The Caretaker contains elements common to a movement in drama called the Theater of the Absurd, a term coined by British critic Martin Esslin to describe the plays of Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugene Ionesco. Absurdist plays encapsulate the irrationality, contradiction, and meaninglessness that their writers see as symptomatic of the modern world. The particular absurdity in The Caretaker directly relates to issues of class and social conformity, with each character desperately trying to realize their worth in terms of their economic usefulness and social status. Aston spends the whole play trying to fix things or talking about future up-keeping projects, seemingly wanting to validate his ability to work and be useful. Mick, meanwhile, holds on to his lofty ambitions of becoming wealthy and living in a lavish home, and Davies works hard to hide his poverty so that Mick and Aston will accept him. The desperation with which each character tries—and fails—to uphold the outward appearance of economic and social prosperity borders on ridiculous. In this way, the play’s absurdity suggests that the way modern society judges people’s value makes it difficult (if not impossible) for people to achieve genuine happiness and success.
Aston’s efforts to be useful and productive are tragically absurd in their impossibility: he repeatedly tries to convince himself and others that he’s capable of repairing and decorating Mick’s building, even though he clearly isn’t. Aston, who desperately wants to be a contributing member of society, perpetually prepares to fix various objects around the house, a job Mick assigned him sometime before the events of the play. He makes a big show of getting ready to undertake this massive job, leaving multiple times to get the tools and materials he needs and talking about his goals incessantly. These outward displays indicate Aston’s desire for Mick and Davies (and by extension, the world at large) to see him as useful. They illuminate his underlying social and economic insecurity, as his earlier electroshock treatment for mental illness has rendered him permanently disabled and unable to engage meaningfully with the world around him. The absurdity of Aston’s anxiety lies in the fact that he’s in an impossible situation: his disability renders him physically unable to be productive, and yet the only way he can conceive of being valued is through his ability to work.
Alongside this, Mick’s situation is absurd in its irony: his attempts to help Aston by giving him the job of fixing up the building only fuel Aston’s feelings of helplessness. Like Aston, Mick appears to believe that his worth as a person depends on an outward appearance of social credibility and financial prosperity. As a result, it is his dream to live with Aston in the fully repaired and elaborately decorated building that Mick owns. He ostensibly enlists Aston to fix up and decorate the building in an attempt to make this dream a reality—but it’s obvious that Aston is incapable of doing this, so it’s also possible that Mick is simply trying to give his isolated, disabled brother a sense of purpose. But Mick’s attempts to instill purpose and meaning in his and Aston’s lives are in vain: Aston’s physical and mental limitations hinder his ability to complete the repairs, which only makes Aston’s helplessness and inability to be productive all the more obvious. And, as a result, Aston’s failure only seems to push Mick’s idealized vision further out of reach. This situation, darkly absurd in its inescapability, gives the sense that in a society that values people only for their material success, people’s efforts to lift themselves out of poverty and disillusionment may only push them down further.
Finally, Davies’s situation is absurd in its contradictory nature, as his vain attempts to conceal his poverty lead him to reject the charity that could actually help him transcend it. When Davies asks Aston for a pair of shoes—which he insists he needs in order to go to Sidcup to retrieve the identification papers he needs to get a job—Aston generously obliges, offering Davies a perfectly acceptable pair of shoes. Davies, however, immediately takes issue with the shoes, complaining about their fit and appearance and melodramatically lamenting that wearing them would “cripple [him] in a week.” Davies wants other people to think he has high standards and refined tastes, but this leads him to reject Aston’s act of generosity. As a result, he denies himself access to the help he needs and thus the ability to improve his situation and actually become impressive to others. Davies rejects shoes from Aston not once but twice, which lends an element of comedy to his self-defeating behavior, rendering it even more absurd. In different ways, then, Mick, Aston, and Davies all absurdly perpetuate the very social and economic circumstances they wish to transcend, suggesting that the way modern society measures people’s worth by their productivity and outward displays of wealth sets disadvantaged people up to fail.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Absurdity of Modern Society ThemeTracker
The Absurdity of Modern Society 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. (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. 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.
Furniture … mahogany and rosewood. Deep azure-blue carpet, unglazed blue and white curtains, a bedspread with a pattern of small blue roses on a white ground, dressing-table with a lift-up top containing a plastic tray, table lamp of white raffia […] it wouldn’t be a flat it’d be a palace.
You’ve been stinking the place out.
Anyone would think this house was all I got to worry about. I got plenty of other things I can worry about. I’ve got plenty of other things. I’ve got plenty of other interests. I’ve got my own business to build up, haven’t I? I got to think about expanding … in all directions. I don’t stand still. I’m moving about, all the time. I’m moving … all the time. I’ve got to think about the future. I’m not worried about this house. I’m not interested. My brother can worry about it. He can do it up, he can decorate it, he can do what he likes with it. I’m not bothered. I thought I was doing him a favour, letting him live here. He’s got his own ideas. Let him have them. I’m going to chuck it in.
You make too much noise.
