Happy Days (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
By SparkNotes
()
About this ebook
Making the reading experience fun!
Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, SparkNotes is a new breed of study guide: smarter, better, faster. Geared to what today's students need to know, SparkNotes provides: *Chapter-by-chapter analysis
*Explanations of key themes, motifs, and symbols
*A review quiz and essay topics Lively and accessible, these guides are perfect for late-night studying and writing papers
Read more from Spark Notes
Bird by Bird (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tempest (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Much Ado About Nothing (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Raisin in the Sun (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing Lear: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As You Like It (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Fear Shakespeare Audiobook: Romeo & Juliet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Macbeth: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Merchant of Venice: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Romeo and Juliet: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsiders (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHenry IV Parts One and Two (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Richard III (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Fear Shakespeare Audiobook: Julius Caesar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Years of Solitude (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTempest: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Winter's Tale (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Measure for Measure (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Henry V (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Comedy of Errors (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Atlas Shrugged SparkNotes Literature Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Gentlemen of Verona (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMerchant of Venice (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dune (SparkNotes Literature Guide) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOthello (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51984 SparkNotes Literature Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Lear (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Richard II (No Fear Shakespeare) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Julius Caesar: No Fear Shakespeare Deluxe Student Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Happy Days (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
Related ebooks
Somewhere To Spend Christmas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Betula Pendula: First Cycle - Spring Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBad Intentions Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHer Majesty's Will: Will & Kit, #1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Thirteen Hallows Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tales of the Golden Judge: 3-Book Bundle - Books 1-3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Astonishing Life of August March: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stage Left of Broadway Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings7 best short stories by Ella D'Arcy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Handful of Kings: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlood Tribe: Book #1 of the Blood Tribe Series: Blood Tribe, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Darker Shadows Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poetry Lady Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRomantic Morsels Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStaccato: Magnum Opus, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Dragon Whistler (Secrets of the Soul Treasures) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Cats: Lucky or Unlucky? Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDrive Me Crazy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leftovers: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGodfrey: Book Four Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Jonah the Wolf Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBayou Grise: Sins of Sanite Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStorm Born: A Once Upon a Time Romance Short Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Wander Far from Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tale of One-Eyed Willie Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEverything Sucks #1, Underground Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeing Dracula's Widow: Being Mrs. Dracula series, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Willow and The Wind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Colour Of Water Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Book Notes For You
Summary of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Summary: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Workbook for Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence | Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O'Neill: Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Eight Dates: Essential Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by John Gottman: Conversation Starters Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Summary of Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Midnight Library: A Novel by Matt Haig: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy: Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 5 AM Club Summary: Business Book Summaries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab: Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Untamed by Glennon Doyle: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez: Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker: Conversation Starters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Ichiro Kishimi's and Fumitake Koga's book: The Courage to Be Disliked: Summary Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Poverty, by America By Matthew Desmond Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Happy Days (SparkNotes Literature Guide)
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Happy Days (SparkNotes Literature Guide) - SparkNotes
Context
Samuel Beckett's minimalist, bleak writings about alienation, death, and language made him one of the 20th-century's most influential playwrights, one of the founders of the Theatre of the Absurd, and a favorite of academic and avant- garde intellectuals alike. Beckett was born in Foxrock, Ireland, in 1906, lived an uneventful childhood, and after he graduated from Trinity College, moved to Paris. There he became friends with fellow Irish expatriate James Joyce, and became the venerable author's personal assistant, taking dictation for Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake.
During World War II, Beckett joined the French Resistance and fled from the Nazis. He hid in a village in Southern France with his girlfriend, Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil, for over two years. He and Dechevaux-Dumesnil marry in 1961. He wrote poetry and prose while in France, but it was not until his French- language theatrical masterpiece—Attendant en Godot—which he later translated into English as Waiting for Godot—was staged in Paris in 1953 that Beckett gained his own renown. The play was hailed for its stark portrayal of two tramps who wait endlessly on a deserted road for a man named Godot who never arrives. Beckett was also later recognized for his novel trilogy written in the late 40s and 50s: Molloy,Malone Dies, and The Unnamable.
While Beckett considered himself separate from the French Existentialist playwrights, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Eugène Ionesco, their shared themes and technical innovations united them under the umbrella Theatre of the Absurd.
Taken from an essay of French philosopher Albert Camus, the Absurdists believed that the world was beyond rational explanation, that the universe was chaotic, and that man had to commit himself to something important to make life meaningful. They employed new techniques to communicate their ideas. While the static, stripped action and dialogue of Beckett's plays may now seem like bad performance art, at the time they were revolutionary. He focused especially on silences and the unspoken desires of humans, and the way death dominates our thoughts. He developed his work in the successful plays Endgame (1957), Krapp's Last Tape (1958), and Happy Days, which was first performed in 1961. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969, but refused to go to Switzerland to accept the award in person and it is also rumored that he gave the prize money to needy artists. He continued writing for the theater, as well as for radio and television, through the 60s and 70s, though he never regained the startling success he had with his early plays. He maintained a quiet life in Paris until his death, of respiratory problems, on December 22, 1989. His influence is far-reaching, and his plays are still among the most performed in the world. Actors as varied as Buster Keaton and Robin Williams have tackled his philosophical, comic roles. The name Samuel Beckett transcends mere ideas or theatrical schools; it stands for a cosmic and comic vision of pessimism and paralysis, despair and destiny, wanting and waiting.
Plot Overview
Winnie, a woman in her 50s, is buried waist-deep in a mound of scorched earth, with just a large, black shopping bag and a collapsed parasol. Behind her and hidden from view sleeps Willie. A bell rings and wakes her Winnie. She recites a prayer and goes through several cleaning rituals—brushing her teeth, etc.—with implements from the bag. She laments that poor Willie
has no interest in life, but concedes that his constant sleeping is a gift she wishes she had. She tells herself that she must not complain, as she