SADISTS AND MASOCHISTS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE INTERPLAY OF POWER AND LOVE IN HAROLD PINTER’S THE ROOM

Dependency and control in Pinter’s rooms, which is the product of his lifelong experience of the threatening outer world, predominates as the main theme of his works. The image of a room in Pinter’s works is a symbol of refuge and shelter for threatened individuals who seek solace from the violent world. However, they never attain it as they seek control and dependency. The lifelong struggles continue until power overwhelms all aspects of the individuals’ lives and endangers truth, peace and love, and they are able to relate to each other only in terms of dominance and subservience. This study attempts to analyse Harold Pinter’s The Room through a socio-psychological look at the complex nature of power and its destructive roles in the family where it results in different types of attachment to love and power. I try to show how power and fear have dominated individuals to the extent that any sign of true love is brutalized and left for dead, through the socio-psychological examination of the types of love expressed by individuals who are under the pressure of surrounding powers.