Resumo de Happy Days - Beckett, Samuel

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. He belonged to the ?Theatre
of the Absurd.?

He developed his work in the successful plays Endgame (1957), Krapp's
Last Tape (1958), and Happy Days,
which was first performed in 1961. 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. Winnie tries to read something written
on the toothbrush handle, but can only make out "genuine pure." She
pokes Willie with the parasol to wake him. She drops it, but Willie, still
hidden, hands it back. Willie sits up, and Winnie turns to see blood trickling
from his baldhead. Willie reads out a headline that announces the death in the
bathtub of a priest, and reads about a job opening for youth. Winnie uses a
magnifying glass and finally makes out "genuine pure hog's setae," or
bristles, on the toothbrush handle. Winnie sees that Willie has a postcard, and
asks to look at it. Winnie regrets not letting Willie sleep, and wishes she
could tolerate being alone. She says that if Willie died or left her, she would
never say another word. She anxiously wonders if she combed her hair and
brushed her teeth, and locates the brush and comb in her bag. Winnie is
overjoyed that Willie is speaking, and pronounces it a "happy day."
She tells Willie to crawl back into his hole to avoid the sun, which he does.

Willie says it was eggs, and then says
"Formication." Willie breaks into laughter. She joins him, but they
alternate who is laughing. She says there is no better way to "magnify the
Almighty" then by laughing at his little jokes, then wonders if she and
Willie were laughing at different things.

Winnie asks Willie if she were ever "lovable," but
he does not respond. Winnie says that she is tired of Willie, and she'll leave
the revolver out from now on. She discusses her feeling that without being held
down she would be sucked upward, and asks Willie if he feels that way. Winnie hoists,
with difficulty, her parasol. She ruminates on the danger of long days with
little action or conversation. The parasol catches on fire, and Winnie throws
it behind her to extinguish it. She reflects that if the earth ever covers her
breasts, it will be as if no one has ever seen them. She remarks that the
parasol will be back again tomorrow in perfect form. Winnie saddens and takes
out a music-box from her bag, and plays the waltz duet from Franz Lehár's 1905
operetta, The Merry Widow, which Willie accompanies
without words at the end. She becomes happy again, and when Willie refuses an
encore, she discusses the difficulty of singing when one's heart is not in it.

Winnie feels she is being watched by someone, and as she
files her long nails, she thinks about a man named Shower?or possibly
Cooker?with his fiancée and tells Willie her image of them: they hold hands,
carrying bags in their free hands, and stare at Winnie while they question
Winnie's placement in the ground, fight, argue about Willie's and Winnie's
usefulness to each other, contemplate digging Winnie out, then leave.

Winnie sees that Willie is trying to crawl out of his whole.
Willie tells her, and she becomes happy. He reads the newspaper and reads out
the job announcements, which are the same as before. Winnie tells herself to
sing, but she does not sing, and then to prayh she also does not do.

The next day, Winnie is covered up to her neck in the mound
and cannot move her head. A bell rings and she opens her eyes. Pausing
continuously, she tries to talk to Willie, who doesn't respond, and surmises
that Willie has died, or left her "like the others." She saddens over
her current condition, and grows anxious over the absence of her arms, breasts,
and Willie.

The bell rings, and Winnie asks Willie questions and,
getting no response, says it's like him to not have an opinion. She recounts
the story of a young girl, Mildred, who was undressing her doll in the middle
of the night. Winnie reprimands Willie for not paying attention, then fearfully
questions if he may be stuck in the hole. She remarks on the brief sadness she
experiences after singing. She imagines Shower/Cooker with his woman, both
older, as they discuss Winnie's buried body. Then they fight and leave, still
hand in hand and with their bags. Winnie resumes her story about Mildred, who
dropped her doll when a mouse ran up her leg. Mildred's whole family came
running, but Winnie says it was too late.

Winnie sees Willie crawling toward her in a fashionable
outfit. It
reminds her of the day he proposed to her.

They look at each other through a long pause.

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