Inauthentıc Responses in the Plays of Harold Pinter and Edward Albee

Abstract

This paper carries out a comparative analysis of Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party and Edward Albee's The Zoo Story. It achieves this by exploring how the dramatic structure, characterization, and use of language in these plays display the playwrights' tendency to employ similar themes of existentialist philosophy and man's self-quest in the face of existential anxiety and despair. Man shows a variety of inauthentic responses in order to escape the lack of meaning in life, freedom to choose and burden of responsibility. The aim of this study is to discuss these inauthentic responses given by the characters in the above mentioned plays.