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Samuel Beckett’s modest, dreary writings about alienation, death and language made him one of the 20th century’s most influential playwrights as well as one of the founders of the Theatre of the Absurd. ... These ideas, themes, and beliefs are illustrated throughout two of Beckett’s plays, Waiting for Godot and Happy Days.
Born in Foxrock, Ireland in 1961, Samuel Beckett lived an uneventful childhood. From 1959, with Embers, to the time of his death in 1989, Beckett devoted much of his talent to numerious radio and television works, “testing the limits of audience understanding” (McGhee). ... Perhaps Beckett felt so strongly about the morals and intentions of Waiting for Godot that he made a similar drama to reflect the same notions, this creating Happy Days. Both plays employ Beckett’s absurdity and existentialism. ... More than one act is necessary to show the repetition of actions in the play, but this does not explain why Beckett chooses to use two acts instead of more than two. ... In its two part structure, Beckett seems to be evoking a circular repetition, where Estragon and Vladimir return to the tree day after day, encountering similar events. This is similar to other two part elements in Beckett, such as the interplay between present and past in the two acts of Happy Days, the circular motion from blackout to blackout seen. ... More than one act is necessary to show the repetition of actions in the play, but this does not explain why Beckett chooses to use two acts instead of more than two. ...
Beckett uses paralysis and boredom in both of his absurdist plays. ... “Beckett emphasizes the stasis in Winnie’s life with her literal parlysis below the waist, and the stage directions mark the ways she frenetically keeps herself busy with rituals” (CITE). ... Beckett defies a traditional theatrical rule of using motion to keep the audience engaged, and thus draws the viewers or readers into the struggle of Winnie, Estragon and Vladimir. ...
Samuel Beckett uses common themes and literary devices in Waiting for Godot and Happy Days. ... Beckett creates an allegory for human condition by abandoning realism and taking on optimistic idealism. ... slight headache sometimes…occasional mild migraine…it comes…then goes…ah yes…many mercies…great mercies…” (Beckett, 12). ... Beckett’s plays seem to focus on the themes of the uselessness of human action and the failure of the human race to communicate. ... Winnie and Willie are slowly approaching death, but Beckett makes this more dramatic through his stagecraft. ... Both of Beckett’s play are surrounded by the approach of death, either you wait optimistically or wait hopelessly. ... In Happy Days Beckett probes mankinds search for meaning and questions the relationships that bind one person to another, exploring the pain and humour of time and existence. Like the thousands of questions surrounding human existence, we are left with many questions in Beckett’s works. ... Beckett makes it clear that the only comfort, short-lived but real, has to be in shared experience: there is always someone worse off to comfort, misery is bearable if shared, and good times and the everyday pleasures of the world can be enjoyed more intensely with the knowledge that everything is shortlived (CITE).
Approximate Word count = 2627
Approximate Pages = 10.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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