While The Caretaker centers entirely on the characters of Mick, Aston, and Davies, it’s difficult to get a sense of their true personalities. In fact, it’s often the case that the characters know more about what one another do (or hope to do) than who they truly are: Mick owns a building and maintains some kind of business, Aston has aspirations to build a shed that never come to fruition, and Davies is a drifter who lies and manipulates others for personal gain. While the characters’ external activities are apparent, making their identities clear on a superficial level, the characters never come to know themselves or one another in a deeper sense. The Caretaker positions identity as fluid, impermanent, and determined by outside forces and other people’s observations, rather than something that is inherent to a person or derived from within. Even exceptions that might otherwise provide insight into a character’s identity—such as Aston’s tragic backstory of forced institutionalization and electroconvulsive shock therapy—only further illustrate the fragility of identity. The play thus suggests that identity is highly unstable, and that outside influences like trauma or social pressure can empty a person of any authentic, permanent sense of self.
Davies, who readily admits to using a false name and identification papers, constructs his identity around what others expect him to be, or around what will benefit him on a superficial level. When Mick first floats the idea of hiring Davies to be the building’s (and, implicitly, Aston’s) caretaker, he describes Davies as “a capable sort of man.” Despite the fact that Davies is anything but capable—he gets in fights, can’t hold down a job, and doesn’t have a wearable pair of shoes to his name—Davies agrees with Mick’s assessment, stating, “I am a capable sort of man.” In the same conversation, Davies responds affirmatively to Mick’s (incorrect) assumption that Davies was in the military in order to appear qualified enough to assume the role of caretaker. In another instance, Davies conceals his birthplace from Aston when Aston inquires if Davies is Welsh. Davies stutters, insisting that “it’s a bit hard, like, to set [his] mind back” far enough to remember where he’s from. Davies is afraid of revealing himself as even more of an outsider than he already is as a guest in Aston’s house, so he pretends not to know his origins to avoid the possibility of identity-based discrimination. Davies’s calculating eagerness to please leads him to create a fabricated identity in order to reap the benefits of Mick’s and Aston’s acceptance. In this way, it is other people’s perceptions, rather than an innate sense of self, that determine his identity.
Like Davies, Aston’s identity is also determined by external forces: Aston’s traumatic institutionalization, electroshock therapy, and resultant brain damage render him stuck in the past and unable to live authentically and fulfill his desires. When Aston was a young man, he suffered from hallucinations. When he told people about them, he was forcibly institutionalized and given electroshock treatment, which resulted in permanent brain damage. Aston reveals that after the treatment, his “thoughts…had become very slow.” Besides finding it physically difficult to talk to people because of the mental limitations his treatment imposed on him, Aston learns not to trust others, for fear of future betrayal. Society’s misunderstanding of mental illness forced a traumatic experience onto Aston, the effects of which now drastically limit his ability to exist freely in the world and express himself. This, in turn, prevents him from growing into the person he might have become if things had played out differently. Aston’s inability to complete the building repairs for Mick could even be read as a physical embodiment of his internal mental stifling: it’s almost as though he is so afraid of expressing himself that he can’t even bring himself to do so indirectly, through his repairs and decorating projects. Completing tasks such as decorating the building or building the woodshed out back would put Aston’s authentic self on display for the whole world, which is something his past renders him too traumatized to do.
Moreover, all three characters project their ambitions and anxieties onto external objects, which prevents them from reflecting on their own desires and anxieties. As a result, they deny themselves the opportunity to live authentically by taking responsibility for their shortcomings and miscalculations and asserting their own identities. For instance, Davies blames his inability to go to Sidcup or look for any kind of job on not having shoes rather than on his own lethargy and lack of motivation. Aston hoards objects that are “well made” or “nice” looking to compensate for his inability to finish (or even start) the many home improvement projects he promised Mick he would do. And finally, Mick, Aston, and Davies all fixate on the bucket hanging from the ceiling at some point in the play, which Aston placed there in lieu of actually fixing the leaks in the roof. In all of these instances, characters project their internalized shortcomings onto objects, effectively preventing themselves from really knowing themselves and one another. The play thus suggests that rather than being clear and consistent, identity is often highly malleable and difficult to pin down—and that a person’s traumas or unwillingness to face themselves can lead them to assume an inauthentic identity.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Identity and Authenticity ThemeTracker
Identity and Authenticity Quotes in The Caretaker
Ten minutes off for tea-break in the middle of the night in that place and I couldn’t find a seat, not one. All them Greek had it, Poles, Greeks, Blacks, the lot of them, all them aliens had it. And they had me working there…they had me working.
All them toe-rags, mate, got the manners of pigs. I might have been on the road a few years but you can take it from me I’m clean. I keep myself up. That’s why I left my wife. Fortnight after I married her, no, not so much as that, no more than a week, I took the lid off a saucepan, you know what was in it? A pile of her underclothing, unwashed. (Turns R.) The pan for vegetables, it was. The vegetable pan. That’s when I left her and I haven’t seen her since. […] I’ve eaten my dinner off the best of plates.
Shoes? It’s life and death to me.
DAVIES. What’s this?
ASTON. (Aston crosses to L. of Davies. Davies hands him Buddha. Taking and studying it.) That’s a Buddha.
DAVIES. Get on.
ASTON. Yes. I quite liked it. Picked it up in a…in a shop. Looked quite nice to me. Don’t know why. What do you think of these Buddhas?
DAVIES. Oh, they’re…they’re all right, en’t they?
DAVIES. Yes, I was pleased when I got hold of this one. It’s very well made.
DAVIES. (With great feeling.) If only the weather would break! Then I’d be able to get down to Sidcup!
ASTON. You Welsh? (Pause.)
DAVIES. Well, I been around, you know… I been about….
ASTON. Where were you born then?
DAVIES. (Darkly.) What do you mean?
ASTON. Where were you born?
DAVIES. I was … uh … oh, it’s a bit hard, like, to set your mind back … going back … going back … a good way… lose a bit of track, like … you see what I mean….
MICK. Jen … kins. […] You remind me of my uncle’s brother. He was always on the move, that man. Never without his passport. […] I think there was a bit of the Red Indian in him. (Turns to face Davies.) To be honest, I’ve never made out how he came to be my uncle’s brother. I’ve often thought that maybe it was the other way round. I mean that my uncle was his brother and he was my uncle. But I never called him uncle. As a matter of fact I called him Sid. My mother called him Sid too. It was a funny business. Your spitting image he was. Married a Chinaman and went to Jamaica. (Pause.) I hope you slept well last night.
You’re stinking the place out. You’re an old robber, there’s no getting away from it. You’re an old skate. You don’t belong in a nice place like this. You’re an old barbarian. Honest. You got no business wandering about in an unfurnished flat.
MICK. […] You still got that leak.
ASTON. Yes. (Pause. Gets plug from shelf.) It’s coming from the roof. (looks up.)
MICK. From the roof, eh?
ASTON. Yes. (Pause.) I’ll have to tar it over.
MICK. You’re going to tar it over?
ASTON. Yes.
MICK. What?
ASTON. The cracks. (Pause.)
MICK. You’ll be tarring over the cracks on the roof.
ASTON. Yes. (Pause.)
MICK. Think that’ll do it?
ASTON. It’ll do it, for the time being.
MICK. Uh. (Pause.)
DAVIES. (Abruptly.) What do you do—? (They both look at him.) What do you do…when that bucket’s full? (Pause. Mick looks at Aston.)
ASTON. Empty it. (Pause.)
DAVIES. Who was that feller?
ASTON. He’s my brother.
DAVIES. Is he? He’s a bit of a joker, en’t he?
ASTON. Uh.
DAVIES. Yes…he’s a real joker.
ASTON. He’s got a sense of humour.
DAVIES. (Crosses to chair, sits. Faces Aston.) Yes, I noticed. (Pause.) He’s a real joker, that lad, you can see that. (Pause.)
ASTON. Yes, he tends…he tends to see the funny side of things.
DAVIES. Well, he’s got a sense of humour, en’t he?
ASTON. Yes.
ASTON. (Crosses to window, looks out.) Once I get that shed up outside … I’ll be able to give a bit more thought to the flat, you see. Perhaps I can make one or two things for it. I can work with my hands, you see. That’s one thing I can do. I never knew I could. But I can do all sorts of things now, with my hands. You know, manual things. When I get that shed up out there…I’ll have a workshop, you see. I … could do a bit of woodwork. Simple woodwork, to start. Working with…good wood. […]
DAVIES. Yes …well, I know about these sorts of shirts, you see. Shirts like these, they don’t go far in the wintertime. I mean, that’s one thing I know for a fact. No, what I need, is a kind of a shirt with stripes, a good solid shirt, with stripes going down. That’s what I want. […]
MICK. No, he just doesn’t like work, that’s his trouble.
DAVIES. Is that a fact?
MICK. It’s a terrible thing to have to say about your own brother.
DAVIES. Ay.
MICK. He’s just shy of it. Very shy of it.
DAVIES. I know that sort.
MICK. You know the type?
DAVIES. I’ve met them.
MICK. I mean, I want to get him going in the world.
DAVIES. Stands to reason, man.
DAVIES. I was saying, he’s … he’s a bit of a funny bloke, your brother. (Mick stares at him.)
MICK. Funny? Why?
DAVIES. Well … he’s funny. …
MICK. What’s funny about him? (Pause.)
DAVIES. Not liking work.
MICK. (Rises.) What’s funny about that?
DAVIES. (Slow turn to Mick.) Nothing. (Pause.)
MICK. (Crosses to Davies.) I don’t call it funny.
DAVIES. Nor Me.
MICK. You don’t want to start getting hypercritical.
MICK. I’ll be quite open with you. I could rely on a man like you around the place, keeping an eye on things.
DAVIES. Well now … wait a minute … I … I ain’t never done no caretaking before, you know….
MICK. Doesn’t matter about that. It’s just that you look a capable sort of man to me.
DAVIES. I am a capable sort of man. I mean to say, I’ve had plenty of offers in my time, you know, there’s no getting away from that.
MICK. Well, I could see before, when you took out that knife, that you wouldn’t let anyone mess about.
DAVIES. No one messes me about, man. […]
DAVIES. (Crosses to L. of Aston.) Yes, but what about me? What…what you got to say about my position? (Pause.)
You’ve got … this thing. That’s your complaint. And we’ve decided, he said, that in your interests there’s only one course we can take. He said…he said, we’re going to do something to your brain. He said…if we don’t you’ll be in here for the rest of your life, but if we do, you stand a chance. You can go out, he said, and live like the others.
The trouble was … my thoughts … had become very slow … I couldn’t think at all … I I couldn’t … get … my thoughts … together … uuuhh … I could … never quite get it … together. The trouble was, I couldn’t hear what people were saying. I couldn’t look to the right or the left, I had to look straight in front of me, because if I turned my head round … I couldn’t keep … upright. And I had these headaches. I used to sit in my room. That was when I lived with my mother. And my brother. He was younger than me. And I laid everything out, in order, in my room, all the things I knew were mine, but I didn’t die. The thing is, I should have been dead. I should have died. Anyway, I feel much better now. But I don’t talk to people now. I steer clear of places like that café. I never go into them now. I don’t talk to anyone … like that.
You can’t live in the same room with someone who … who don’t have any conversation with you.
I’ve seen better days than you have, man. Nobody ever got me inside of them places, anyway. I’m a sane man! So don’t you start mucking me about. I’ll be all right as long as you keep your place. Just you keep your place, that’s all. Because I can tell you, your brother’s got his eye on you. […] He knows all about you. I got a friend there, don’t you worry about that. I got a true pal there. Treating me like dirt! Why’d you invite me in here in the first place if you was going to treat me like this? You think you’re better than me you got another thing coming. I know enough. They had you inside one of them places before, they can have you inside again. Your brother’s got his eye on you!
You’ve been stinking the place out.
What a strange man you are. Aren’t you? You’re really strange. Ever since you came into this house there’s been nothing but trouble. Honest. […] I can take nothing you say at face value. Every word you speak is open to any number of different interpretations. […] Most of what you say is lies. You’re violent, you’re erratic, you’re just completely unpredictable. You’re nothing else but a wild animal, when you come down to it. You’re a barbarian. And to put the old tin lid on it, you stink from arse-hole to breakfast time.
