Significance of Pause in the Dumb Waiter

Back in 2005, in his Nobel Speech Pinter mentioned “Language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.” It is evident from his statement that he did not think truth can only be found in speech. So he used pause. His directors used to admit that omitting the pauses would be an injustice to his plays. So the question is what’s in those pauses? Pinter is one of the few authors who have risen to the level of being an adjective “Pinteresque”. He is famous for his ‘pauses’ and ‘silences’ which are widely known as ‘Pinter pause’ and ‘Pinter Silence’. This essay will discuss the significance of pause in one of his plays The Dumb Waiter. The play is a one act plays consisting 487 lines with 26 directions to pauses. The pauses are mostly dramatic, deliberate, transitional and in few cases incoherent and terminating. Textual references will explain the justification of the above criteria of pauses in the play. In the play Ben is always reading a newspaper and very much reluctant to answer the question of Gus. In the beginning Gus reads news BEN: Wait a minute. It just says— Her brother aged eleven, viewed the incident from the toolshed. GUS: Go on! BEN: That’s bloody ridiculous. Pause GUS: “I bet he did it. BEN: Who? GUS: The brother. BEN: I think you’re right. Pause

(Slamming down the paper) What about that, eh? (Pinter 116) Pinter’s use of the pause in the preceding example serves a comic purpose. The very fact that two hired killers should be playing detective with newspaper items creates a ridiculous, laughable situation. The pauses tend to emphasize for the audience the consideration given to the newspaper story. That is, the pauses halt the movement of the lines and allow the listener to consider the irony of this dialogue in which the men seem disturbed that an eleven year old boy would blame the killing of a cat on his sister. Furthermore sometimes the pauses act as the epiphany of the characters. Such as: BEN: (Quietly) Who took the call, me or you? GUS: You. BEN: We were too early. GUS: Too early for what? Pause You mean somebody had to get out before we got in? (120) Gus here realizes something and his realization is the pause directed here. This pause act as the sudden shift in thought in the mind of the character to choose the next statement. Thus this breaks the continuity of speech and gives time for the character to react carefully. In this case Gus understands the situation and answers for his own question. Pauses are used as transitory sequence from serious to trivial and vice versa. For example: GUS: I mean you come into a place when it’s still dark, you come into a room you’ve never seen before, you sleep all day, you do your job, and then you go away in the night again. Pause

I like to get a look at the scenery. You never get a chance in this job. (118) Or GUS: When’s he going to get in touch? Pause Yes, I’d like to see another football match. Always been an ardent football fan. Here, what about coming to see the Spurs tomorrow? (122) Gus is very straight forward towards the clichéd routine of their work and complains about the room and the surroundings which are serious flaws in accordance with his job; an assassin is bored to do the killing. All on a sudden after a pause Gus wants to look at the scenery or wants to watch a football match. The pause here contrast or more exactly juxtaposes the though of Gus as an assassin with a normal man. Here, the pause is the transition from serious to trivial. Sometimes the pauses are to keep the suspense alive. For example: BEN: Nobody says a word. Pause GUS: What do we do if it’s a girl? BEN: We do the same. GUS: Exactly the same? BEN: Exactly. Pause GUS: We don’t do anything different? BEN: We do exactly the same. GUS: Oh. (144)

In the aforesaid scene Ben is giving instructions to Gus about what to do when the prey comes. Gus asks what if the victim is a girl. Ben replies in a static voice that the condition remains the sane. The pauses act here as the living of suspense. The audience are bound to think that what did they do to their victims and what are going to do to the upcoming victim. Audience gets a chance to get into the play to live the suspense.

Right to Participate: Pinter always stated that his plays were open for interpretation. His pauses and silences acts as the vehicle for the audience to participate in the play. Pauses acts as the room for the audience to take part in the play, a sense of belongingness. Pauses can also fill the unspeakable emotions and unheard feeling. It is something like Faulkner’s “Words are no good” (123). Pinter himself argued that speech can never be fully capable of revealing the truth about the world around us. His pause acts as the search for the unspoken truth. In The Dumb Waiter pauses helps the writer to dramatize, intensify and even sometimes ridicule the situation. Readers/audience can pip around or inside the play during the short pauses or they can be a part of the multidimensional interpretation. A reader, alongside Gus and Ben, also acts as a character in The Dumb Waiter and her/his entry is the pauses.

Work Cited

Pinter, Harold. The Dumb Waiter.1976. London: Faber and Faber, 1986. Print. Harold Pinter: Plays Ser. 1.