‘I was simply obeying the law of the body’: Dispossession and Exposure of the Vulnerable Body in Harold Pinter’s A Kind of Alaska

Abstract

Harold Pinter’s one-act play A Kind of Alaska (1982) stages Deborah, a woman who wakes up after twenty-nine years of coma, along with her doctor and sister. Her presence on stage in her hospital bed inevitably raises the question of the perception of the diseased body: her body is exposed, made audible and visible. This exposure is striking because it unveils the body in its materiality, underlining the dispossession caused by our embodiment, the lack of control over our own bodies, and our inevitable subjection to ageing and possible diseases. Exposing the materiality of the body is thus a way to reveal its vulnerability and acts as a reminder that we are all potentially dependent. This forced surrender of total control actually initiates a re-evaluation of the notions of exposure and dispossession: exposure becomes a necessary way to acknowledge the presence of the other beyond any attempts at understanding him/her through language or knowledge.

Keywords

• A Kind of Alaska
• Harold Pinter
• dispossession
• exposure
• drama
• vulnerability