“Great mercies, great mercies.”
And yet, mercy from what? This is the
question we must ask ourselves after having read or watched Beckett's
“Happy Days.” Winnie, unlike almost all other Beckett characters,
focuses almost entirely on the positives of her situation. For most,
being stuck waist-deep in a mound of sand with nothing around but a
purse of random items and a crawling bald man would be considered
more a curse than a blessing. But Winnie perseveres, convinced her
life is a blessing compared to... compared to what?
Examination of this point leads us to
a place that Beckett often likes to go in his writing; a place he
imposes on readers in nearly every work. Winnie is convinced of her
“great mercies” because each of them represents a distraction
from her ever having to face herself and the gravity of her
situation. As long as the distractions last, she is free from the
burden of her own life.
She even finds a way to free herself
from the added weight of her own thoughts. This, she accomplishes
through the sluggish and stoically miserly Willie, to whom she
directs her avalanche of babble throughout the play. Willie
represents any human interaction for our protagonist, but Winnie
abuses human interaction by using her own voice to drown out her
thoughts. This is an idea that Beckett examines in Molloy, Malone
Dies and The Unnamable. “I cannot go on. You must go on. I'll go
on.” The speech cannot end, lest the thinking begin.
Yeah, I think Winnie uses speech to disrupt things that she doesn't want to confront—either her thoughts, like you say, or silence. It's funny that, for a person stranded in a desert and half buried in sand, a mercy isn't a glass of water or a shovel but an opportunity to talk.
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