Abstract:Harold Pinter is the famous absurd playwright, and he is also the winner of Nobel Prize in literature in 2005. He is good at describing the details of people’s daily life and finding surprises from daily trivial things. The Gatekeeper is one of the most representative works of Pinter’s second period. This work highlights the struggle for speech rights between the main characters via their simple dialogues at the stage, and, we can see people’s daily life after the World War II in England from the relations and communications between the leading roles. This paper mainly focuses on the analysis of the characters’ strive for the discourse power and the causes for their strive, that is characters’ personality, political factor, and social background. Finally the paper draws the conclusion that people cannot live out of the society. The society will determine its people’s life.

Key words: Pinter; Language Pause；Indifference；Struggle

CONTENTS

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction1

1.1 Brief Introduction to the Author

1.2 Brief Introduction of Gatekeeper

1.3 Literature Review

2. The Characters’s Strive for Discourse Power.3

2.1 Pauses in the Conversation between Davis and Aston

2.2 Davis’s Instigation between Aston and Mick

2.3 Davis’ Struggle

3. The Causes of their Strive for Discourse Power6

3.1 Personalities of the Main Characters

3.2 Political Factor

3.3 Social Background

4. Conclusion7

Bibliography.9

Acknowledgements11