Summary:
Scene Four is set with the following description: “Robert and Emma’s House. Living room. 1974. Autumn” (p. 48). Robert pours Jerry a drink while Emma puts the children to bed. Robert and Jerry discuss the differences between “boy babies” and “girl babies.” Robert makes the case that “boy babies are more anxious about facing the world than girl babies” (p. 51).
Emma enters the room and Jerry mentions that he had been having tea with Casey earlier that day. They begin to discuss Casey. Jerry says that Casey has left his wife and Robert says that he is “writing a novel about a man who leaves his wife and three children and goes to live alone on the other side of London to write a novel about a man who leaves his wife and three children” (p. 53). Emma expresses the belief that Casey’s practice of writing fiction about his life is “bloody dishonest” (p. 54).
Robert and Jerry then begin to make plans to play squash together. Emma asks if she can come watch them play, but Robert responds that “we wouldn’t actually want a woman around, would we, Jerry?” (p. 57). He then proceeds to explain why he wouldn’t “want a woman within a mile of the place” (p. 57).
Jerry explains that he cannot play squash with Robert next week because he is traveling with Casey to New York. He leaves and Robert walks him out. Robert then returns to Emma, and the stage directions indicate that she “puts her head on his shoulder, cries quietly [and] he holds her” (p. 59).
Scene Five takes place in a hotel room in Venice in the Summer of 1973. Emma and Robert are enjoying a vacation together, and are planning to visit the nearby island of Island of Torcello.
Emma sits on a bed reading, and Robert asks her about the book. She says that it was written by “this man Spinks” (p. 61). Robert explains that Jerry discovered Spinks from an “unsolicited manuscript.” Robert suggests that Emma join her and Jerry at lunch to discuss the book, and they begin to argue. Robert reveals that Jerry had wanted to publish the book but that he had turned it down because he believed that there was nothing interesting left to say about the book’s subject – “betrayal” (p. 63).
Robert then tells Emma that he had visited an American Express agency the day before, where he discovered that a letter was waiting for Emma. He begins to speak agitatedly, and Emma tells him that she picked up the letter the previous evening.
Robert proceeds to launch into a rambling speech about how the American Express agency suggested he take the letter for her, saying “we could be, and in fact are vastly more likely to be, total strangers” (p. 65). He then says, “that’s what’s stopped me from taking it, by the way, and bringing it to you, the thought that I could very easily be a total stranger” (p. 65).
Emma tells him that the letter was from Jerry. They make some small talk about Jerry, and Robert begins to talk about their trip to Torcello. He returns to speaking about Jerry, and reminisces about the letters they would send to each other when they “were bright young men” (p. 68).
Unable to drop the issue of the letter, Robert asks “was there any message from me, in his letter?” (p. 69). Finally, Emma says, “we’re lovers” (p. 69). Robert does not express much shock, and instead says “I thought it might be something like that, something along those lines” (p. 69).
Emma apologizes, and tells Robert about the flat she and Jerry shared. Robert asks how long the affair has been going on and Emma tells him “five years” (p. 71). Robert then says that their son is one year old, intimating that he believes that Jerry might be the father. Emma says “he’s your son. Jerry was in America” (p. 72).
Robert then says “I’ve always liked Jerry. To be honest, I’ve always liked him rather more than I’ve liked you” (p. 72). He says, perhaps jokingly, that he should have been the one to have an affair with Jerry. He asks Emma about the trip to Torcello once more and the scene ends.
Analysis:
The first stage directions in Scene Four are "Robert pouring a drink for Jerry" (p. 61). Alcohol plays a major role in the play, and in almost every scene the characters are shown to consume – and often over-consume – alcohol. This is not a feature unique to Betrayal as heavy drinking appears in Pinter's other plays, most notably in Man’s Land from 1974. In the case of Betrayal, one could argue that Pinter is drawing a connection between the over-consumption of alcohol and his character's lack of self-control and discipline. At times, the actions of characters like Jerry can be directly connected to their levels of intoxication. While one must be cautious not to assume that literary works are drawn directly from a writer's life, it is worth noting that Pinter's wife, Vivien Merchant, whom he divorced with shortly after Betrayal premiered, was known to have suffered from alcoholism. In either case, it is worthwhile to pay attention to the consumption of alcohol in the play in order to better understand the behavior of Emma, Jerry, and Robert.
At the beginning of Scene Five, we see Robert and Jerry chatting and drinking while Emma puts the children to bed. It should not surprise us to see Emma performing the domestic duties in her and Robert's home. Indeed, Robert appears to hold traditional views about gender relations. Put more bluntly, it would not be inaccurate to call Robert misogynistic and sexist. We see this when Robert embarks on his rant after Emma asks if she can come watch him and Jerry play squash together.
Robert's rant – entirely uncalled for, and one of the play's rare moments of emotional intensity – makes it clear that Emma is not welcome in the spaces that Robert has deemed to be masculine. On one hand, this is a patently sexist notion. On the other, one also imagine that Robert is desperately finding a way to connect with Jerry independent of Emma. For him, squash is an important bonding activity, to the point that when Jerry remarks that he and Robert have remained friendly despite that the fact that Robert has known about his affair with Emma for four years, Robert responds, "never played squash though" (p. 30). Thus, while we cannot condone Robert's behavior, we can nonetheless see how the stress of learning that his best friend is having an affair with his wife has cause him to act in this way.
In Scene Five, we watch as Robert discovers that Emma and Jerry are having an affair. Before the revelation, Robert and Emma engage in small talk. Here, Pinter has the chance to work in a metafictional joke about the writer Spinks. On Jerry's recommendation, Emma is reading his book and Robert asks if she is enjoying it. He explains that he passed on the opportunity to publish it because he believed that that there is "not much more to say on that subject" (p. 63). When Emma asks him which subject is referring to, he responds "betrayal" (p. 63). The joke, of course, is that Pinter himself is writing a work about betrayal, even though he has a character express their believe that the subject has already been covered extensively. It is worth mentioning this instance as it may well be the closest the play comes to a comic moment. Moreover, as Pinter shows us throughout the play, there is plenty left to say about betrayal.
In this scene, it is evident that Robert is suspicious about Jerry and Emma, even before she confesses to the affair. His comment that “we could be, and in fact are vastly more likely to be, total strangers” suggests that he knows Emma is hiding something from him. What is curious, however, is that she readily confesses to the affair, even without Robert's prompting. She is just as casual in her confession as Robert is in his response: there are no tears, or harsh words, or pleas for forgiveness. If Emma and Robert actually loved one another, it would not seem obvious in this interaction. Given Robert's apparent lack of interest in Emma, Betrayal does not conform to the classic trope of the "love triangle," in which two competitors vie for the same lover. Here, Pinter deviates again from what we might expect from a story about love and infidelity, making Betrayal a most unique examination of its subject.
