SOURCE: Thomas, Jacqueline. “Happy Days: Beckett's Rescript of Lady Chatterley's Lover.” Modern Drama 41, no. 4 (winter 1998): 623-34.

In the following essay, Thomas studies Happy Days for evidence of a subtext influenced by D. H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover.

The importance of Beckett's use of literary references in Happy Days is well established.¹ The juxtaposition of truncated yet recognizable fragments of literature provides a frame of reference for the erudite reader or spectator to appreciate fully—at least subconsciously—the irony of the characters' speech and situation. In his manuscript study of the play, Stanley Gontarski lists fourteen allusions identified by Beckett and the stages at which they were deliberately added.² However, Beckett did not acknowledge a significant literary source that resonates throughout Happy Days: D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Subtle echoes of Lawrence's novel provide a hitherto unexplored perspective from which to interpret Happy Days. Unlike the...