Pinter in the Time of Pandemic Reflections on Medical Metaphors in A Kind of Alaska

This article examines the power dynamic in the clinical communication between the doctor and the patient in Harold Pinter's play A Kind of Alaska (1982). It approaches the medical metaphors that go back and forth between Hornby and Deborah to comment on the politics of these metaphors, situating the doctor's diagnostic metaphor as well as the patient's self-expressive metaphor as a critique of the doctor's domination. The article thus speaks to the urgent relevance of Pinter in our pandemic-infested times.