Harold Pinter's The Homecoming: Plot and Power Analysis

Overview: Structure and Central Conflict

Although Harold Pinter's The Homecoming has a distinctly modernist tone — conveyed through spare language and hidden sexual tension — the play actually follows the classical plot structure of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. While it may seem plotless on the surface, the central conflict is the clash of class and sexual tension within an all-male household, triggered when one of the sons returns home with his wife, Ruth. Teddy is the lone educated member of the family, and his brothers clearly resent this fact, particularly Lenny, a thuggish man who immediately makes sexual overtures toward Ruth.

The central question of the play is how the brothers and Ruth will resolve the nature of their relationship. Ultimately, Ruth chooses to leave her stultifying life with Teddy and remain in the family home, drawn by the greater sexual freedom she seems to enjoy there. The play manages to be both feminist and anti-feminist simultaneously. On one hand, the only way Ruth can articulate her identity is through her sexuality. On the other hand, despite being sexually objectified, she still manages to exercise genuine control over her surroundings.

Exposition: Teddy's Return and Class Divisions

The exposition of The Homecoming takes place in the family's drawing room. The title refers to Teddy's return to the family home from his career as a professor in America. Teddy has three children and has clearly worked to separate himself from his family until now; his father did not even know about Ruth, and Teddy has gone to considerable pains to conceal the details of his life from his relatives — reasons that become immediately apparent in the hostile attitude all of the men take toward Ruth and himself. The plot thickens at once with Teddy's arrival and the revelation that the family was entirely unaware of Ruth's existence. At the opening of the play, Ruth functions as a kind of pawn in the men's relationships with one another. Teddy clearly uses her as a status symbol, a way of demonstrating how far he has come to his poorer, frustrated brothers.

Teddy's brothers seem so different from him that it is difficult to believe they share the same family: they are largely working class in their occupations and outlooks, while Teddy has worked hard to overcome and escape his background. For example, his brother Lenny speaks of shoveling snow as a way to pick up extra cash, in stark contrast to Teddy's academic life. Their father Max was a butcher, and Teddy's uncle Sam works as a chauffeur. Yet the play suggests that a true escape from one's origins is impossible — Teddy cannot resist returning home to display how much he has changed.

Rising Action: Ruth in the Hyper-Masculine Household

As the action begins to rise, the viewer comes to understand the tensions inherent in a hyper-masculine environment in which the men harbor deep resentment about having to cook and clean for themselves. Ruth injects a feminine presence into the household, and the men essentially fight over what role she will play for the remainder of the play. Max, the father, initially mistakes her for a prostitute before it is revealed that she is Teddy's wife. Throughout the play, the men project their idealized images of womanhood onto Ruth — mother, wife, and prostitute — in turn.

Gradually, the other men attempt to assert dominance over Teddy by flirting with and bullying Ruth in both subtle and overt ways. In one charged exchange, Lenny attempts to take Ruth's water glass even after she assures him she is not finished with it; the argument becomes symbolically laden with subtext and power. Over the course of the rising action, the stakes escalate as the men taunt Ruth about turning her into a prostitute to satisfy their desires and generate additional income. This taunting suggests that their subliminal resentment of Teddy's superior social status is being displaced and vented upon Ruth.