Samuel Beckett (1906-89) is one of the most influential writers of twentieth century. His plays such as Waiting for Godot (1954), Endgame (1958), Krapp’s Last Tape (1958) and Happy Days (1961) have interpreted human existence on earth and readers have found them awesome the world over. He was deeply influenced by the existentialist philosophy of Sartre and Camus. His oeuvre offers a bleak and tragicomic view of human existence.
Beckett’s plays have been interpreted in the light of existential thought. An outstanding critic of the Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Esslin notes: “There is a truly astonishing parallel between the existential philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and the creative intuitions of Beckett” (Esslin, 60). However, unlike the existentialists, Beckett does not argue about absurdity of human existence in his plays, rather he presents the ‘being’ in terms of concrete images.
The Play’s Ironic Title
The title Happy Days appears incongruous in the light of Beckett’s fascination with Man’s predicament in an absurd universe. The play reveals how the playwright makes use of language as a tool to express the just opposite of what one says in words. The protagonist of the play is a woman around fifty who is found stuck in a low mound of earth from her waist down and her husband Willie, a man in his sixties, is asleep hidden behind the mound when the play opens.
Winnie’s Linguistic Strategies
Language acquires more important role in the plays where there is least possibility of expression through body movements. Half buried in the earth as Winnie is, she is left with only two resources at her disposal — her bag full of things of daily use, and words. Winnie goes on assuring herself that all is well with the world but her constructed self is constantly threatened by the reality breaking in.
The first strategy that she adopts is the one of self-love. Memory and illusion is the next strategy in Winnie’s hands to keep the unsolicited feelings at arm’s length. Yet another conscious or unconscious strategy appears to be Winnie’s escape into past. She flies away to the world of classical literature, quoting famous statements from Milton, Shakespeare, Yeats, Thomas Gray and many others.
Failure of Communication
Traditionally language is meant for communication. When it fails to do so, in spite of piling up of words, it can be called linguistic failure. Winnie’s words can be categorized in two parts — one that she shares with Willie and the other that she keeps on prattling to herself. Andrew K. Kennedy believes that: “Beckett’s plays taken together can be seen as a move towards language losing its communicative function and becoming more and more fragmented and unreliable” (Kennedy, 139).
Despite her best efforts, Winnie cannot beat void and she remains an existential character despite her false bravado. Happy Days is true to what Beckett has said in an interview: “The expression that there is nothing to be expressed, nothing with which to express, no power to express, no desire to express together with the obligation to express” (Pattie, 31).
Works Cited
- Beckett, Samuel. “Happy Days.” Samuel Beckett: The Complete Dramatic Works. London: Faber and Faber, 1986.
- Ben-Zvi, Linda, ed. Women in Beckett: Performance and Critical Perspectives. Chicago: U of Illinois P, 1990.
- Hammond, B.S. “Beckett and Pinter: Towards a Grammar of the Absurd.” Journal of Beckett Studies No. 4 Spring 1979.
- Kennedy, Andrew K. Six Dramatists in Search of a Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1975.
- Kristeva, Julia. The Kristeva Reader. Ed. Toril Moi. New York: Columbia UP, 1986.
- Lacan, Jacques. Le Seminaire, Livre X, L’Angoisse. Paris: Seuil, 2004.
- Lawley, Paul. “Stages of Identity: From ‘Krapp’s Last Tape’ to ‘Play’.” The Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Ed. John Pilling. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994.
- Martin Esslin. The Theatre of the Absurd. 3rd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980.
- Samuel Beckett quoted in Ronan Mcdonald. The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Beckett. New York: Cambridge UP, 2006.