Pinter: EGO Development and Psychological Space

Abstract

This article analyzes Pinter's room-symbolism as a form of imagery deriving from the earliest stages of the mother-infant relationship, antedating the process of separation-individuation. Such imagery, conceived as forming an integral part of cognitive and adaptive skills, serves as a spatial analogue of secure/insecure containment by the mother. Feelings of insecurity are engendered by the child's perception of the mother as a dangerous or non-gratifying object. The symbolic representation of the child's conflicted feelings, as interpreted by Pinter, is a room or house that fails to provide protection against invasive forces. The result of such vulnerability, explored with great ingenuity by Pinter, is the blocking of major ego functions and resources for coping. The invasive forces, resulting from projected aggressive drives, overwhelm Pinter's feckless protagonists, who yearn for the physical reparation of the mother's “destroyed” body. The playwright's anti-heroes and their antagonists alike represent the divided self, in which the aggressors act on behalf of an archaic, punitive superego. Such a superego is traceable to early defects of ego development in which perceptual and cognitive distortions play an important role.