The play is confined to a short length of time with no past events or discussion of the future. It is about now in the present but nothing much seems to be achieved and the play appears to be about nothing. But we can only live in the present, it is impossible and futile to try and live in the past or the future. If we try to do either then the present will become a wasted opportunity. Bearing this in mind, the play can be seen as about everything.
We know little about the background of the characters; the play just drops the audience straight into the middle of things with no introduction or reason for the characters to be where they are. This is another technique used by absurdist playwrights; it is an effective device because it adds to the overall intrigue and confusion of the play. What little information Pinter allows to slip cannot necessarily be believed because Davies for example is constantly lying in order to justify himself. He claims to be living under an assumed name: “Bernard Jenkins. That’s my name. That’s the name I’m known, anyway. But it’s no good me going on with that name. I got no rights.” He also claims that a man in the town of Sidcup has his papers, which will clear everything: “If only I could get down to Sidcup! I’ve been waiting for the weather to break. He’s got my papers, this man I left them with.” It later becomes obvious that he has no intention of going to Sidcup and we begin to question whether these papers really exist.
As the play continues, the audience begins to learn more about these two characters but not as much as they would possibly like. They come across as two completely different men, both at different ends of the spectrum but both very strange in their own way.
Davies is a resentful and ungrateful tramp that has been abused by society. He is very racist and completely intolerant of those different to himself. He rants on insanely about a far more respectable past and is obsessed with his papers in Sidcup as though he feels he has to justify his current position, homeless and unemployed. He seems very insecure about himself and is evasive of any questions about his past; he will often try to change the subject. He readily accepts Aston’s charity but immediately complains about any insufficiencies. “Not a bad pair of shoes,” he admits when Aston provides him with an old pair. “Don’t fit though,” he complains almost immediately afterwards, “They’d cripple me in a week.”
Aston is far more sedate. He is a very reticent man who seems incapable of any emotion or the ability to communicate properly. He speaks in simple, short sentences in reply to the constant gabble of Davies. We later learn in a rather shocking account that he has a dark history of being subjected to shock therapy in order to cure him of an unknown illness but as a consequence has been reduced to a walking zombie. He is a very generous and over trusting man, he brings Davies, a complete stranger to come and live in his house and trusts him to stay there by himself only the first day after they had met while he goes to a shop down the road.
When Aston leaves the house, Mick is introduced. He is to become the downfall of Davies. He comes across as very enigmatic at first but we later learn that he has far more malevolent intentions. He is very inquisitive of Davies and has power over him in every way. He is both a verbal and physical bully. When the two first meet, Mick constantly threatens him with violence if he doesn’t get a straight answer. He is also a sinister manipulator of words and tricks Davies into saying things about Aston, pretending to be sympathetic and later uses it against him.
These characters have unattractive personalities. They are antisocial, unpleasant and cannot communicate very well. Their conversation is rather inconsequential and random. Aston and Davies especially seem to have been unable to take responsibility for their own lives and have been affected by a society that can be cruel and without sympathy. Mick is at the top of the line of increasing ownership of ones’ life while Davies is at the bottom and is subject to the control of Mick and Aston. They are all absurdist characters whose existence is futile and without meaning and so again the play is about nothing.
Towards the end of the play, Mick suddenly becomes motivated to decorate the house through a suggestion raised by Davies and offers him the job as caretaker, which makes him feel he now has power over Aston. There is a scene at night, when Davies is sleeping but keeping Aston awake with odd noises. When Aston wakes him, Davies turns on him for the first time: “You wait…your brother… he’ll sort you out,” he threatens “Don’t you try anything with me”.
The next day, Davies returns to the room with Mick, telling him everything that happened with Aston. Their attention turns to the decorating of the house and Mick says to Davies “You say you’re an interior decorator, you’d better be a good one”. “What do you mean? I never touched that” Davies replies, suddenly hit with the realisation that Mick intends to get rid of him. “But I could always turn my hand to most things… give me… give me a bit of time to pick it up,” he says shakily, pleading with him.
Following this incident, there is the final scene with Aston and Davies. Davies begs Aston to let him stay but all his suggestions to make things right, are flattened by Aston who now obviously wants him out. “You make too much noise”, he states plainly.
The flow of the play does not seem to have much direction. It has a trivial plot and there is no real beginning, middle or end. It is just a series of isolated events that do not seem to have much relationship to each other. One brother’s actions, contradicts the other brother’s. The whole play has a sense of futility whereby nothing is achieved and it ends as it began. There seems to be no point to it, it is absurd and about nothing.
Davies is offered the job as caretaker in the house, which is a very important role. He plays the eponymous role and the play focuses on his persecution. We ourselves are like caretakers in our own lives. We must discipline ourselves and take responsibility for ourselves as well as the people round us, society and the world. We can be useful, fulfilled and be able to realise ourselves. But sometimes we can fail either through our own fault or because of outside influences as Davies did. The play is about everything.
Many different meanings can be read into this play. Some people see it as what it claims to be on the surface: a man is offered one last chance in life and loses it. On another level, the play could be an allegory, tracing the weakness of mankind to its roots in the Garden of Eden, when it fell to the temptation of Satan. Aston could be the ever-loving God who takes the ungrateful man, Davies into paradise. He is subjected to the forces of good and evil and when forced to make choices, he falls to the temptation of the fiendish Mick with empty promises of something better. The man becomes greedy and turns away from God, only to be cast out of paradise for his defiance of God’s love and trust. When Mick smashes the statue of Buddha, I think it’s a sign of religious desecration that conveys the anger of Satan when good triumphs over evil.
“The Caretaker” can be seen on many levels. On one level it is about nothing: unattractive set, inconsequential plot, dislikeable characters and lack of communication all pointing to hopelessness and futility. But on another level it strikes at the heart of our existence. The set mirrors the world we live in: disorganised but with potential for beauty such as interior decorating and the statue of Buddha and the characters represent people as they can be. The plot is indicative of how our lives can unfold and the themes are universal as this is what life can be like.