Harold Pinter's Old Times and the play of indistinction

Abstract

This article analyses the fluid frontiers of imagination, memory and the real in Harold Pinter’s Old Times. While the latter notions of memory and the real in Pinter’s works have been extensively explored, the concept of imagination has not. In this article I argue that the concept of imagination as it has been interpreted since the mid-1900s—which exactly tries to grasp or even dissolve these fluid frontiers—offers a way of rethinking both Pinter’s discussion of dramatic truth, the notion of ‘the real’ as it appears to his characters, and how memory is presented in his plays. An attentiveness to the concept of imagination as an analytical approach, will also allow us new ways for understanding how the text implies a potential engagement with his audience.