Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming Through the Lens of Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice

Abstract

The Homecoming (1964) is Harold Pinter’s most philosophical play, including an academic philosopher, Teddy, among its cast, who occasionally debate philosophical issues. Extending the play’s range, the characters are preoccupied with status and respect, hunger, sexual frustration, rage within and from others, as well as fears of decrepitude and powerlessness. Like Pinter, Amartya Sen in The Idea of Justice (2009) exposes people’s deficient capabilities for functioning, their abilities to choose and do what they value or have reason to value. A crucial debate between Teddy and Lenny gives Ruth the last word, followed by the defeated Teddy’s retaliatory theft of a cheese roll. Underlying their conflict and the play in general is an issue roiling economic philosophy: are people’s choices guided by reason or by passion and impulse? The play’s action reduces the issue to a rhetorical question.