The Caretaker: Character Mind Map & Summary
Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker: all three characters, the power games, key scenes and the exam facts.
The Character Mind Map
Tap any name to open the details.
Davies
An old, dirty, complaining tramp who also calls himself “Bernard Jenkins“. Rescued from a fight by Aston, he is given a bed in Aston’s cluttered room and offered the job of caretaker. Always saying he will go to Sidcup to collect his identity papers “if only the weather would break” and he had good shoes, he tries to play the two brothers against each other, and loses everything.
Ending: thrown out, pleading in silence👬 The Brothers
Owners of the houseAstonThe kind, quiet elder brother
Role: Slow-speaking and gentle; he fiddles with an old electric plug and dreams of building a shed in the garden. In a long monologue he reveals that he was given electric shock treatment in a mental hospital.
Finally tells Davies to leaveMickThe sharp, menacing younger brother
Role: Actually owns the house. Unpredictable and full of fast talk, he frightens Davies in the dark with an Electrolux vacuum cleaner and boasts of grand plans to redecorate the flat.
Smashes Aston’s Buddha statueMemory Hook: The Power Triangle
The play is a struggle for the room. Davies shifts his loyalty, and loses.
Key Moments
What exams usually ask about.
Act-by-Act Summary
The play in three acts.
Act 1The Guest
- Aston brings Davies home after a fight at a café and offers him a bed. Mick secretly watches, then confronts Davies.
Act 2The Job
- Both brothers offer Davies the job of caretaker. Aston tells the story of his time in the mental hospital.
Act 3The Eviction
- Davies insults Aston and sides with Mick, who then turns on him and smashes the Buddha. Aston asks Davies to leave; he begs to stay.
Must-Know Exam Facts
Quick points for UGC NET, SET and PGT.
First Performance
Opened at the Arts Theatre, London, in April 1960, then moved to the West End. Pinter’s first major success.
Setting
A single cluttered room in a house in West London, full of junk.
Style
Everyday speech, repetition, silences and pauses; menace hidden inside comedy.
Links
Associated with the Theatre of the Absurd and the “comedy of menace“.
Film
Filmed in 1963 with Alan Bates and Donald Pleasence.
Key Themes
Power and territory, identity and belonging, communication failure, and brotherhood.
100+ Key Works of English Literature
All the character mind maps in one printed book.
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