Order, Chaos, and Sanity Theme Analysis

In The Birthday Party, Meg adheres to a strict daily routine, one that imposes a pattern not only onto her own life, but onto the entire boarding house. In fact, she devotes herself so wholeheartedly to establishing this sense of order that she forces others—like Stanley—to play  along. For Stanley, this commitment to order is perhaps stabilizing, considering that he only starts to go crazy once Goldberg and McCann disrupt the regimented world of the boarding house. What’s strange, though, is that Meg’s commitment to order keeps her from seeing the changes taking place in her home. Indeed, she focuses on her daily patterns so intently that she fails to recognize the existential and subtle forms of chaos that are disrupting the sense of order she’s supposedly imposing upon the household; she simply continues her routines despite the fact that they no longer support any kind of true stability. Stanley, on the other hand, recognizes the chaos that has seized the boarding house, but then everyone around him considers him crazy. Through this contrast, Pinter challenges the notion that a commitment to order is an indication of sanity. By showing the ways in which Meg ignores the chaos surrounding her, Pinter demonstrates that sometimes implementing order for the sake of order is just as insane as plunging into disordered mayhem.

In the first scene of The Birthday Party, it is already clear that Meg has established a routine that she scrupulously upholds. She insists that Petey sit at the breakfast table and eat cornflakes, all the while expressing her discomfort with the fact that Stanley hasn’t come downstairs yet. “I always take him up his cup of tea,” she says. When Petey asks if Stanley drank the tea, she says, “I made him. I stood there till he did.” Of course, forcing Stanley to drink his tea in his bedroom after waking him up is rather intrusive, but this is how committed Meg is to implementing her routines. Her fastidiousness is important to keep in mind as the play progresses, as it sheds light on the bizarre behavior she exhibits once Goldberg and McCann’s presence begins to derail the prevailing sense of order. Indeed, the morning after they arrive, she runs out of cornflakes. This, it seems, is Pinter’s way of signaling to the audience the profound impact these two men have had on the boarding house. Having emphasized Meg’s obsession with feeding her husband and Stanley, Pinter now shows the audience that things have changed. And though the audience no doubt detects this alteration to Meg’s routine, she herself tries to ignore the change, instead choosing to move forward as she always does. “[Stanley] should be up,” she says to Petey. “He’s late for his breakfast.” Petey says, “There isn’t any breakfast,” to which she says, “Yes, but he doesn’t know that.” In this way, she stubbornly refuses to adjust, insisting upon upholding her normal routines even though the present circumstances render them pointless.

Pinter also makes Meg’s love of order evident when she buys Stanley a small drum for his birthday. Though he tries to tell her it’s not actually his birthday, she focuses only on the fact that she’s enacting a yearly ritual by giving him a gift. “This isn’t my birthday, Meg,” he says. “Of course it is,” she replies. “Open your present.” This interaction suggests that Meg cares less about reality than she cares about having the chance to adhere to the ceremonial tradition of gift giving. What’s more, the present itself denotes her fondness of order—after all, rhythm is made up of patterns and repetition, which are appealing to Meg because she tries so hard to lead a structured life.

Stanley’s birthday party erupts into total chaos, as Goldberg and McCann taunt him until he lashes out, tries to strangle Meg, and attempts to rape Lulu. It’s easy to see that this is not the kind of evening that normally takes place in the boarding house, but Meg remains unable to see or admit this; the next morning, she claims to not remember anything about the party. Of course, this is perhaps because she was drinking, but still, one would think she’d remember that Stanley tried to strangle her. As such, the audience intuits that she’s once again striving to adhere to her typical routine by casting aside any consideration that might upend her sense of order. She even picks up Stanley’s broken drum and, instead of telling Petey how it got destroyed the previous night, says, “It still makes a noise.” Once again, then, she denies all signs of disruption and disorder, instead concentrating on the ways in which things have remained the same. What’s more, Petey understands how badly his wife needs to believe that nothing has changed, so he tells her that Stanley is upstairs sleeping when, in reality, McCann and Goldberg have taken him away for good. By doing this, he gives her the opportunity to once more pantomime her way through her usual morning routine. In turn, Pinter presents her ignorant bliss as a form of insanity in and of itself. Although Meg doesn’t lash out like Stanley, there’s no denying that her unyielding devotion to order is delusional and maladjusted. In this way, Pinter warns the audience against thinking that madness only presents itself in outlandish and stereotypical ways. Insanity, he intimates, can manifest itself in utterly banal circumstances, too.