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Details Appertaining To Books Happy Days

Title	:	Happy Days
Author	:	Samuel Beckett
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 48 pages
Published	:	November 30th 1998 by Faber & Faber (first published 1961)
Categories	:	Plays. Drama. Theatre. Classics. Fiction. European Literature. Irish Literature

Happy Days

Samuel Beckett

Paperback | Pages: 48 pages

Rating: 3.89 | 5236 Users | 169 Reviews

Rendition During Books Happy Days

I still remember the first time I ever got to read a play, it was Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, of which I thought was only OK, not because it wasn't any good, but because I so wanted to see it performed, reading any play isn't going to be anywhere near as good as seeing it with one's own eyes up on the stage. I said to myself I will never read another play again so help me God. However, over time, I asked myself the question - realistically, how many plays am I ever going to see? I've seen a few pretty amateurish productions, but the chances are most of the great plays I will simply never get to witness. So then, the next best thing is to read them, that's a no brainer. Sixty-five plays I have later, and along comes Beckett's Happy Days.

I knew he had his roots in creating oddly absurd, existential and avant-garde theatre from reading a couple of his other plays, but nothing prepared me for just how engaging Happy Days would turn out to be. The play tells the story of Winnie – a lonely, desolate, compulsive talker, who is stuck for unknown reasons up to her waist in a mound of earth, whilst her husband, Willie, an almost muted hermit, remains pretty much hidden. Each day begins the same as any any other, triggered by the strident sound of a bell. Winnie then begins her routine in a very meticulous and exact way. Cleaning herself, checking her belongings, speaking aloud to Willie and herself, enduring the baking hot sun. This behaviour is moulded throughout with a sense of tragicomedy, but it's also somewhat mind-bending. Things carry on this way until act number 2, where Winnie is now buried up to her neck.

Beckett's play is largely thought to be about marriage, and the title ‘Happy Days’ is very much an ironic label. Reading the play I found a number of other themes and metaphors that could easily be applied. Considering the main character is physically stuck the whole time, there is actually a great deal of liveliness. Indeed, Beckett’s stage directions are so frequent and so prescriptive, that Winnie’s actions are just as important as her words.

Beckett gets the thumbs up from me. Happy Days!.

Identify Books As Happy Days

Original Title:	Happy Days
ISBN:	0571066534 (ISBN13: 9780571066537)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Winnie, Willie
Literary Awards:	Obie for Best Foreign Play (1962)

Rating Appertaining To Books Happy Days

Ratings: 3.89 From 5236 Users | 169 Reviews

Appraise Appertaining To Books Happy Days

A very sobering tale on the meaninglessness of life! I think that it's a very deep play that really requires punctuational respect. That is, if it says "Pause", please pause! Because the emotion is only evoked if the play is read correctly or acted correctly.I like how it really intensifies emotions of our seeming meaningless lives... i.e. when one looks back in a million years, every thing we ever did do (and when we do anything in life, we do it seriously and invest a great deal of care!) will

Wow... this left me all depressed and disillusioned about life, death and everything in between! What I like is that the play begins with a surreal and bizarre situation and this doesn't clear up. This kind of makes you imagine all kinds of reasons why and how the woman and her husband are stuck there and living like that. There is so much in this play that makes it worth to read or see!Winnie seems swallowed by the earth, can't walk first and in act two can't move anything but her head, and

An absurdist parable about a woman who tries to find the best in her lot as her options narrow in a literal sense, buried up to her waist in sand at first and later up to her neck, her beloved husband virtually invisible and uncommunicative. A proto-feminist work (1961) and one of Beckett's most touching plays.

She decays into sands of time caught, struck in memories of happy days of past and the hopeless hope of a future that would resemble more to the past than the present; her hopes are of a really old bird who can no longer fly or even if it could fly it won't enjoy as much as it once did - and yet this bird looks up to skies and hopes; hopes like her too down-to-earth husband doesn't. Her surroundings like her body are just ruins of happy days of past, her hope is as depressing as her husband's

this is a heartbreaking play, and probably the purest and most unsparing of beckett's visions, which is saying something. some irony in the fact that winnie is beckett's saddest character despite (because of) the fact that she is the most optimistic.it's hard to believe an actress could actually pull this play off. it's basically a sixty page stationary monologue (winnie's buried waist- (and then neck-) deep through the whole thing, with only the contents of her bag to work with). i would pay

The earth is very tight today, can it be I have put on flesh, I trust not.

I imagine that Beckett's plays are an acquired taste and certainly seeing them performed elevates the re-reading experience, helps the effects and the affect to percolate. Rereading, Happy Days now, though, after reading the actress interviews in Women in Beckett, has me appreciating this play even more. Realizing that all of Beckett's embedded directions--facial expressions, for example--are not left to the actress as interpretable but are meant to be followed verbatim as Beckett scripted them