keeping external gentility against inner passion. This is a
proper way for her to be able to escape from the shackles of reality. Therefore, one should not
fall for the temptation to cast moral judgements on Beth just like Pinter's other women.
(Yeungnam University)