THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN SUB-WORLDS AND HYPOTHETICALLY REAL CONSTRUCTS IN HAROLD PINTER’S OLD TIMES

Old Times, which was written by Nobel laureate playwright Harold Pinter, narrates the story of a couple named Deeley and Kate and their guest Anna. The play, which is set in a claustrophobic and somber atmosphere like many other Pinter’s plays, turns out to be a narrative knotted with verbal violence, latent menace and hidden aims when opposing characters Deeley and Anna regard Kate as a battleground for domination and subjugation. While struggling to oppress and abuse one another, each character endeavors to impose his or her own version of reality upon other characters through the maneuvers of excluding and trivialization tactics. In doing so, particularly Deeley and Anna reveal their unuttered expectations, dreams and phantasies all of which can be easily missed if the work is analyzed in a lineer or literal manner and if the possibilities of multiple readings are ignored. By placing the Possible/Text(ual) World Theories on the basis of the study as a theoretical background, it is aimed to unearth the hypothetically real constructs exemplified under such titles as oneiric, deontic, epistemic, doxastic and boulomaic. Old Times, in which characters invade each other’s personal space, provides referential wealth, extensive and rich interpretative opportunity by means of Text World Theory through which the study tries to enlarge the horizons of the readers and reset the nature of grasping a dramatic play by giving a chance a diverging reading on a theoretical basis.