I had a…I had an instinctive understanding of animals.
Although Max seems to be firmly ensconced within the home now, he reminds the family that he once had a more exciting life that included being a fixture at the track. He wasn’t just an armchair bettor either; rather, he really knew the animals and was able to understand them on an instinctual, primitive level. This statement is also typical of Max in that he often dwells in the past, something that he wields to enforce his dominance and remind others of what he sacrificed for them as well as return to in order to shape his world as best he can.
Stop calling me Dad. Just stop calling me Dad, do you understand?
Max is a patriarch but he is barely a “dad” with the slightly warmer and fuzzier connotations that brings. He already suffers from emasculation in other ways and does not want this label, especially from Lenny. Lenny and Max have a competitive, hostile relationship and when Lenny uses that term he is not doing so with affection. He is wielding it sarcastically, calling into attention Max’s age and perhaps even insinuating dotage. Max wants Lenny to acknowledge his power and gravitas rather than placing him in a position of loving weakness.
They’re very warm people, really. Very warm. They’re my family. they’re not ogres.
This is an amusing, ironic statement. It is amusing because his family is, to say the least, rather ogreish. Max calls Ruth a number of misogynist names and invites her to be a prostitute for the family. Lenny tries to dominate her and kisses her. Joey also seduces her. everyone agrees to keep her on and whore her out to offset some of the costs of her living there. Why would Teddy say this, then? He may truly believe that they are not ogres because he is one of them. Indeed, his surrendering Ruth to them with little to no fight indicates how much Teddy will give up for his family. And, of course, the ironic thing is that eventually it becomes clear that Teddy may be even more of an ogre than the other members of his family members are.
Well, you can sleep in your old room.
Lenny is the first family member Teddy encounters when he comes home and in this brief line, reveals that he is now the person with whom Teddy will deal, not Max. Max may be the patriarch but Lenny’s youth and wits and insidious manipulation have elevated him above his father. Teddy should not need permission to sleep in his old bed, but Lenny offers it and Teddy acknowledges his right to do so. This is only the first of many examples of Teddy demonstrating how stuck within the family dynamic he still is, even though he left them and claims to have little in common with them.
Ruth: How did you know she was diseased?
Lenny: How did I know?
Pause.
I decided she was.
In this exchange, Ruth challenges Lenny's account of his resistance to the advances of a prostitute. First of all, Ruth’s response is subtly powerful because it indicates to Lenny that she will not be cowed by his story of violence against women. Second, this exchange is interesting in that it reveals how Lenny navigates the world. He decides things based on what works best for him. He has a narrative that he enforces regardless of whether or not it is entirely true. The things he says all serve to prop up his dominance. It is actually even more insidious and disturbing that Lenny could assault the prostitute on the basis of his deciding she was diseased rather than his having proof.
I mean, for instance, is it a fact that you had me in mind all the time, or is it a fact that I was the last thing you had in mind?
On the surface it seems like this question is yet another way for Lenny to needle Max, to unsettle him, to vex him. It is a strange and personal and perhaps inappropriate question and it does indeed upset Max. however, it is also a query that gets at something deep within Lenny—the desire to know that there is a grand design, that there is meaning behind utilitarian actions. This is also manifested in Lenny’s questions for Teddy; beneath the surface of his cool and perhaps snarky comments about the known and the unknown is an earnest rumination on what this all means.
It’s the kitchen I like. It’s nice in there. It’s cosy.
Max is the patriarch, the father and provider for the household. He is gruff, authoritarian, competitive, and aggressive. However, underneath that are a handful of traits that go beyond traditional masculinity. Max is actually quite domestically inclined. He rarely leaves the home and as this line states, he loves the kitchen and values its domesticity. He is the cook for the family and takes a lot of pride in that. In giving Max this characteristic, Pinter reveals that he is not creating one-dimensional characters; rather, among their salient characteristics are complexities and contradictions.
That question doesn't fall within my province.
Teddy may not be as outwardly aggressive and hostile as his brothers and father, and therefore it takes a bit longer to discern the truly noxious things about him. Here, though, he asserts his supremacy over his family because he is educated and moved to America, while at the same time revealing just how hollow is this intellectual life that he uses to lord over them. When Lenny poses fascinating, albeit moderately mocking, philosophical questions to Teddy, all Teddy can do is shut them down. He is pigeonholed into his area of academic expertise and is thus rendered cold, utilitarian, and devoid of emotional connection. He does not push himself to think outside the box he created for himself; he prefers a clean, sterile existence in which things that are troublesome or complex or don’t have answers will not vex him.
Because I want you to know that you set a standard for us, Teddy. Your family looks up to you, boy, and you know what it does? It does its best to follow the example you set. Because you’re a great source of pride to us.
Even though Teddy considers himself superior to his family (as evinced in his scoffing that they would not understand what he wrote and that they have the wrong worldview), he does ultimately agree with Lenny here that he is an intrinsic part of the family. He offers little resistance to their critiques and eventual seductions of his wife and by the end surrenders her completely to them. He privileges his relationships with his father and brothers rather than the one with his wife; he will return to his three sons just like his father did.
Listen, I’ve got a funny idea she’ll do the dirty on us, you want to bet? She’ll use us, she’ll make use of us, I can tell you! I can smell it! you want to bet?
Pause.
She won’t…be adaptable!
These near-final lines offer clues to what may happen after the curtain falls. It certainly is a possibility that Ruth will stay, delighting in her powerful role as Mother-Whore and experiencing the freedom of leaving Teddy, the children, and the barrenness of America behind. However, her refusal to sign an immediate contract and her demonstrated intelligence and ability to manipulate were already disconcerting enough before these telling lines of Max’s. Max had that instinctive ability to smell good and bad animals, which Pinter suggests means he can innately realize that Ruth is a “bad” one. She will use them and leave them; she is not one to bet on. He comes at this knowledge too late, though, and the play ends with him sobbing and prostrating himself before her.
