Happy Days (play)
Encyclopedia
Happy Days is a play in two acts, written in English
, by Samuel Beckett
. He began the play on 8 October 1960 and it was completed on 14 May 1961. Beckett finished the translation into French
by November 1962 but amended the title. “In a moment of inspiration, he borrowed the title Oh les beaux jours, from Verlaine
’s poem, ‘Colloque sentimental’”.
Cyril Cusack
claimed that Happy Days was, by Beckett’s own admission, ‘influenced’ by his wife, Maureen Cusack’s request that he ‘write a happy play’ after Krapp
.
The first production was at the Cherry Lane Theatre
, New York
on 17 September 1961, directed by Alan Schneider
with Ruth White as Winnie (for which she won an Obie
) and John C. Becher
as Willie. The first London
production was at the Royal Court Theatre
on 1 November 1962 directed by George Devine
and Tony Richardson
with Brenda Bruce
as Winnie and Peter Duguid as Willie.
When Happy Days was first performed in London there were disagreements about every aspect of the text and production. Even Kenneth Tynan
, one of the saviours of Godot
, felt that Happy Days was "a metaphor
extended beyond its capacity",; nevertheless, he admitted Beckett's strange, insinuating power and urged his readers to buy tickets for the play. The Times
critic couldn’t understand why Brenda Bruce played the part with a Scottish accent.
It was first published by Grove Press
in 1961 followed by Faber
in 1962. By this stage in his writing career Beckett was becoming more aware of the importance of revising his work in actual performance and so wrote to Grove Press about Happy Days on 18 May 1961 to advise them that, "I should prefer the text not to appear in any form before production and not in book form until I have seen some rehearsals in London. I can't be definitive without actual work done in the theatre."
The film version of Happy Days was produced in 2001 as part of the Beckett on Film
project. The film was directed by Patricia Rozema
and starred Rosaleen Linehan
as Winnie.
In the play only a single egg-carrying ant – Winnie uses the archaic term emmet – finds its way into the text but it is a source of amusement for both Winnie and Willie when its appearance causes Willie to utter the word “formication” though perhaps not for the same reason. Beckett suggests that Willie “is laughing at the image of ants devouring [Winnie] and she at the image of the ants devouring herself.” Likely its similarity to the word “fornication” is also a factor.
A number of suggestions have been put forth to explain where the idea for the original imagery originated from. James Knowlson has suggested images from Luis Buñuel
’s 1928 film, Un chien andalou
or a photograph by Angus McBean
of Frances Day
but there is no clear evidence to support either.
Beckett was particularly keen that there be both a symmetry and an artificiality to the set. A very pompier trompe-l'oeil backcloth (“picture window wall”) was to be used to represent unbroken plain and sky receding to meet in far distance. “What should characterise [the] whole scene, sky and earth,” he wrote, “is a pathetic unsuccessful realism, the kind of tawdriness you get in a 3rd rate musical
or pantomime
, that quality of pompier, laughably earnest bad imitation.”
The scene is reminiscent of a seaside postcard with Winnie buried in the sand and Willie with his knotted handkerchief and his boater
. The fake backdrop calls to mind also the kind used by photographers that feature a painted body on a sheet of wood with a hole cut out where the head belongs popular at holiday venues. Even the title of the play, Happy Days, is the kind of expression typically used when reminiscing about these kinds of holidays. Of note is the fact that he worked on the play while in the English seaside resort of Folkstone during the two weeks he was obliged to be resident in the area before his marriage to Suzanne
could officially take place.
In his book, The Beckett Country, Eoin O’Brien reveals a connection between Beckett’s first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women
and Happy Days. There is a description of a woman rummaging through her fathomless bag. The location, O’Brien identifies as a quiet cove known as Jack’s Hole in County Wicklow
. That the play might take place in Ireland
is also suggested by the fact that Willie is said to have been reading from an Irish Sunday paper.
Beckett experimented with different newspaper headline
s before he settled on what appears in print. In the second holograph
he included three which are of interest (at this time Willie is still ‘B’):
Although excised from the final text it has been suggested that what Beckett was thinking about here was a post-apocalyptic
setting and many reviewers describe the setting so. Similar claims have been made with regards to Endgame
and Rough for Theatre I
.
symbol to end all other mother earth symbols”. She lives in a deluge of never-ending light from which there is no escape: even the parasol
she unfolds at one point ignites, leaving her without protection. We learn that she has not always been buried in this way but we never discover how she came to be trapped so. Beckett’s dramaturgy
– indeed his entire œuvre – takes little interest in causality
, e.g. Molloy
finds himself ‘buried’ in his mother’s bed, in his mother’s room, realizes he has not always been there but demonstrates no particular curiosity as regards the specifics of how he arrived there.
It is a strange image. “Strangeness,” Beckett informs us, “was the necessary condition of the play of Winnie’s plight in the play.” During Berlin
rehearsals he said, “In this play you have the combination of the strange and the practical, the mysterious and the factual. This is the crux of both the comedy and the tragedy of it.”
Winnie passes her time between “the bell for waking and the bell for sleep” by following a very exact daily routine. In this respect, she is reminiscent of the two characters in Act Without Words II
. In early drafts, Winnie set an alarm clock
but Beckett later gave control of the bell to an unexplained external force like that in charge of the goad
and the whistle in the two Act Without Words plays. By contrast Winnie, it has to be said, is not short of words, she is, in fact, a compulsive talker.
Winnie begins her day. After the sounding of the transcendental
bell, she offers up a half-forgotten prayer
and then sets about her daily routine. As she removes the items from her bag a comb
, a toothbrush
(the writing on which she spends most of the first act trying to decipher), toothpaste
, a bottle of patent medicine, lipstick
, a nail file
, a revolver
(which she feels the need to quickly kiss) and a music box
she prattles away to her husband, Willie who lives in a cave behind the mound. The routine is raised to the level of ceremony. Beckett’s instructions to Billie Whitelaw
in 1979 emphasize this:
Winnie functions on the ecclesiastical principle that there is a time for everything and the proper time for certain things to take place is in the daytime, ‘day’ being an abstract notion since there is only constant daylight in this place; she would not think of singing her song after the bell for sleep had gone which is why, when she uses the term, she refers to it as “the old style”.
She is the eternal optimist
Robert Brustein
called her a “hopeful futilitarian” but the available sources of her optimism are being used up and she has to work harder and harder to keep up her positive front which is already wafer-thin when we first meet her. Beckett has described her as being “like a bird” and she makes every effort to rise above her predicament but she keeps getting pulled down. She never questions or explains why she finds herself in the predicament she is in most of us never understand how we wind up in a rut, or stuck in the mud to use similar earthy metaphors but her dream is that she will “simply float up into the blue … And that perhaps some day the earth will yield and let me go, the pull is so great, yes, crack all round me and let me out.”
Beckett even pokes fun at his audience through Winnie and her story about Shower/Cooker. Beckett explained this in a letter to Alan Schneider:
Willie, for his part, ignores her and what responses he does make are terse and often monosyllabic. At the start of the play she even strikes him a couple of times simply to get his attention. His responses are of less importance to Winnie than the fact that he is there to listen. Always in Beckett’s drama there is someone or something to fulfil this critical function whether it is the Auditor in Not I
or the interrogatory light in Play
. When words fail her she reverts to the contents of her bag to tide her over, or at least in Act I she does.
The two never have anything that could remotely be described as a conversation. He answers a question concerning the correct term to describe the hair on one’s head, confirms he can still hear her again when she reduces the volume at which she speaks over stages, becoming audibly angrier in the process, finally he defines “hog
” for her, lavishing a whole two albeit short sentences on her in the process. The most we ever see of him is the back of his head whilst he reads his yellowing paper or scrutinises his postcards. Other than that, his activities are described by Winnie and involve finding his way in and out of his hole, working Vaseline into his privates and sleeping.
Winnie offers up reminisces from an idealised past, quotes from the classics
in contrast to Willie’s quotes from the popular press, comments on everything flitting from topic to topic, laughs at herself, at Willie and at their predicament. She assures herself: “This will have been another happy day!” a recurrent catchphrase throughout the play when in fact she often seems on the verge of tears. At the end of the day she carefully collects her possessions bar the gun and places them back in the bag. The gun, which has somehow always managed to defy the laws of physics
ending up on the top of the bag she decides to leave out. Winnie never plumbs (never dares plumb) the bottom ("The depths in particular, who knows what treasures"), so it is also her hope chest.
The items in her bag also have secondary functions, they serve as aides-mémoire. But more, like Krapp’s tapes or Lucky’s
bones they provide her with what Mary Doll describes as “touchstones of existential
meaning”. Winnie’s perception of these objects connects her to the memories of specific days and important incidents within them. While she is able to discuss these incidents in some detail, Winnie cannot hold on to them or place them within a context.
homeward journey is bleaker than her setting out, Act II of Happy Days is bleaker than Act I, and Winnie knows it: “To have been what I always am – and so changed from what I was.” By Act II she can no longer imagine any relief, and she can no longer pray, as she did at the play’s start. Although she still intones the phrase ‘happy day’, it no longer triggers her smile.” Whereas in Godot Beckett explicitly states that Act II takes place on the next day, in Happy Days no such assertion is made. Time has simply passed.
In the first act she uses the items from her bag to trigger memories. In this act, unable to reach into it, she uses the bag itself, along with the parasol which has, as she predicted, reappeared intact, to the same end. We learn that Willie gave her the bag “to go to market” and the parasol is linked to a memory not too dissimilar to the one that entrances Krapp so, the day out on the punt
.
Winnie is however sinking inexorably in the slow sands of time and disappointment. In the second act she has almost been engulfed by the mound; only her head is visible, now she cannot move it and she admits to being in pain. Despite the desperation of her predicament, she is confident that this will be another of her happy days. She continues to chatter, but as can no longer reach her bag or turn around, it takes more of an effort to keep up the front. It has been some time since she has seen or heard from Willie but, since she is unable to see over the back of the mound, she doesn’t even know for sure if he is still there though she needs to believe he is:
“In Happy Days the existential condition of the characters is visualized in the mound tightening around Winnie who is sinking deeper and deeper. The nearer she gets to the end, the slower does Winnie sink, and never does the end come to release her from the pain of being smothered in the mound. What Beckett wants to represent is the endless repetition of dying moments rather than death itself. His characters wish to finish life but the end never comes because the clock becomes slower and slower. There is still time, always.” Not unreasonably Winnie’s mound has been compared to Zeno’s
impossible heap.
At the conclusion of the play Willie crawls up to her, “dressed to kill” (a pun
reserved for readers) and sporting a “Battle of Britain
moustache
”. Her response is ironic, not ebullient. When Kay Boyle asked Beckett why Willie reaches up towards Winnie, he replied:
Her words to Willie are bitter and unpleasant, and she maintains that tone up to the point he utters his one line in Act II: “Win” at which point she cannot hold back:
The familiar “So far” gives the subtle suggestion of cynicism but it doesn’t stop her bursting into the waltz
duet, ‘I love you so’ from The Merry Widow
and the play proceeds to its close.
s to insulate [herself] from the harshness of existence" Winnie is comforted only by her mindless rambling, basic objects, and by the idea that someone, Willie, is listening. If she’s talking, which she does relentlessly, she’s not thinking, a common approach to the burden of existence taken by Beckett’s characters. Her logic is flawed. She believes that because she needs someone to be listening to her that someone is there. James Knowlson has described it as a twisted version of Descartes’
famous aphorism
: “I think therefore I am
” only in Winnie’s case it’s: “I talk therefore you are.” She is not far away from Henry in Embers
who, sitting on his beach, conjures up a wife to talk to. In Beckett’s texts, language conceals the world and insulates the individual from it. This protective barrier is a comfort to Beckett’s characters. As S.E. Gontarski notes, “Language generally in Beckett’s world is not a means of conveying meaning, but a balm for the sores of existence.”
“In the Happy Days of 1979, Beckett very particularly played upon the physical attractiveness of [Billie] Whitelaw … Where most Winnies, such as Peggy Ashcroft and Irene Worth
, look rather matron
ly, Beckett made Whitelaw’s Winnie into a siren
, with black, low cut gown, haunting eyes, exaggerated lipstick … a woman, who while not any longer young, still manifests a powerful erotic dimension.” Her memories often have a sexual edge: sitting on Charlie Hunter’s knees; her first kiss; the two balls; an encounter in a toolshed
; when handed the erotic postcard from Willie, she takes time to examine it before returning it in feigned offense and the story she tells of the small girl Mildred’s (Beckett’s original name for Winnie) sexual curiosity is genuinely disturbing. A mouse
, in Freudian terms, is a phallic symbol and Beckett’s protagonists often speak autobiographically in the third person. Also the doll wears a pearl necklet, as does she. It should not be taken from this that the terrified child (assuming the story is figurative) has become the frigid wife; she talks knowledgeably about sex and early drafts of the play even show how their sex life has dwindled over the years. It does appear that sexual relations between her and Willie – a common British euphemism
for penis – have been lacking, at least from her perspective:
Perhaps this is why she teases him with her recollection of other men, to bring him out both sexually and imaginatively. The play is full of sexual innuendo
. “And it is sex which is responsible for the contuation of the life that plunges man inevitably into suffering. The sexual innuendos contrast, then, with images of sterility
or ‘discreation.’”
He keeps himself conveniently out of Winnie's gaze, only occasionally surfacing from his tunnel. His only interest now is to bury himself, figuratively, in an old newspaper or erotic picture postcards, or literally, underground in his cave asleep and seemingly unaffected by the bell that jars Winnie. By contrast with Winnie who attempts to keep up appearances, Willie is common. There is a child-like, if not exactly an innocent, quality to him and there are many times in the play you might think Winnie was talking to a young boy rather than a grown man. Winnie also serves as his protector, the custodian of “Brownie” the revolver she keeps safe from him in case he uses it on himself.
He functions mainly as something for her to talk at – being used as a stooge by the old music hall
pro that Winnie is – “just to know that in theory you can hear me though in fact you don't is all I need.” One is reminded of Hylda Baker
, a music hall star from the forties through to the sixties, famous for her catch phrases, who held long one-sided malapropism
-driven ‘conversations’ with the ever silent ‘Cynthia’. Willie is the henpecked husband – another music hall stable – not entirely silent perhaps. The nagging wife and the henpecked husband are, of course, archetypes: Burns
wrote about them, as did Chaucer
, they were a stable of the music hall and the tradition continues to this day in television programmes like Last of the Summer Wine
where every episode is built around the premise, and, if Willie is indeed reaching for the gun at the end of the play, this would tie in with the popular plot where such a put-upon husband decides to do away with his wife.
Whereas Beckett aligns Winnie with a bird, albeit one with oil on its feathers, he likens Willie to a “turtle
” which is strange because many of the metaphors in the play associate him with pigs. "[I]n Act I Winnie speaks of envying "the brute beast" only a moment before Willie's "hairy forearm" appears above the mound; throughout the play Willie never rises to his feet, but crawls on all fours; and when Winnie notes that the bristles on her toothbrush are "pure ... hog's ... seta
e," Willie gives this comment a sexual dimension by revealing that a hog is a "Castrated
male swine." In context, this phrase seems to relate to Willie, since various hints are made that he has been metaphorically emasculated
by his domineering wife."
The boater Willie sports at a “rakish
angle” places his character clearly in the music hall tradition as does his formal wear
in the second half of the play. Historically boaters were fashionable headgear up till about the 1920s at which time sunbathing
started to become fashionable; prior to this ladies would commonly be seen making use of parasols to protect their white skin from the sun's harmful rays.
At the end of the play Willie struggles to bring things to an end, to “Win,” while Winnie sings: “It’s true, it’s true, / You love me so!” When Willie first appears Winnie expresses, however tentatively, some doubts but as soon as he utters the word, “Win,” she allows it to be all the excuse she needs to let, what Beckett calls in Proust
, “pernicious and incurable optimism” overtake her.
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, by Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
. He began the play on 8 October 1960 and it was completed on 14 May 1961. Beckett finished the translation into French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
by November 1962 but amended the title. “In a moment of inspiration, he borrowed the title Oh les beaux jours, from Verlaine
Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.-Early life:...
’s poem, ‘Colloque sentimental’”.
Cyril Cusack
Cyril Cusack
Cyril James Cusack was an Irish actor, who appeared in more than 90 films.-Early life:Cusack was born in Durban, Natal, South Africa, the son of Alice Violet , an actress, and James Walter Cusack, a sergeant in the Natal mounted police. His parents separated when he was young and his mother took...
claimed that Happy Days was, by Beckett’s own admission, ‘influenced’ by his wife, Maureen Cusack’s request that he ‘write a happy play’ after Krapp
Krapp's Last Tape
Krapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, written in English, by Samuel Beckett. Consisting of a cast of one man, it was originally written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue"...
.
The first production was at the Cherry Lane Theatre
Cherry Lane Theatre
The Cherry Lane Theatre , located at 38 Commerce Street in the borough of Manhattan, was New York City's oldest, continuously running off-Broadway theater...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
on 17 September 1961, directed by Alan Schneider
Alan Schneider
Alan Schneider was an American theatre director and mentor responsible for more than 100 theatre productions. In 1984 he was honored with a Drama Desk Special Award for serving a wide range of playwrights...
with Ruth White as Winnie (for which she won an Obie
Obie Award
The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...
) and John C. Becher
John C. Becher
John C. Becher was an American stage and television actor. He made his professional debut in 1946 at the McCarter Theatre.- Biography :...
as Willie. The first London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
production was at the Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
on 1 November 1962 directed by George Devine
George Devine
George Alexander Cassady Devine CBE was an extremely influential theatrical manager, director, teacher and actor in London from the late 1940s until his death. He also worked in the media of TV and film.-Biography:...
and Tony Richardson
Tony Richardson
Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...
with Brenda Bruce
Brenda Bruce
Brenda Bruce was a British actress. She had a long and successful career in the theatre, radio, film, and television.-Early life:Brenda Bruce was born in Manchester...
as Winnie and Peter Duguid as Willie.
When Happy Days was first performed in London there were disagreements about every aspect of the text and production. Even Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...
, one of the saviours of Godot
Waiting for Godot
Waiting for Godot is an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. Godot's absence, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations since the play's...
, felt that Happy Days was "a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
extended beyond its capacity",; nevertheless, he admitted Beckett's strange, insinuating power and urged his readers to buy tickets for the play. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
critic couldn’t understand why Brenda Bruce played the part with a Scottish accent.
It was first published by Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...
in 1961 followed by Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
in 1962. By this stage in his writing career Beckett was becoming more aware of the importance of revising his work in actual performance and so wrote to Grove Press about Happy Days on 18 May 1961 to advise them that, "I should prefer the text not to appear in any form before production and not in book form until I have seen some rehearsals in London. I can't be definitive without actual work done in the theatre."
The film version of Happy Days was produced in 2001 as part of the Beckett on Film
Beckett on Film
Beckett on Film was a project aimed at making film versions of all nineteen of Samuel Beckett's stage plays, with the exception of the early and unperformed Eleutheria. This endeavour was successfully completed, with the first films being shown in 2001.The project was conceived by Michael Colgan,...
project. The film was directed by Patricia Rozema
Patricia Rozema
Patricia Rozema is a Canadian film director and screenwriter.-Life and career:Rozema was born in Kingston, Ontario and raised in Sarnia, Ontario. Her parents, Jacoba Berandina and Jan Rozema, were Dutch Calvinists. Television was severely restricted and she didn’t go to a movie theatre until she...
and starred Rosaleen Linehan
Rosaleen Linehan
Rosaleen Linehan is an Irish stage, screen and television actress.She has appeared in many comedy revues written by her husband Fergus...
as Winnie.
Background
Beckett was heavily involved with a number of productions. His letters to Alan Schneider make particularly interesting reading – he included a number of diagrams detailing how the mound could be constructed – but it was to Brenda Bruce he confided what was actually going through his mind as he sat down to write the play:- He said: “Well I thought that the most dreadful thing that could happen to anybody, would be not to be allowed to sleep so that just as you’re dropping off there’s be a ‘Dong’ and you’d have to keep awake; you’re sinking into the ground alive and it’s full of antAntAnts are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s; and the sun is shining endlessly day and night and there is not a tree … there’s no shade, nothing, and that bell wakes you up all the time and all you’ve got is a little parcel of things to see you through life.” He was talking about a woman’s life, let’s face it. Then he said: “And I thought who would cope with that and go down singing, only a woman.”
In the play only a single egg-carrying ant – Winnie uses the archaic term emmet – finds its way into the text but it is a source of amusement for both Winnie and Willie when its appearance causes Willie to utter the word “formication” though perhaps not for the same reason. Beckett suggests that Willie “is laughing at the image of ants devouring [Winnie] and she at the image of the ants devouring herself.” Likely its similarity to the word “fornication” is also a factor.
A number of suggestions have been put forth to explain where the idea for the original imagery originated from. James Knowlson has suggested images from Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
’s 1928 film, Un chien andalou
Un chien andalou
Un Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
or a photograph by Angus McBean
Angus McBean
Angus McBean , was a Welsh photographer, associated with surrealism.-Biography:Angus McBean was born in South Wales in June 1904. Despite the surname and the family's claim to be head of the sub-clan McBean, they had been Welsh for generations. Clem McBean was a surveyor in the mines and the family...
of Frances Day
Frances Day
Frances Day was an American actress and singer who achieved great popularity in the UK in the 1930s.Day's career began as a nightclub cabaret singer in New York City and London...
but there is no clear evidence to support either.
Beckett was particularly keen that there be both a symmetry and an artificiality to the set. A very pompier trompe-l'oeil backcloth (“picture window wall”) was to be used to represent unbroken plain and sky receding to meet in far distance. “What should characterise [the] whole scene, sky and earth,” he wrote, “is a pathetic unsuccessful realism, the kind of tawdriness you get in a 3rd rate musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
or pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
, that quality of pompier, laughably earnest bad imitation.”
The scene is reminiscent of a seaside postcard with Winnie buried in the sand and Willie with his knotted handkerchief and his boater
Boater (hat)
A boater is a kind of men's formal summer hat....
. The fake backdrop calls to mind also the kind used by photographers that feature a painted body on a sheet of wood with a hole cut out where the head belongs popular at holiday venues. Even the title of the play, Happy Days, is the kind of expression typically used when reminiscing about these kinds of holidays. Of note is the fact that he worked on the play while in the English seaside resort of Folkstone during the two weeks he was obliged to be resident in the area before his marriage to Suzanne
Suzanne Deschevaux-Dumesnil
Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesnil was the tennis-partner, lover, and later wife of Samuel Beckett.In the 1930s, Beckett, an avid tennis fan his whole life, chose Déchevaux-Dumesnil as his lover over the heiress Peggy Guggenheim...
could officially take place.
In his book, The Beckett Country, Eoin O’Brien reveals a connection between Beckett’s first novel, Dream of Fair to Middling Women
Dream of Fair to Middling Women
Dream of Fair to Middling Women is Samuel Beckett’s first novel. Written in English "in a matter of weeks" in 1932 when Beckett was only 26 and living in Paris, the clearly autobiographical novel was rejected by publishers and shelved by the author. It was eventually published in 1992, three years...
and Happy Days. There is a description of a woman rummaging through her fathomless bag. The location, O’Brien identifies as a quiet cove known as Jack’s Hole in County Wicklow
County Wicklow
County Wicklow is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wicklow, which derives from the Old Norse name Víkingalág or Wykynlo. Wicklow County Council is the local authority for the county...
. That the play might take place in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
is also suggested by the fact that Willie is said to have been reading from an Irish Sunday paper.
Beckett experimented with different newspaper headline
Headline
The headline is the text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article below it.It is sometimes termed a news hed, a deliberate misspelling that dates from production flow during hot type days, to notify the composing room that a written note from an editor concerned a...
s before he settled on what appears in print. In the second holograph
Holograph
A holograph is a document written entirely in the handwriting of the person whose signature it bears. Some countries or local jurisdictions within certain countries give legal standing to specific types of holographic documents, generally waiving requirements that they be witnessed...
he included three which are of interest (at this time Willie is still ‘B’):
- RocketRocketA rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
strikes PomonaPomonaPomona was a goddess of fruitful abundance in ancient Roman religion and myth. Her name comes from the Latin word pomum, "fruit," specifically orchard fruit. She was said to be a wood nymph and a part of the Numia, guardian spirits who watch over people, places, or homes...
. Seven hundred thousand missing. (Pause. B turns page.) Rocket strikes – . One female lavatory attendant spared. (Pause. B turns page.) Rocket strikes – . 3 priestPriestA priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s survive.
Although excised from the final text it has been suggested that what Beckett was thinking about here was a post-apocalyptic
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural...
setting and many reviewers describe the setting so. Similar claims have been made with regards to Endgame
Endgame (play)
Endgame, by Samuel Beckett, is a one-act play with four characters, written in a style associated with the Theatre of the Absurd. It was originally written in French ; as was his custom, Beckett himself translated it into English. The play was first performed in a French-language production at the...
and Rough for Theatre I
Rough for Theatre I
Rough for Theatre I is a one-act theatrical sketch by Samuel Beckett. Also known simply as Theatre I it began life originally in French in the late fifties as Fragment de théâtre and was later translated into English by Beckett himself. The first production was at the Schiller Theatre, Hamburg in...
.
Synopsis
Act I
Winnie, a woman no longer young, is embedded up to her “big bosom” in a mound of earth, “the Mother EarthMother Nature
Mother Nature is a common personification of nature that focuses on the life-giving and nurturing aspects of nature by embodying it in the form of the mother. Images of women representing mother earth, and mother nature, are timeless...
symbol to end all other mother earth symbols”. She lives in a deluge of never-ending light from which there is no escape: even the parasol
Umbrella
An umbrella or parasol is a canopy designed to protect against rain or sunlight. The term parasol usually refers to an item designed to protect from the sun; umbrella refers to a device more suited to protect from rain...
she unfolds at one point ignites, leaving her without protection. We learn that she has not always been buried in this way but we never discover how she came to be trapped so. Beckett’s dramaturgy
Dramaturgy
Dramaturgy is the art of dramatic composition and the representation of the main elements of drama on the stage. Dramaturgy is a distinct practice separate from play writing and directing, although a single individual may perform any combination of the three. Some dramatists combine writing and...
– indeed his entire œuvre – takes little interest in causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
, e.g. Molloy
Molloy (novel)
Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett. The English translation is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles.-Plot introduction:On first appearance the book concerns two different characters, both of whom have interior monologues in the book. As the story moves along the two characters are distinguished by name...
finds himself ‘buried’ in his mother’s bed, in his mother’s room, realizes he has not always been there but demonstrates no particular curiosity as regards the specifics of how he arrived there.
It is a strange image. “Strangeness,” Beckett informs us, “was the necessary condition of the play of Winnie’s plight in the play.” During Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
rehearsals he said, “In this play you have the combination of the strange and the practical, the mysterious and the factual. This is the crux of both the comedy and the tragedy of it.”
Winnie passes her time between “the bell for waking and the bell for sleep” by following a very exact daily routine. In this respect, she is reminiscent of the two characters in Act Without Words II
Act Without Words II
Act Without Words II is a short mime play by Samuel Beckett, his second . Like many of Beckett's works, the piece was originally composed in French , then translated into English by Beckett himself. Written in the late fifties it opened at the Calderon Press Institute in Oxford and was directed by...
. In early drafts, Winnie set an alarm clock
Alarm clock
An alarm clock is a clock that is designed to make a loud sound at a specific time. The primary use of these clocks is to awaken people from their night's sleep or short naps; they are sometimes used for other reminders as well. To stop the sound, a button or handle on the clock is pressed; but...
but Beckett later gave control of the bell to an unexplained external force like that in charge of the goad
Goad
The goad is a traditional farming implement, used to spur or guide lifestock, usually oxen, which are pulling a plough or a cart; used also to round up cattle. It is a type of a long stick with a pointed end, also known as the cattle prod. Though many people are unfamiliar with them today, goads...
and the whistle in the two Act Without Words plays. By contrast Winnie, it has to be said, is not short of words, she is, in fact, a compulsive talker.
Winnie begins her day. After the sounding of the transcendental
Transcendence (philosophy)
In philosophy, the adjective transcendental and the noun transcendence convey the basic ground concept from the word's literal meaning , of climbing or going beyond, albeit with varying connotations in its different historical and cultural stages...
bell, she offers up a half-forgotten prayer
Prayer
Prayer is a form of religious practice that seeks to activate a volitional rapport to a deity through deliberate practice. Prayer may be either individual or communal and take place in public or in private. It may involve the use of words or song. When language is used, prayer may take the form of...
and then sets about her daily routine. As she removes the items from her bag a comb
Comb
A comb is a toothed device used in hair care for straightening and cleaning hair or other fibres. Combs are among the oldest tools found by archaeologists...
, a toothbrush
Toothbrush
The toothbrush is an oral hygiene instrument used to clean the teeth and gums that consists of a head of tightly clustered bristles mounted on a handle, which facilitates the cleansing of hard-to-reach areas of the mouth. Toothpaste, which often contains fluoride, is commonly used in conjunction...
(the writing on which she spends most of the first act trying to decipher), toothpaste
Toothpaste
Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush as an accessory to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it serves as an abrasive that aids in removing the dental plaque and food from the teeth, assists in suppressing...
, a bottle of patent medicine, lipstick
Lipstick
Lipstick is a cosmetic product containing pigments, oils, waxes, and emollients that applies color, texture, and protection to the lips. Many varieties of lipstick are known. As with most other types of makeup, lipstick is typically, but not exclusively, worn by women...
, a nail file
Nail file
A nail file is a tool used to gently grind down and shape the edges of nails. They are often used in manicures and pedicures after the nail has been trimmed using appropriate nail clippers...
, a revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
(which she feels the need to quickly kiss) and a music box
Musical box
A music box is a 19th century automatic musical instrument that produces sounds by the use of a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc so as to pluck the tuned teeth of a steel comb. They were developed from musical snuff boxes of the 18th century and called carillons à musique...
she prattles away to her husband, Willie who lives in a cave behind the mound. The routine is raised to the level of ceremony. Beckett’s instructions to Billie Whitelaw
Billie Whitelaw
Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...
in 1979 emphasize this:
- The bag is all she has – look at it with affection … From the first you should know how she feels about it … When the bag is at the right height you peer in, see what things are there and then get them out. Peer, take, place. Peer, take, place. You peer more when you pick things up than when you put them down. Everything has its place. Everything is wearing out or running out. At the start of Act I she takes the last swig of her tonic before throwing away the bottle, her toothbrush has hardly any hairs left and the lipstick, to use Beckett’s expression, is “visibly zu ende,” the parasol is faded with a “mangy fringe” and even her pearl necklace is “more thread than pearls”.
Winnie functions on the ecclesiastical principle that there is a time for everything and the proper time for certain things to take place is in the daytime, ‘day’ being an abstract notion since there is only constant daylight in this place; she would not think of singing her song after the bell for sleep had gone which is why, when she uses the term, she refers to it as “the old style”.
She is the eternal optimist
Optimism
The Oxford English Dictionary defines optimism as having "hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something; a tendency to take a favourable or hopeful view." The word is originally derived from the Latin optimum, meaning "best." Being optimistic, in the typical sense...
Robert Brustein
Robert Brustein
Robert Sanford Brustein is an American theatrical critic, producer, playwright and educator. He founded both Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he remains a Creative Consultant, and has been the theatre critic for...
called her a “hopeful futilitarian” but the available sources of her optimism are being used up and she has to work harder and harder to keep up her positive front which is already wafer-thin when we first meet her. Beckett has described her as being “like a bird” and she makes every effort to rise above her predicament but she keeps getting pulled down. She never questions or explains why she finds herself in the predicament she is in most of us never understand how we wind up in a rut, or stuck in the mud to use similar earthy metaphors but her dream is that she will “simply float up into the blue … And that perhaps some day the earth will yield and let me go, the pull is so great, yes, crack all round me and let me out.”
Beckett even pokes fun at his audience through Winnie and her story about Shower/Cooker. Beckett explained this in a letter to Alan Schneider:
- Shower (rain). Shower & Cooker are derived from German “schauen” & “gucken” (to look). They represent the onlooker (audience) wanting to know the meaning of things.
Willie, for his part, ignores her and what responses he does make are terse and often monosyllabic. At the start of the play she even strikes him a couple of times simply to get his attention. His responses are of less importance to Winnie than the fact that he is there to listen. Always in Beckett’s drama there is someone or something to fulfil this critical function whether it is the Auditor in Not I
Not I
Not I is a twenty-minute dramatic monologue written in 1972 by Samuel Beckett, translated as Pas Moi; premiere at the “Samuel Beckett Festival” by the Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center, New York , directed by Alan Schneider, with Jessica Tandy and Henderson Forsythe .-Synopsis:Not I takes place...
or the interrogatory light in Play
Play (play)
Play is a one-act play by Samuel Beckett. It was written between 1962 and 1963 and first produced in German as Spiel on 14 June 1963 at the Ulmer Theatre in Ulm-Donau, Germany, directed by Deryk Mendel, with Nancy Illig , Sigfrid Pfeiffer and Gerhard Winter...
. When words fail her she reverts to the contents of her bag to tide her over, or at least in Act I she does.
The two never have anything that could remotely be described as a conversation. He answers a question concerning the correct term to describe the hair on one’s head, confirms he can still hear her again when she reduces the volume at which she speaks over stages, becoming audibly angrier in the process, finally he defines “hog
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
” for her, lavishing a whole two albeit short sentences on her in the process. The most we ever see of him is the back of his head whilst he reads his yellowing paper or scrutinises his postcards. Other than that, his activities are described by Winnie and involve finding his way in and out of his hole, working Vaseline into his privates and sleeping.
Winnie offers up reminisces from an idealised past, quotes from the classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
in contrast to Willie’s quotes from the popular press, comments on everything flitting from topic to topic, laughs at herself, at Willie and at their predicament. She assures herself: “This will have been another happy day!” a recurrent catchphrase throughout the play when in fact she often seems on the verge of tears. At the end of the day she carefully collects her possessions bar the gun and places them back in the bag. The gun, which has somehow always managed to defy the laws of physics
Physical law
A physical law or scientific law is "a theoretical principle deduced from particular facts, applicable to a defined group or class of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that a particular phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions be present." Physical laws are typically conclusions...
ending up on the top of the bag she decides to leave out. Winnie never plumbs (never dares plumb) the bottom ("The depths in particular, who knows what treasures"), so it is also her hope chest.
The items in her bag also have secondary functions, they serve as aides-mémoire. But more, like Krapp’s tapes or Lucky’s
Lucky (Waiting for Godot)
Lucky is a character from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. He is a slave to the character Pozzo.Lucky is unique in a play where most of the characters talk incessantly: he only utters two sentences . Lucky suffers at the hands of Pozzo willingly and without hesitation...
bones they provide her with what Mary Doll describes as “touchstones of existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
meaning”. Winnie’s perception of these objects connects her to the memories of specific days and important incidents within them. While she is able to discuss these incidents in some detail, Winnie cannot hold on to them or place them within a context.
Act II
“As Act II of Godot is bleaker than Act I, as Maddy’sAll That Fall
All That Fall is a one-act radio play by Samuel Beckett produced following a request from the BBC. It was written in English and completed in September 1956. The autograph copy is titled Lovely Day for the Races...
homeward journey is bleaker than her setting out, Act II of Happy Days is bleaker than Act I, and Winnie knows it: “To have been what I always am – and so changed from what I was.” By Act II she can no longer imagine any relief, and she can no longer pray, as she did at the play’s start. Although she still intones the phrase ‘happy day’, it no longer triggers her smile.” Whereas in Godot Beckett explicitly states that Act II takes place on the next day, in Happy Days no such assertion is made. Time has simply passed.
In the first act she uses the items from her bag to trigger memories. In this act, unable to reach into it, she uses the bag itself, along with the parasol which has, as she predicted, reappeared intact, to the same end. We learn that Willie gave her the bag “to go to market” and the parasol is linked to a memory not too dissimilar to the one that entrances Krapp so, the day out on the punt
Punt (boat)
A punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, designed for use in small rivers or other shallow water. Punting refers to boating in a punt. The punter generally propels the punt by pushing against the river bed with a pole...
.
Winnie is however sinking inexorably in the slow sands of time and disappointment. In the second act she has almost been engulfed by the mound; only her head is visible, now she cannot move it and she admits to being in pain. Despite the desperation of her predicament, she is confident that this will be another of her happy days. She continues to chatter, but as can no longer reach her bag or turn around, it takes more of an effort to keep up the front. It has been some time since she has seen or heard from Willie but, since she is unable to see over the back of the mound, she doesn’t even know for sure if he is still there though she needs to believe he is:
- I used to think that I would learn to talk alone. (Pause.) By that I mean to myself, the wilderness. (Smile.) But no. (Smile broader.) No no. (Smile off.) Ergo you are there. (Pause.) Oh no doubt you are dead, like the others, no doubt you have died, or gone away and left me, like the others, it doesn’t matter, you are there.
“In Happy Days the existential condition of the characters is visualized in the mound tightening around Winnie who is sinking deeper and deeper. The nearer she gets to the end, the slower does Winnie sink, and never does the end come to release her from the pain of being smothered in the mound. What Beckett wants to represent is the endless repetition of dying moments rather than death itself. His characters wish to finish life but the end never comes because the clock becomes slower and slower. There is still time, always.” Not unreasonably Winnie’s mound has been compared to Zeno’s
Zeno of Elea
Zeno of Elea was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of southern Italy and a member of the Eleatic School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic. He is best known for his paradoxes, which Bertrand Russell has described as "immeasurably subtle and profound".- Life...
impossible heap.
| Zeno’s heap |
| If a man were to take a bag of millet and tip half of the load and make a heap, and repeat this procedure day after day, then one day it would be completed if one assumes an infinite amount of time to complete the task (in pure math, the idea of the infinite will allow this). However, because man is limited, he will never be able to finish the task. In fact, the nearer the man gets to emptying the bag, the slower the progress is. The heap becomes "the impossible heap." Without its completion, there is no release. |
At the conclusion of the play Willie crawls up to her, “dressed to kill” (a pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...
reserved for readers) and sporting a “Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
moustache
Handlebar moustache
A handlebar moustache is a moustache with particularly lengthy, upward curved, extremities. It is named for its resemblance to the handlebars of a bicycle. It is also known as a "spaghetti moustache", because of its stereotypical association with Italian men...
”. Her response is ironic, not ebullient. When Kay Boyle asked Beckett why Willie reaches up towards Winnie, he replied:
- The question as to which Willie is ‘after’ – Winnie or the revolver – is like the question in All That FallAll That FallAll That Fall is a one-act radio play by Samuel Beckett produced following a request from the BBC. It was written in English and completed in September 1956. The autograph copy is titled Lovely Day for the Races...
as to whether Mr Rooney threw the little girl out of the railway-carriage or not. And the answer is the same in both cases – we don’t know, at least I don’t. All that is necessary as far as I’m concerned – technically and otherwise – less too little, more too much – is the ambiguity of motive, established clearly I hope by Winnie, ‘Is it me you’re after, Willie, or is it something else? Is it a kiss you’re after, Willie, or is it something else?’ and by the conspicuousness of revolver requested in the stage-directions at beginning of Act II. To test the doubt was dramatically a chance not to be missed, not be bungled either by resolving it.”
Her words to Willie are bitter and unpleasant, and she maintains that tone up to the point he utters his one line in Act II: “Win” at which point she cannot hold back:
- Win! (Pause.) Oh this is a happy day, this will have been another happy day! (Pause.) After all. (Pause.) So far.
The familiar “So far” gives the subtle suggestion of cynicism but it doesn’t stop her bursting into the waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
duet, ‘I love you so’ from The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
and the play proceeds to its close.
Winnie
Winnie is not only terrified of being alone, but is particularly afraid of speaking unheard, without the possibility of any response. Winnie's raison d'être is to speak; words flow from her in an endless stream as she busies herself with objects from her black bag. She uses “clichéCliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
s to insulate [herself] from the harshness of existence" Winnie is comforted only by her mindless rambling, basic objects, and by the idea that someone, Willie, is listening. If she’s talking, which she does relentlessly, she’s not thinking, a common approach to the burden of existence taken by Beckett’s characters. Her logic is flawed. She believes that because she needs someone to be listening to her that someone is there. James Knowlson has described it as a twisted version of Descartes’
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
famous aphorism
Aphorism
An aphorism is an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and memorable form.The term was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates...
: “I think therefore I am
Cogito ergo sum
is a philosophical Latin statement proposed by . The simple meaning of the phrase is that someone wondering whether or not they exist is, in and of itself, proof that something, an "I", exists to do the thinking — However this "I" is not the more or less permanent person we call "I"...
” only in Winnie’s case it’s: “I talk therefore you are.” She is not far away from Henry in Embers
Embers
Embers is a radio play by Samuel Beckett. It was written in English in 1957 and first broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 24 June 1959. Donald McWhinnie directed Jack MacGowran – for whom the play was specially written – as “Henry”, Kathleen Michael as “Ada” and Patrick Magee as “Riding Master”...
who, sitting on his beach, conjures up a wife to talk to. In Beckett’s texts, language conceals the world and insulates the individual from it. This protective barrier is a comfort to Beckett’s characters. As S.E. Gontarski notes, “Language generally in Beckett’s world is not a means of conveying meaning, but a balm for the sores of existence.”
“In the Happy Days of 1979, Beckett very particularly played upon the physical attractiveness of [Billie] Whitelaw … Where most Winnies, such as Peggy Ashcroft and Irene Worth
Irene Worth
Irene Worth, CBE was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the English and American theatre. -Early life:...
, look rather matron
Matron
Matron is the job title of a very senior nurse in several countries, including the United Kingdom, its former colonies, including the Republic of Ireland, although the title Clinical Nurse Manager has become acceptable as an alternative.-History:...
ly, Beckett made Whitelaw’s Winnie into a siren
Siren
In Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous mermaid like creatures, portrayed as seductresses who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Roman poets placed them on an island called Sirenum scopuli...
, with black, low cut gown, haunting eyes, exaggerated lipstick … a woman, who while not any longer young, still manifests a powerful erotic dimension.” Her memories often have a sexual edge: sitting on Charlie Hunter’s knees; her first kiss; the two balls; an encounter in a toolshed
Shed
A shed is typically a simple, single-storey structure in a back garden or on an allotment that is used for storage, hobbies, or as a workshop....
; when handed the erotic postcard from Willie, she takes time to examine it before returning it in feigned offense and the story she tells of the small girl Mildred’s (Beckett’s original name for Winnie) sexual curiosity is genuinely disturbing. A mouse
Mouse
A mouse is a small mammal belonging to the order of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse . It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are also common. This rodent is eaten by large birds such as hawks and eagles...
, in Freudian terms, is a phallic symbol and Beckett’s protagonists often speak autobiographically in the third person. Also the doll wears a pearl necklet, as does she. It should not be taken from this that the terrified child (assuming the story is figurative) has become the frigid wife; she talks knowledgeably about sex and early drafts of the play even show how their sex life has dwindled over the years. It does appear that sexual relations between her and Willie – a common British euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...
for penis – have been lacking, at least from her perspective:
- There was a time when I could have given you a hand … And then a time before that again when I did give you a hand … You were always in dire need of a hand, Willie.
Perhaps this is why she teases him with her recollection of other men, to bring him out both sexually and imaginatively. The play is full of sexual innuendo
Innuendo
An innuendo is a baseless invention of thoughts or ideas. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging , that works obliquely by allusion...
. “And it is sex which is responsible for the contuation of the life that plunges man inevitably into suffering. The sexual innuendos contrast, then, with images of sterility
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
or ‘discreation.’”
Willie
In marked contrast to Winnie's loquacity, the henpecked Willie is laconic to a fault. He is without a doubt one of Beckett’s less rewarding parts for an actor. Indeed, in the whole of the second act Willie utters only one, barely audible monosyllabic word. Much of his dialogue consists of him reading notices from his paper; his responses to Winnie – when he can be bothered to respond at all – are terse and barely communicative, Winnie often adding the meaning she feels is lacking herself.He keeps himself conveniently out of Winnie's gaze, only occasionally surfacing from his tunnel. His only interest now is to bury himself, figuratively, in an old newspaper or erotic picture postcards, or literally, underground in his cave asleep and seemingly unaffected by the bell that jars Winnie. By contrast with Winnie who attempts to keep up appearances, Willie is common. There is a child-like, if not exactly an innocent, quality to him and there are many times in the play you might think Winnie was talking to a young boy rather than a grown man. Winnie also serves as his protector, the custodian of “Brownie” the revolver she keeps safe from him in case he uses it on himself.
He functions mainly as something for her to talk at – being used as a stooge by the old music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
pro that Winnie is – “just to know that in theory you can hear me though in fact you don't is all I need.” One is reminded of Hylda Baker
Hylda Baker
Hylda Baker was a British comedienne, actress and music hall star.-Early life and career:Baker was born in Farnworth, near Bolton, Lancashire, the first of seven children. Her father, Harold Baker, was a painter and signwriter, who also worked part-time in the music halls as a comedian...
, a music hall star from the forties through to the sixties, famous for her catch phrases, who held long one-sided malapropism
Malapropism
A malapropism is an act of misusing or the habitual misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results. An example is Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes".-Etymology:...
-driven ‘conversations’ with the ever silent ‘Cynthia’. Willie is the henpecked husband – another music hall stable – not entirely silent perhaps. The nagging wife and the henpecked husband are, of course, archetypes: Burns
Robert Burns
Robert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
wrote about them, as did Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
, they were a stable of the music hall and the tradition continues to this day in television programmes like Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...
where every episode is built around the premise, and, if Willie is indeed reaching for the gun at the end of the play, this would tie in with the popular plot where such a put-upon husband decides to do away with his wife.
Whereas Beckett aligns Winnie with a bird, albeit one with oil on its feathers, he likens Willie to a “turtle
Turtle
Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...
” which is strange because many of the metaphors in the play associate him with pigs. "[I]n Act I Winnie speaks of envying "the brute beast" only a moment before Willie's "hairy forearm" appears above the mound; throughout the play Willie never rises to his feet, but crawls on all fours; and when Winnie notes that the bristles on her toothbrush are "pure ... hog's ... seta
Seta
Seta is a biological term derived from the Latin word for "bristle". It refers to a number of different bristle- or hair-like structures on living organisms.-Animal setae:In zoology, most "setae" occur in invertebrates....
e," Willie gives this comment a sexual dimension by revealing that a hog is a "Castrated
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
male swine." In context, this phrase seems to relate to Willie, since various hints are made that he has been metaphorically emasculated
Emasculation
Emasculation is the removal of the genitalia of a male, notably the penis and/or the testicles.By extension, the word has also come to mean to render a male less of a man, or to make a male feel less of a man by humiliation. This metaphorical usage of the word is much more common than the...
by his domineering wife."
The boater Willie sports at a “rakish
Rake (character)
A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womanizer. Often a rake was a man who wasted his fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process...
angle” places his character clearly in the music hall tradition as does his formal wear
Formal wear
Formal wear and formal dress are the general terms for clothing suitable for formal social events, such as a wedding, formal garden party or dinner, débutante cotillion, dance, or race...
in the second half of the play. Historically boaters were fashionable headgear up till about the 1920s at which time sunbathing
Sun tanning
Sun tanning or simply tanning is the process whereby skin color is darkened or tanned. The process is most often a result of exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun or from artificial sources, such as a tanning bed, but can also be a result of windburn or reflected light...
started to become fashionable; prior to this ladies would commonly be seen making use of parasols to protect their white skin from the sun's harmful rays.
At the end of the play Willie struggles to bring things to an end, to “Win,” while Winnie sings: “It’s true, it’s true, / You love me so!” When Willie first appears Winnie expresses, however tentatively, some doubts but as soon as he utters the word, “Win,” she allows it to be all the excuse she needs to let, what Beckett calls in Proust
Proust (Beckett essay)
Samuel Beckett's essay Proust, from 1930, is an aesthetic and epistemological manifesto, which is more concerned with Beckett's influences and preoccupations than with its ostensible subject.-History:...
, “pernicious and incurable optimism” overtake her.
External links
- Happy Days, SparkNotesSparkNotesSparkNotes, originally part of a website called The Spark, is a company started by Harvard students Sam Yagan, Max Krohn, Chris Coyne, and Eli Bolotin in 1999 that originally provided study guides for literature, poetry, history, film, and philosophy...
- Beckett's Plays Still Speak to Edward Albee, NPR November 23, 2004. Page contains a link to an excerpt from the BBC radio production with Geraldine McEwanGeraldine McEwanGeraldine McEwan is an English actor with a diverse history in theatre, film, and television. From 2004 to 2009 she appeared as Miss Marple, the Agatha Christie sleuth, for the series Marple.-Background:...
as Winnie - Happy Days Programme Notes, Channel 4Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...