THE CARETAKER

The author

Born 10 October 1930 in East London, playwright, director, actor, poet and political activist.

Pinter has written twenty-nine plays including The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, The
Homecoming, and Betrayal, twenty-one screenplays including The Servant, The Go-Between
and The French Lieutenant's Woman, and directed twenty-seven theatre productions,
including James Joyce's Exiles, David Mamet's Oleanna, seven plays by Simon Gray and
many of his own plays including his latest, Celebration, paired with his first, The Room at
The Almeida Theatre, London in the spring of 2000.

He has been awarded the Shakespeare Prize (Hamburg), the European Prize for Literature
(Vienna), the Pirandello Prize (Palermo), the David Cohen British Literature Prize, the
Laurence Olivier Award and the Moliere D'Honneur for lifetime achievement. In 1999 he was
made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature. He has received honorary
degrees from fourteen universities.

Characters in “The Caretaker”

Aston

Aston, in his early thirties, is Mick's brother. He seems quite generous, as is indicated by his
rescuing Davies from a potential brawl and later bringing the tramp into his own house. Once
he brings Davies home, Aston continues to try to care for him, giving him tobacco, attempting
to find shoes for him, and even replacing Davies's bag when it is stolen. Unlike Mick, Aston is
gentle and calm, enduring Davies's continual complaints about all that he is offered.

At the end of the second act, Aston reveals what may be at the root of his exceedingly calm
nature; sometime before he reached adulthood, he was committed for a time to a mental
institution, where he received involuntary electroshock therapy.

Davies

Davies is old, unemployed, homeless and travelling under an assumed name. Davies turns out
to be dependant on his identification documents and other belongings which he left in another
city called Sidcup 15 years ago. Without his identification papers and insurance cards he feels
insecure and objected to the authorities which seem to be hunting him. In addition to this he is
unable to provide references for a job application. In order to retrieve his identity and social
status, which is being employed as a caretaker he needs to reach Sidcup and get his personal
documents. The stormy weather and his worn out shoes keep him from leaving Aston´s.
Davies postpones his journey indefinitely and all his hopes vanish once he is thrown out by
Aston.

Davies is extremely racist, which can be seen various times in the play. He keeps blaming the
blacks for the troubles. He is as well selfish and does not care for others. Moreover, he never
is satisfied with what he has, but tries to get more. Although he is unemployed and homeless,
he complains about the shoes Aston gives him and demands for a better pair. Instead of being
glad, that Aston picked him up from the street, he tries to grab more. When he realizes that
Mick is the owner of the apartment he tries to cooperate with him and kick out Aston.
Obviously, Davies is the one who keeps the play in movement, because he is the one who is
responsible for the troubles.

Mick

Mick is said to be in the building trade and portrayed as an ambitious man. Besides creating
his own business, he has plans of renovating and converting his run down house into a high
class penthouse. Still he doesn´t manage to do so, and his plans are left to his brother who
neglects them.

THEMES

DREAMS

Aston is living in his brother's apartment and is entrusted with the task of renovating it. In
order to do so, he intends to build a shed in the garden. An electroshock therapy severely
damaged his brain and life. Because due to this therapy he became a social outcast. Davies, on
the other hand, claims that his dream is to go down to Sidcup in order to get his papers.
However, it is very doubtful whether Davies has any documents left in Sidcup, or if he is just
using it as a pretext for not having to work. One might as well suspect, that his aim is simply
to get the most with the least effort. The third person in the play is Mick, Aston's brother.
He dreams to convert his rundown apartment into a penthouse, or a palace – as he calls it.

FAILURE OF COMMUNICATION

Although Mick and Aston are brothers they completely fail to communicate with each other.
This becomes obvious as they do not talk to each other once in the course of the play. While
reading the play it becomes evident that the two brothers need a kind of a mediator, a third
person who can act as a go-between. In this case this third “party” is Davies. In fact, both
brothers can talk to Davies without a problem. They even talk to Davies about each other
without a difficulty. Davies realizes his role as a mediator, but however does not appreciate
this. As Davies recognizes the failure of communication between the two brothers, he sees
himself in the position of a “better brother”. His aim for a better life (he has been homeless
and unemployed by now) encourages him to play the two brothers off against each other. He
initially is a “good friend” of Aston, but when Davies understands that not Aston but his
brother Mick is the owner of the apartment, he does not care about Aston anymore but
suddenly is the “best friend” of Mick. There is no doubt, that everything done by Davies has a
selfish ulterior motive. Not very surprisingly, that when Mick understands Davies aims and
tries to get rid of him (by telling him Mick he does not needed a caretaker, but an interior
decorator for his apartment), Davies suddenly is the “best friend” of Aston again – who in fact
in the end also throws him out of their apartment.