Reply to my peers Peer 1 Good Evening Classmates The play I chose to dissect is “Applicant” (Pinter, 1961). This play is based on a job interview and process that occurs for applicants before the actu

Reply to my peers

Peer 1

Good Evening Classmates

The play I chose to dissect is “Applicant” (Pinter, 1961). This play is based on a job interview and process that occurs for applicants before the actual interview takes place. The character I chose to write about is Miss. Piffs. She appears to be that of someone with confidence and walks in the room with ease. She asks right away about the applicant’s career choice but then diverts away and has him enter a procedure for a psychological suitability.

Miss. Piffs has the applicant put on headphones and electrodes on his palms. The applicant seems a little distraught over this, but Miss. Piffs keep reassuring him that this is protocol and part of the process. Miss. Piffs actions seem to be distant from human compassion because she sends a rather large shock through the equipment to the applicant. Then when he reacts in not a favorable way, she wanted she starts to ask many personal questions. Her emotional state seems to be conflicted about how an individual should be treated. One line she says is, “Are you often puzzled by women”? (Pinter, 1961, line 35). The applicants voice and mood change as to be perplexed by the question. I’m not sure how the correlates with a job interview. Then a few lines down she says, “Are you virgo intacta”? (Pinter, 1961, line 49). The applicant even says how embarrassing that is but still answers probably in hopes to get the job. This seems far fetched and out of context. Miss. Piffs speech pattern seems to be direct and short and not very tolerable throughout the entire play.

Janee Bliss

Applicant, Pinter. 1961. Kirszner, L. &. (2016). Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing (9th ed.). Boston: Cengage.

Peer 2

For my character analysis I chose to analyze Kathy. Kathy is a young girl in her early twenties, who is best friends with the protagonist of the play. Kathy's role in the story seems to be the antagonist, although her actions seem to be good, and the protagonist, Emily's actions seem to be bad.

Kathy comes out in the early evening in search of her best friend and her best friend's undead boyfriend because she is concerned. When she finds Emily and Walter, she asks to speak to Emily to speak to her privately to let her know everyone is concerned about her for dating a zombie, and to let her know she is losing everyone that cares about her. Kathy says "people are talking, Emily. You're losing friends" (Roske, 2011, scene 1, p. 1081).

Kathy's emotions seem worried, concerned, frantic, and urgent. Her conflict is Walter, Emily's undead boyfriend, and Emily's views on the matter. She tries to convince Emily to leave her for her own good, or else she will end up alone, even to the point of threatening to end their friendship by saying "I don't think I can stay your friend if you continue to date that!" (Roske, 2011, scene 1, p. 1082).

Kathy's motives throughout the play was to get her best friend to leave her boyfriend and gain back her relationships with her friends and family. Kathy made a strong case and plead hard for Emily, but ultimately lost in the end.

References

Roske, E. (2011). Zombie Love. In L.G. Kirszner & S.R. Mandell (Eds.), Compact Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing [VitalSource digital version] (pp. 1079-1083). Boston: Cengage.