*in italics you have explanations and keys, in blue the aim of the activities

Timing: 2 periods of 50 minutes

PRE-READING ACTIVITIES

FIRST LESSON

1. Plenary activity

Students are asked to say what feelings and recollections they have about the place that they usually consider their 'refuge'. (the teacher writes the ideas on the blackboard)

AIM: the aim is to focus students' attention on their perception of the space. The teacher intervenes asking some questions in order to convey the activity towards the themes of the excerpt.  

Timing: 5 minutes

2. Plenary activity

Read the title of the play.  What do you think the play is about?

AIM: to activate interest and to get ready to read the text making predictions. 

Timing: 5 minutes

WHILE-READING ACTIVITIES

(skimming)

1.      Individual activity

Read the text silently. What is the text dealing with?

AIM: students read the text to identify the main theme of the excerpt and to confirm what was predicted during the pre-reading activity

Timing:10 minutes (check included)

(scanning)

2. Work in pairs

To have a visual representation of how the room looks like, focus your attention on the various objects mentioned in the stage directions. Complete the grid

AIM: students read the text to get precise information and concentrate on details. They are guided to the comprehension of the main themes of Pinter's text.   Through the following exercises students are guided in  order to identify setting and characters

3. Work in pairs

How would you define the description of the place? Choose from the list (you can choose more than one item)

Detailed          Ö quite detailed          vague         confused          Ö realistic         Ö Ordinary

4. Work in pairs

Is the room identifiable with any particular kind of room or does it represent the whole home for the characters? Motivate you answer

(Possible answer: the room represents the whole home for the Bert and Rose because we find in it both the bedroom and the kitchen).

5. Work in pairs

Is it possible to infer when the action takes place? At what time of the day? Tick the correct answers

Ö In the morning                               In the afternoon                                    In the evening

6. Work in pairs

It can be:           ÖWinter                    Summertime                                Spring

Motivate you answers quoting the lines.

(Rose is preparing bacon and eggs (line 6) with tea (lines 8-9), so the action takes probably place in the morning, in winter because it’s very cold).

7. Work in pairs

Concentrate on the actions of the characters. What do Rose and Bert do?

8. Work in pairs

Concentrate on the words of the characters. What are Rose and Bert talking about?

Rose:  cold weather outside; the basement and people who live in; the room where she lives

Bert:  ---------------

9. Work in pairs

Concentrate on how Rose describes the room, the outside world and the basement and complete the list

The room: keeps warm; is better than the basement; is all right for me (2 times)

The outside world: very cold out; murder; windy;not a soul about

The basement: it’s asking for trouble; it can’t be too cosy;the walls were running

 

Timing: 20 minutes (check included at the end)

The teacher explains that the passage is the beginning of Pinter’s first play “The Room”, written in 1957. It introduces some of the main themes, of the linguistic features and of the dramatic technique of Pinter’s following works.

AIM: through the following specific exercises and the help of the teacher students are encouraged to identify the main features of the play and the main themes of Pinter’s works (the room, man existential fear)

1. Plenary activity

Try to remember the setting of the play. We said that the description was realistic.  Can we consider the dialogue realistic too? Motivate your answer.

(The dialogue is realistic because the arguments of the discussion are about very common matter such the food, the weather, her room, the basement )

The teacher: despite realistic setting and characters, one of the main features of Pinter’s plays is ambiguity; the starting point is always a very real situation with concrete characters. However Pinter is not a naturalistic dramatist. This is the paradox of his artistic personality. The dialogue and the characters are real, but the over-all effect is one of mystery, of uncertainty, of poetic ambiguity. The first deviation from the usual realistically play lies in the element of uncertainty about the  motivation of the characters, their backgrounds, their very identity.

Timing: 10 minutes

SECOND LESSON

Let’s try to examine why Pinter differs from naturalistic dramatists.

1. Work in pairs

Let’s focus on the way Pinter presents his characters.

What sort of information does he provide?

physical description                  past experiences                           interests                                 √ actions

2. Plenary

Is Pinter giving any detailed information about them?

(No, Pinter does not give any detailed information about them)

The teacher: Pinter rejects the idea of the omniscient playwright who claims to know everything about his characters. This feature leads to uncertainty: we can never be sure about his characters’ inner feelings and motivations and we cannot but make hypotheses about them.
 

3. Work in pairs

Focus your attention on the room. The ROOM is one of the recurring symbols in Pinter’s plays. What do you think it represents in this passage?  Tick

√ A safe haven             A status symbol                    A kind of prison

4. Work in pairs

What is Rose’s perception of the OUTSIDE WORLD? Choose among the list (you can choose more than one item):

 indifference     √  fear      happiness      √ worry          boredom     curiosity

The teacher: as we have noticed in Rose’s speech, the outside world is often associated with coldness. Outside is like a desert without even “a soul” in it. Since Rose seems scared and worried about what is outside the room, the outside world represents the menace given by hostility, danger and lack of human feelings. Notice that this menace is so deeply felt that Rose uses the word “murder”  to define the coldness she perceives. There is always something threatening in Pinter’s plays, especially in the early ones which, for this reason have also been called “comedies of menace”.

5. Work in pairs
Now focus your attention on the basement.

What is the real reason why she speaks about the basement?

√-to reassure herself about how lucky and how safe she is in living in that room

-to remember Bern that the room is too small for two people

-to think about the neighbours

 The teacher: the basement may stand for the unconscious, for the unpleasant and undesirable aspects of the self that Rose refuses to know because she is scared of the unknown.

An important theme Pinter expresses in his plays is actually that of Man’s existential fear. Man’s existential fear is in Pinter plays something real, ordinary and acceptable as an everyday occurrence. This fear comes from a concrete menace from the outside world and a vague and unconscious feeling of uncertainty.

Timing: 20 minutes (check included)

AIM: the aim of the following activities is to focus the attention on the language used by Pinter (repetitions, pauses, silence)

6. Work in pairs

Now we are focusing our attention on the LANGUAGE

Rose often repeats the same concepts. Try to explain what is the function of repetitions in the passage.

√ anxious for the room  √ anxious for Bert   let Bert understand her thoughts    √ monotony of life    hurry

The teacher: on a dramatic point of view, repetitions may put in evidence the monotony of life and may be a way of stressing the difficulty of communication.

one of the main themes in Pinter’s plays is the difficulty of communication. In order to show this matter, Pinter takes great care in building his dialogues or monologues. His style has been labelled as pinteresque for its originality. He reproduces the rhythm of everyday speech, so in general Pinter’s characters speak a colloquial language but they may also adopt slang, idiomatic expressions, non-standard grammar or – on the contrary – they may adopt elevated language, depending on their social position. Pinter is also a master in the use of pauses and silence.

7. Plenary

What is the function of pauses in this extract in your opinion? 

 (Pauses show a natural stop of reflection during Rose’s train of thoughts. They may also reveal the emptiness of her speech and – ultimately - her difficulty to communicate her intimate feelings).

8. Plenary

And what about Bert’s silence? Is he communicating through his silence? Give your opinion.

(Possible answers: He is silent maybe because he is not interested in Rose; he has already listened her repeating the same things too many times and now he is bored and tired).

The teacher: just like repetitions, also silence may be a way of stressing the difficulty of communication or the difficulty to find something meaningful in life which may be worth saying. Through his silence, Bert is also communicating a great sense of solitude, as he was totally isolated in himself.

Pinter said: “There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is employed. This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. (...) The speech we hear is an indication of that we don’t hear. (...) One way of looking at speech is to say it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness”

Timing. 20 minutes

9. Plenary

Do you think that Rose’s words may be considered a sort of silence?

(Since Rose is not really communicating and she is repeating always the same things, her speech may have the same effect as silence and indeed Bert does not answers).

10. Plenary

What could Rose’s “nakedness” be? What do you think is the “language locked beneath” her words?

(Rose’s nakedness may be her existential fear, her feeling of inadequacy in front of Bert, her emptiness which she has to fill with inconsistent words. Beneath her words we can see her anxiety, her fear, her inability of communicating or even understanding her true feelings, her incapacity of finding a meaning in her existence).

11. Plenary

If communication implies the exchange of information, feelings and thoughts, would you define Rose’s speech to Bert a dialogue or a monologue? Why?

(it is a dialogue because Rose often addresses Bert her considerations and because Bert’s silence is meaningful)

Timing: 10 minutes

POST-READING (HOMEWORK)

AIM: through this activity students will be stimulated to find a link between literature and the time when works were written.

AMBIGUITY leads to UNCERTAINTY: these are two important features in Pinter’s plays. There is a link between them and the time when Pinter wrote his plays.

Men were scared of something. What? Find information in history, in pictures, in films of that time.

Groups of four (homegroups)

(It may also be a part of an interdisciplinary work together with the History teacher).

 (During the 50’s the world was divided in two blocks and there was the iron curtain. Men were scared of a possible nuclear war and this fear created a general sense of uncertainty about the future. This fear was very strong because just a few years before there had been the Second World War: people were shocked by all the atrocities and by the use of a new terrible weapon which did not give any hope to mankind: the atomic bomb).