Abstract: It seems that Harold Pinter, the absurdist playwright should not have any relation to historical narratives. As a matter of fact, Pinter had experienced the World War Ⅱin his childhood. When he grew up, he wrote down the historical feelings unconsciously in the style of the theatre of the absurd. The historical narratives scatter in his plays with the style of fragments and so they are nonlinear. Combined with the vacillated viewpoints, Pinter’s writing technique produces a lot of blanks or room in the texts, which stimulates the readers’ imagination, and promotes the reconstruction of history. The way of Pinter’s historical narratives is the reflection of his historical viewpoints, which formed in the clash between different elements in Pinter’s mind.

Key words: history, the aesthetics of reception, Pinter’s plays, imagination