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Mixed feelings about words:" Language, politics and the ethics of inter-subjectivity in The Dumb Waiter Mary F. Brewer To be means to communicate dialogically. When the dialogue is finished, all is finished. Therefore, the dialogue, in essence, cannot and must not come to an end. 1 M.M. Bakhtin

1. Introduction In his article, "Anti-Ritual, Critical Domestication and Representational Precision in Pinter's The Dumb Waiter," Lance Norman argues that the critical tendency to "complete" Pinter's play is actually encouraged by The Dumb Waiter's structure and action: on a meta-theatrical level, the play foregrounds and critiques the way we read dramatic narratives. Norman's essay is in part a response to Thomas Van Laan's assertion that critics of the play have frequently engaged in a process of "filling in what the dramatist has neglected to record" (494-95). Building upon Van Laan, R.A. Buck identifies how traditionalist critical discussions of the "The Dumb Waiter fail to emphasize the power of the linguistic ambiguity in the last lines of the play" (45), thereby distorting its meaning. Norman, in contrast, suggests that there is something built into the structure of Pinter's dramatic narrative that necessitates an engagement with the ambiguity of language; that is, The Dumb Waiter compels the reader/spectator to reflect critically on the ambiguous nature of language and communication, which, in a sense, disallows the “neglect” of which Buck speaks. What I find intriguing about Norman's essay is how it reveals the play as being partly about what narrative discourse is and gestures toward the psycho-social processes by which meanings are created through inter-subjectiv

Mixed feelings about words:" Language, politics
and the ethics of inter-subjectivity in The Dumb Waiter
Mary F. Brewer
To be means to communicate dialogically. When the dialogue is finished,
all is finished. Therefore, the dialogue, in essence, cannot and must not
come to an end.
1
M.M. Bakhtin

1. Introduction
   In his article, "Anti-Ritual, Critical Domestication and
   Representational Precision in Pinter's The Dumb Waiter," Lance
   Norman argues that the critical tendency to "complete" Pinter's play is
   actually encouraged by The Dumb Waiter's structure and action: on a
   meta-theatrical level, the play foregrounds and critiques the way we
   read dramatic narratives. Norman's essay is in part a response to
   Thomas Van Laan's assertion that critics of the play have frequently
   engaged in a process of "filling in what the dramatist has neglected to
   record" (494-95).
   Building upon Van Laan, R.A. Buck identifies how
   traditionalist critical discussions of the "The Dumb Waiter fail to
   emphasize the power of the linguistic ambiguity in the last lines of the
   play" (45), thereby distorting its meaning. Norman, in contrast,
   suggests that there is something built into the structure of Pinter's
   dramatic narrative that necessitates an engagement with the ambiguity
   of language; that is, The Dumb Waiter compels the reader/spectator to
   reflect critically on the ambiguous nature of language and
   communication, which, in a sense, disallows the “neglect” of which
   Buck speaks. What I find intriguing about Norman's essay is how it
   reveals the play as being partly about what narrative discourse is and
   gestures toward the psycho-social processes by which meanings are
   created through inter-subjectiv