Hist Research Paper

Psychological, Physical and Non-Verbal Communication, Timing, and Appearance in The Homecoming

The pre-1950 dramatist was accepted as an omniscient figure who knew everything about their characters. The Homecoming Pinter places his characters in a concrete, realistic setting suggesting that he knew no more about the ultimate fate of his characters than his audience. The three brothers in the play attempt, to bridge communication deficits by means of psychological and physical communication in nonverbal strategies of language, to minimize hostile confrontations, seeking to overcome barriers and find common grounds.

Valerie Monogue describes their methods of communication vulgar, brass and intimidating as an fractured language within itself, because of its imperfections – likened as a lack of professional expertise in mental health counseling revealing a level of the family’s dysfunction is anchored in fears, emotional needs, and inadequacies that they individually struggle to conceal. All three characters conspire mutually and commit agreeing nonverbally, selecting to hide each one’s embarrassments, secretly.

"They attempt to close the abyss--silence is the great enemy---generally understanding that revealing than too little, could have more that the adverse option of revealing too much.” Monogue said. “Their talks shows...not so much a failure as an evasion of communication, but a void of any emotional bonding as a family.. In silence in this world becomes a catalyst of action, based on those silences being misinterpreted as threatening, igniting defensive mechanisms that become physical and abusive. Loud speaking and yelling seems expedient, as an elective means of evasion through distraction.

In the Homecoming, successful non-verbal communication at times, has suffered when the emotional relationships between the individuals, are seen to be empty, fragile, without value due to the inability of the characters to agree effectively on how to communicate productively on any level available between them.

Prior to the Progressive Era, plays were written in high-flown poetry, or what frequently known as realistic prose. "What Pinter did was take common everyday speech with all its hesitations, repetitions, periodic crudities and aching silences --and turn it into a form of poetry," Billington said. The power of non-verbal communication, that mentally and emotionally eventually outwitted and defeated the cultivated history brutality, abusive behavior, a language of violence, verbal abuse, and physical intimidation, by thwarting all of which strategies, Ruth emerges triumphantly and victorious., escaping the collective generational conspiracy of male dominance and control.

The play has generally covered so many aspects of literature and it has made credible use of non-verbal communication, to document the accurately of subliminal messaging of successful nonphysical interactions to express a point of view, successfully. It can be termed to be a comedy of Menace and the characters are always feeling threatened through by the truth value of confrontations (Monogue, Valerie). The author, Pinter has also used what we can term to be “Drama of psychological and physical Communication. These exchanges are what is referenced as represents the human communication language that is usually used to avoid as well as prevent revealing the characters that find it hard to communicate.

The main reason why the characters may be afraid of communication is that they afraid of the following things:

· Avoid self-revelation

· Avoid direct contact

· Use of offense Language as a shield/defense rather than a form of contact.

The character avoids physical and emotional contact minimizing the possibility of the negative outcome resulting from such confrontations that they term as the trajectory of the routine of the blame responsible for the conflict. Homecoming has been used to question the different certainties of the different characters as well as how the audience weighs in with regards to the relatability to the involved character, in association with the audience and how they understand the character’s identities and their struggles with inter-personal relationships (Monogue, Valerie). The nonverbal communication exchanges have been used to demonstrate the expectations that are revealed continually and ironically, intentionally undetermined, without physical confrontation.

Silence can to be more impressive than a spoken language. The reason why the character speaks more is seen to be important eve what they speak to each other in the entire play. What is verbally said, there is something else said under it. Silence is used to create the ambiguity, there are many uncertainties that are used to suggest the impenetrability of the involved character. Non-verbal communications make it very difficult to discern or to know the actual character of the person(s) individually, compounding the difficulties, as well as exposing the limiting reality that these individuals are not able to capable to truthfully know each other or even themselves (Monogue, Valerie).

Nonverbal communication makes the truth to be very uncertain, more so, the use of cliché as well as the social formulae is continual in the entire play as we can see so many cases of repetition. Among the many other scenarios, they are used to form part of the game or the series of the games in the play.

Communications are sometimes forced and the characters are provoked and they avoid the challenges as well as the different confrontations. The communications both desire and undesired are all seen to be forced inevitably to avoid the contacts. The relationship is both public and social when opposed to the other that is personal and emotional. Nonverbal communications that are used among the characters in the play reflects the emptiness of the different relationship as the individual when they are feeling they are threatened.

Paradoxically, most of the characters are seem to avoid the contact which results in a huge irony. The vision of the relationship is then continually undermined we, therefore, see the essence of the illusions that are underlying among the different characters. The individuals in the play fear ignorance, they are very afraid of not knowing anything about what is happening around them, about the past and even about their own relationship. Their entire play, therefore, shows many cases of physical and psychological non-communication exercises among the different characters.

In the need for reassurance, the character seeks to know the idea as well as the truth about their past, they need an identity of each of them and what they all have in common. Their past cannot be well versed and it has been used in the play by max in particular but has also been used by Sam and Lenny. They have been used to reassure themselves through the use of the non-verbal communications about the position they hold in the family as well as the roles such as the authority in the family and many more. They need to be assured of the reality of the situations which they all need to be assured and approval.

The character(s) are just toying with each other as they are not certain of their own individual identities and until they find out who they are, can hold no supportive value to others. (North, Astrid). They continue to dissimulate as a functional family, to live lives based on exaggerated lies and mistruths. Max is insisting he is not an old man. The relationship is simulacrum of the involved intimacy as well as the communications. The character seeks to hold to the series of false illusions despite all the other things that are happening around them in real time..

{{{{{The betrayal of Ruth is a practical example that can be considered since there has been no communication that is clear and true example of intimacy among them or even a real fidelity (North, Astrid). The non-verbal communication that Ruth shows plays a huge part in hiding the real self and as the emergence of oneself into that of herself, hence became the role revealing her truth.

The character then comes up as a result of the roles they are playing in the play. The non-verbal communications are used to show the difference in the issue of personal identity which is fictitious construct like the past.

The character is made not to be in contact with each other, which makes the intimacy to be wrong and they are all ironically strangers to each other. The non-verbal communication makes Ruth give remarks like “Don’t become a stranger.” That character is able to go through some rituals and make time to maintain the status quo in the relationship (North, Astrid). The character in their talks makes them be polite and they are civilized in their activities in order to cover the real animosity they have.

The things that the people of the character do not say is what makes the real them, under all the things that are not said there is something said. The territory possession is seen to be very important as they are used to help the character to avoid personal conflicts.

The room was symbolic as the threat to someone’s territory makes them fear that the truth may now able to take place. The non-verbal communication is not real as they introduce the large desire of the character to have the invasions of the reality as well as their lives which becomes a fiction they had to invent their past so that they can preserve their current positions.

Facial communications have been used to show the positive face and the negative face among the character. The positive face is used to show, to want or to be respected or need approval while the negative face is used to desire or wanted without being impeded.

The action s are seen to be threatening the face to face acts which is seen to depend on the social distance and the power relations that exist between the participants that are involved (Lahr, John).

At the beginning of the excerpt, Teddy and his wife Ruth are seen waking up in the morning very late, went to join Teddy’s father Max, the first time that they had returned home as a married couple. (Prentice, Penelope). The non-verbal communication here palpable is interpreted as guarded in the smile that Teddy gave as he smiled and said, ‘Hullo...Dad...We overslept’. At that moment, Teddy is seen to be supportive of Max’s positive face, cautiously subtle so that he can be respected.

l communications here have been used to demonstrate the ways in which Max expected to be greeted in return of his eldest son, who has been away for six years, with a new wife. The facial communications exchange here are used to expose and demonstrate the impoliteness strategies where it reveals that the father and son relationship has been damaged. The positive face that Teddy had through snubbing him. Max is seen to be responding to the facts of abandonment and kept silent where he portrayed politeness and it worked as it was expected (Lahr, John).

There is a lot of unspoken tension when the character shows silence in the ways they are being mistreated or insulted. The offense leads to pause in the characters like Teddy as he shows the disjointed flow of the interactions. Teddy is seen to be trying to repair all the conversation by asking, ‘What’s for breakfast? ‘Which is then followed by Max’s stern silence and the responsive expression Teddy’s matching stoic expression on his face, can be interpreted and an example of non-verbal communication used to show that he is ignoring him, making Teddy feel uncomfortable, if not unwelcome.

His negative nonverbal response is not what Teddy wanted. As a result of that, Teddy attempts to difuse the situation by laughing softly when he chuckles and embarrassingly works through avoidance to respond restfully, attempting avoid the rudeness of his father’s silence. He does that by saying, ‘we overslept’. In these scenes, the use of non-verbal communication has been used e and awkward exchange has been used to show the state of the fractured relationship between them.

In the second act of the play, the scene is seen to be that of a happy family engaging in a celebration that is united by food and drinks. All the misunderstanding has been swept away, replacing with the ironic quality of appearance and some other more apparent reality in this scene.

The characters are seen to have all maintained their appearance so that they can continue to communicate through disguising their underlying behaviors, desires and the emotional internal conflicts that haunt them all individually. This mode of non-verbal communication is used to reveal the realistic nature of the daily inferences and used to draw the attention to those differentness consisting of fears of animosity that are seen to underlie a healthy observance of their social decorum.

There are emotional instances that can be interpreted to have implied to have used examples of nonverbal communications where the character is exhibiting selective memory lapses, behaving as if nothing has happened before that would explain a current behavior or action.. In the scene, teddy stood alone, metaphorically and that is separate from all the others who are set apart from the attitude confrontations with their family which are borne of what he said. He was not able to control the situation and prove to be linguistically incompetent

In the play, many things manifest and they ignite the emotions that Lenny had towards the mother. It was the violent feeling that was directed towards Ruth since she was the only lady from the time the mother’s disappearance or assumed death (Prentice, Penelope). The incidence appears to be as timely as it appeared she has been a prostitute which has been used and mentioned in the scene more than just one time. More so, when Lenny outburst to the father in the time of the circumstance, the timeline surrounding repressive doubts about his conception, appears to be disgusted and doubtful at the factual actuality of his father sexual intimacy with his mother.

This may also be used to explain Max’s ambivalent statement that he gives regarding Jessie. This was the once and all to familiar times he uses conflicting and contradictory praise towards her and called her a whore and a brut. This was timed, to condemn her character as it was the fact that she accused her by the fact that she claims the boys took the ethics that they have now from the behaviors that she has (Postlewait, Thomas).

This relates just by the fact they are rapists, pimps, and murderers, the question is what did she teach them yet they are already the way they are. Max sometimes said, “I’ve never had a whore under this roof before. Ever since your mother died”.

There are many issues that show the similarities between Ruth and Jessie’s moral characters that was not by mere coincidence. Ruth is used as the link to the gateway of the reincarnation of the boys’ mother. Sometimes Ruth, would cannily resort to calling Lenny by the name ‘Leonard, something that only the mother used to call him by that name. This parallels their characters by relating to the fact that Ruth also had three children like Jessie and reveals subtly to the audience that she (Ruth) was a indeed prostitute way before she met and married Teddy (Prentice, Penelope).

She states in the play that she was a different person when she met Teddy at first and that she has been changing over time. What we evidently learn is that she was formerly a nude photographer’s and artist’s model. This case of character analysis shows us that that was the reason why Max was openly rude and violent in his response when he met her for the first time and the fact that he was faced with images of his dead wife's time before she died (Postlewait, Thomas).

The relevance that Lenny was confronted by ghostly appearances of his dead mother was also the true representation of the history emotional conflicts he experiences regarding his mother. (Postlewait, Thomas). He also goes to the extent of feeling he needs both the harshness of her physical assertion of dominance and the gentle comforting of a mother love which he uses to justify how her confidence has grown, earning his approval and support as she becomes more powerful.

Ruth’s loosely veiled, repressive and seductive behaviors, undermine revealing prematurely, her strength through the use of her sexuality enables Lonny to remember issues regarding his mother’s sexuality and the question regarding his conception and paternity. The appearance was validation through his emotionally painful memory, the fact that she is both a mother as well as the sexual being in Lenny's eyes as a child and now as an adult..

Krasner, David, (478-497), has used the lens of postmodernism to explain the ways the drama by Pinter has been used to engage with the Freudian psychoanalysis as well as the ethics by Jewish people. This was used to show the elements and characteristics of Jewish philosophy and postmodernism. There are so many coincidences that are portrayed in homecoming and there are cases if silence as well as the fragmentation of the entire subject.

The Jews have been seen to put more emphasis on the material things over the spiritual things and the Freudian and the entire displacement is evident in the characters of the individuals. There has been the struggle of power as well as the struggle for the acts of corruption in the play as well as the relativism shown by the characters such as teddy’s actions (Krasner, David, (478-497).