The presentation of ‘truthfulness’ in Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party Anonymous 11th Grade

Truthfulness in the Birthday PartyThe presentation of truthfulness in Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party varies during the play. Pinter effectively uses ellipsis, short sentences, lexical choice and stage directions to show the existence of truth and the lack of it. Pinter is also trying to show the importance of knowledge through truth which is shown through Stanley’s lack of knowledge, which makes him uneasy. Pinter tries to present a sense of menace through how people react to a lack of truth, which is shown through Stanley's changing character throughout the play as he attempts to find out the purpose of McCann and Goldberg and their Pinter’s uses of how the truth affects people is important as well as his portrayal of it as it is important to see how people suffer from a lack of truth for if they use it to their advantage.

In Act One, Stanley deceives Meg when they are talking alone when Petey has left; Stanley deceives Meg when he makes up the fact that he has a job opportunity and he says “I’ve…er…I’ve been offered a job, as a matter of fact.” The ellipses deployed by Pinter follows the idea of Pinteresque techniques. The ellipses helps to highlight how Stanley is thinking about what to say which shows that he is lying....