Kierkegaard's Existential Views on Harold Pinter's Dramaturgy

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) focused his attention on the existential elements of our existence; Among these elements the concepts of anxiety, dread, guilt and alienation are of primary importance. Existentialism has tried to discover the mysteries of man’s existence, and helped him to find a way out of his loneliness, anxiety and dread that threaten his existence and survival. Man’s dread caused by the assumption that hewas thrown into this alien world. Pinter has depicted the images of life and death, being and non-being, and the reality of man’s reduction into a cipher of non-being. His drama is a bitter commentary on human being’s existence. In Pinter’s world, peace and security remain a mere illusion, vulnerable to utter annihilation. His characters are paralyzedby anxiety and dread. Man's survival depends upon his existence in a room. It concludes that man’s place in the world as Kierkegaard claimed is "insecure and non-securable" (Wick, 2006). Man is thrown into the world, and in his loneliness is paralyzed by anxiety. The source of this anxiety as Kierkegaard claimed is nothingness.