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Bearing Witness and Ethical Responsibility in Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes

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Abstract

Ashes to Ashes (1996) stands out among Pinter’s plays for in it he dares to address, although obliquely, the most serious ethical breakdown of the twentieth century, the Holocaust. The play engages with the ethical enormity of an actual historical event, though not with its historical dimension. Indeed, for Pinter the reality of the event lies in our memory of it, in the particular place it occupies in our consciousness, not in any meticulously described facts.

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© 2014 Hanna Scolnicov

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Scolnicov, H. (2014). Bearing Witness and Ethical Responsibility in Harold Pinter’s Ashes to Ashes. In: Aragay, M., Monforte, E. (eds) Ethical Speculations in Contemporary British Theatre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137297570_3

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