Journal Press India^®

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Happy Days is an interesting play of Samuel Beckett which deserves a serious analysis in terms of existentialism. The play is in search of the meaning of man’s existence amid uncertainty in the world. Sometimes it is also interpreted as ‘mockery of unhappiness.’ This play is certainly different from other major plays of Samuel Beckett in which the protagonist seems a happy character, but, in fact, she frets in fever of the world. She is buried in a mound of earth and consumed by the earth every moment. After all, she gives the gesture of being happy. Both the characters Winnie and Willie are static, helpless and crippled like other characters of Beckett subject to suffering, frustration and absurdity in life. The play also delineates the sub- themes of existentialism like authenticity, death, bad-faith and nothingness with the help of these two characters. Moreover, the play develops in the tradition of absurd play challenging the classical norms of unities and plot. The stage setting in Happy Days seems strange like that of a realistic play reflecting the theme of existentialism. Lastly, the play gives the concept of absurd and cyclical time which presents the uncertainty of man’s existence in the world. Thus, the play is a typical one for existentialist study.

Keywords

Existentialism;. Nothingness; Authenticity; Absurd; Suffering.

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