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Analysis Of Pinter 's ' The Lover '

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Hornby suggests that "Pinter 's characters should be phenomenologically bracketed; we should experience them here and now rather than speculate about their factual pasts"(176). The term "bracketed" refers to Husserl who "did not insist that we reject all hypothetical constructs of the world, but rather that, in examining anything, we at least temporarily ignore all such constructs, and instead intuitively scrutinize the actual phenomena we perceive. This process he called 'bracketing ' (epoche)" (Hornby 173). Pinter, as a phenomenological playwright, wants to represent what is shaping the behaviour of his characters."What is seen and what is heard, and what that means in terms of the all over, virtual world of the play " (Hornby 177). The Lover, (1962), is one of Pinter 's plays that could lend itself to a meta-dramatic interpretation since it entails issues of divided-selves, role-playing, and fantasies. "The concepts of role-playing and negotiating character and identity are fundamental to The Lover" (David Thompson 113). But it is not just a pleasant game-play, as some critics propose. Rather, it "reveals an underlying seriousness in the relationship between the author and his characters and between the characters in their exploration of their complex relationships" (Thompson 113). Pinter 's audiences have usually battled with their attempt to understand and give order to his plays. His plays have been usually accused of

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