Talk:The Dumb Waiter

Comment

I'm curious as to where this idea that the play ends with Ben shooting Gus comes from. I've got the Faber edition of the play here, and it ends with the directions "He [Gus] raises his head and looks at Ben. A long silence. They stare at each other. Curtain." Has somebody seen a production where he shoots him at the end or something? --Camembert

This has come up several times at quiz bowl (which is where I first heard about it), and every time they always say it ends with one of them shooting the other. That's why I put it there. Raul654 18:57, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Odd - as I say, it's not in the script. Ah well, it's fixed now. Thanks for starting the article, by the way. --Camembert

Quiz bowl could be wrong. I too have a copy of the play, and while it is hinted that one of the men is going to have a violent end, it's by no means certain. Indeed, Michael Billington's biography of Pinter speaks of the possibility that one will decide not to carry out the order. As soon as I get my copy of the biography out of my boxes (just moved), I'll add something to the article about that. Kricxjo 20:44, 4 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Lack of source citations throughout this article

See templates in article (at top and throughout) and editing history summaries. See policies on editing in WP:NOR, WP:V#Sources, and guidelines for citing sources (WP:CITE) for additional guidance. See the talk header at top for appropriate content for such talk pages as this one. Thank you. --NYScholar (talk) 18:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Citations seem good now banner removed, re-assessed. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:05, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

J.: not intending to undo what you thought, but the entire sec. of "plot summary" is unsourced and needs page refs. to a text of the play (as per The Birthday Party). The job is incomplete, and I don't have time to finish documenting this article. I just wanted subsequent editors to know that there's more to do in providing source citations for particularly this sec. Please do not remove these templates that were placed for reasons already explained on both talk pages and in editing history summaries. Others need to know that the work is still needed. Plot summaries cannot violate WP:NOR and need page citations or other sources if the summaries come from sources not being acknowledged. --NYScholar (talk) 01:10, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

One source citation to a SparkNotes plot summary at the end of three paragraphs is not sufficient for source citations. Placing one endnote following three separate paragraphs gives the impression that the entire thing may have been plagiarized from that source (see Wikipedia:Plagiarism). Individual statements within each paragraph need individual in-line source citations following them, preferably from a documented text of the play itself. If a Wikipedia article's plot summary comes entirely from SparkNotes, there can also be a suggestion of copyright violations involving such use of that source. The words provided in the plot summary need to be those composed by editors of Wikipedia (not the words or ideas composed wholly by SparkNotes), and this section could be better developed with pertinent (well sourced/documented) quotations from the text of the play. --NYScholar (talk) 03:24, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(cont.) If the points made in the plot summary (now "Plot synopsis") are not actually from the source cited at the end of it (at end of third para.), then it is not really the source of the plot synopsis and there is original research being done or some other source. Whoever actually composed these three paragraphs needs to provide his/her/their sources in in-line citations. --NYScholar (talk) 03:38, 16 January 2009 (UTC)