Happy Days Literary Elements

Dramatic play

English

The time when the action of the play takes place is not mentioned. However, we can pinpoint the place where the action takes place as being a place which can hold a lot of sand, most probably a beach.

Because this is a play, there is no narrator and no point of view. Every character recalls the events from a first period of time. Still, because one character, Winnie, is the one who is responsible for uttering almost all lines we can argue that she is the narrator of the play.

In the first act, the tone and mood is lighthearted and positive, Winnie maintaining her positive attitude. This changes in the second act when the tone and mood becomes much darker and even depressing at times.

The protagonist in the play is Winnie and the antagonist is her husband Willie.

The conflict is extremely difficult to pinpoint namely because it is not extremely obvious. Still, the major conflict could be considered a being an internal one, the result of an unhappy marriage.

The play reaches its climax when Willie manages to get out of the hole and approach Winnie who still remains buried to her neck.

The apparent death of Winnie is foreshadowed in the first act when Winnie takes out of her bag a revolver which she puts near her.

We find an understatement in the first act when Winnie claims she is happy despite the circumstances she finds herself in. this however is an understatement as in the second act Winnie begins to break down and to admit she is not happy.

One of the thing alluded in the second part of the play is the possibility that Winnie was killed by her own husband who managed to get out of the hole and come near to where Winnie was situated.

The most important imagery appears in the beginning of the first act, when Winnie is described as being buried up to her middle in the earth. Despite this, Winnie does not appear to lament her state but rather accepts it and tries to make the best of it. This image has the purpose of transmitting the idea that anyone can adapt to their current situation and find happiness, no matter what.

One of the paradoxical elements which can be found in the play is the way in which Winnie continues to care for her husband even though he appears to be uninterested in her.

No parallelism can be found in the play.

We find a personification in the first act when Winnie presented her revolver and described it as speaking to her.

We can find few dramatic devices used in the play, most of them consisting of stage directions regarding the place where the character were placed, the objects around them and some description regarding their manner and actions.