Feminine Character in The Homecoming: Women in Harold Pinter’s Plays

Harold Pinter is among the most famous playwrights of the world and won Nobel Prize in 2005. How he used female characters in his plays is one of the most challenging issues in his dramatic texts. Many of these texts don't have any female personage while the others with female characters show complicated gendered and sexual functions. Many believe that these characters fit in common stereotypes of females in the world of theater. Among these challenging texts is The Homecoming which shows a unique character, Ruth, who has been controversial among critics. This essay tries to examine the representation of female character in Pinter's plays while focusing solely on The Homecoming. Given the representation of Ruth in this text, some of the critics read this text as a feminist one despite the others who believe Pinter is misogynist. In this essay, after studying the previous views on the play, I try to show how both perspectives can be seen in this text. In fact, just by this article, we cannot accuse Pinter of being misogynist neither acclaim him to be feminist. Pinter indeed wants to decentralize the patriarchal structure of family and the society, using his Pinteresque dialogues and devices.