Short summary:

At the beginning of the play, for it is a play, Aston comes home taking an old tramp (Davies) with him. \"Home\" is an attic completely filled with junk of an empty house in West-London. Aston picked the tramp up in a café where Davies was a cleaning person. Aston saved Davies from a fight with his boss, the café-owner, and took pitty on him. In contradiction to Aston, who rarely speaks a word, Davies is blabering his head off. He talks about the fight with his (now ex-) boss, about \"the damned blacks\" (he\'s very much of a racist), about a trip he made to a monastery to try and get some shoes and about the trip he\'s going to make to Sidcup when he\'s well and got some good shoes to get his papers. Espacially this last subject seems very important to Davies. He comes back to that quite some times during the play.

He wants to win over Aston with his stories but at the same time he\'s scared to show any form of gratitude. When Aston offers him a bed to spend the night in he shows no gratitude but only gives comments. The same happens when Davies is offered a pair of shoes, he\'d like suede shoes better.

Aston turns out to be mentally handicapted and can\'t communicate with people in a normal way, as a result of electro-shock therapy. Davies however has a strange effect on him and Aston starts to losen up. He even has a great monologue in which he talks about the horror he\'s been thrue in the psychiatric institution. Aston suggests that Davies would become the caretaker of the house. The one who takes care of the house, or maybe this caretaker is the one who takes care of the occupant.

Mick, the younger brother of Aston, who is the owner of the house, is very jealous at Davies because of the contact he and Aston have. He would like to send Davies away or scare him of, but he\'s afraid he\'ll lose every contact he has with his brother. He wants Aston to tell Davie he has to go himself. Therefor he agrees to make Davies caretaker. Then he starts to work on Davies by giving him compliments on everything. Result: Davies starts to look down on Aston and gives him nothing but disdain. The situation becomes unbearable till at some point Davies attacks Aston with a knife. Aston now tells him to go. Davies is trying to seek help with his companion Mick, he however sais that Aston can do whatever he likes, and if he wants him out he goes out. Mick can now again become the caretaker and Davies is on his way.

Mick I find very interesting, I\'d like to play his character once. He is a really scary person. He likes to scare Davies and so he does. He can make a psychopathic impression by the way he plays with people. Like he plays with Davies. He stays quite calm and doesn\'t ever threaten him, he scares Davies by asking the same things over and over.

\"Mick: Did you sleep here last night?

Davies: Yes.

Mick: Sleep well?

Davies: Yes!

Mick: Did you have to get up in the night?

Davies: No!

PAUSE

Mick: What\'s you\'re name?

Davies (shifting about to rise): Now look here!

Mick: What?

Davies:Jenkins!

Mick: Jen...kins

(Davies makes a sudden move to rise. A violent bellow from Mick sends him back. A shout)

Sleep here last night?

Davies: Yes...

Mick (continuing at great pace): How\'d you sleep?

Davies: I slept-

Mick: Sleep well?

Davies: Now look-

Mick: What bed?

Davies: That-

Mick: Not the other?

Davies: No!

Mick: Choosy.

PAUSE

(Quietly) Choosy.

PAUSE

(again amiable) What sort of sleep did you have in that bed?

Davies (banging on the floor): All right!

Mick: You weren\'t uncomfortable?

Davies: (groaning): All right\"

I can imagine that Mick can really drive people crazy.

The one experiencing the greatest developpement is Aston who breakes through some mental barrier and talks about his days in the institution, which he hasn\'t been able to do before Davies came. Till then he always kept that away, blocked it out. This is what he said to Davies:

\"Well, they were coming round to me, and the night they came I got up and stood against the wall. They told me to get on the bed, and I knew they had to get me on the bed because if they did it while I was standing up they might break my spine. So I stood up and then one or two of them came for me, well, I was younger then, I was much stronger than I am now, I was quite strong then, I laid one of them out and I had another one round the throat, and then suddenly this chief had these pincers on my skull and I knew he wasn\'t supposed to do it while I was standing up, that\'s why I...anyway, he did it. So I did get out. I got out of the place...but I couldn\'t walk very well.\"

Truth?

By showing how different people look upon the same event, Pinter throws into question the whole world of everyday realities. He asks not only if we can ever know the truth about anybody or anything but also if there is any absolute truth te be known. Shortly before the caretaker was produced, Pinter explained his use of contradiction and ambiguity in the following words: \"The desire for verification is understandable but cannot always be satisfied. There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what false.\" (A look at a book)

The sane, the insane and the visitor.

The sane, he who does what\'s normal.

The insane, he who doesn\'t do what could be expected.

The visitor, he who comes later and therefor comes last.

But now, who\'s who? Who\'s what?

Is Mick the sane, for, in an institution he hasn\'t been

He doesn\'t say weard things too slow or fast.

And is Aston then the insane, the outcast?

Is he not normal, should he be treated, does he have a bad gene?

He invited a stranger over, is he mad or a good Samaritan?

The visitor, the one who comes last.

The one without priviliges, who lives on the favour of his hosts.

The one who dares not to ask for more then is given, is he Davies then?

No, this can\'t be right, it\'s not like this.

Mick, who asks three questions, five times in one minute, can\'t be sane.

And at the end of the story Aston can\'t be more of an outcast than Davies can.

Davies, the one who shouldn\'t ask for more.

Mick, the one who comes last, after Davies and after the insane.

The story is about the sane, the insane and the visitor.

The story is about three sanes, three insanes and three visitors.

• A Night Out
• De Nieuwe Wereldorde
• The Homecoming
• The Birthday Party