A comparison of bourgeoisie criticism in Genet's The Maids and Pinter's The Lover

The aim of this comparative study is to reveal the criticism of the bourgeoisie through the middle class by way of the characters of Jean Genet's The Maids and Harold Pinter's The Lover. The fact that the characters are in class antagonisms caused by the bourgeoisie universe brings the works together on a common denominator. The works have been analysed in the light of comparative literary science and data, using interpretative analysis and reception aesthetics approach with the pluralist analysis method. Within the scope of the study, what the characters did in the process of evolving into a new identity due to their identity problems and what kind of results they achieved were investigated, and their similar and different aspects were dwelled on. In both works, which we take as the object of analysis throughout the thesis, the characters have lost themselves by trying to find their existence under another identity on the way to realise their identities in the bourgeois universe. The roles of the characters playing the game of power and submission, intertwined with reality, are indicative of a powerful rhetoric that questions the nature of identity. The effects of bourgeoisie criticism on identity conflict are summarized in the light of the studies conducted throughout the study. In the comparative analysis between the works, the concept of uncanny, theorised by Ernst Jentsch and developed by Sigmund Freud, was utilised in order to better perceive the identity problematic of the characters. In this study, it has been tried to reveal that the concepts of bourgeoisie and the uncanny lead to an impasse in the characters' distinction between dream and reality.