Happiness

An account of my theater experience is centered on the claim that all the plays we have watched, deal with the subject of happiness and the pursuit of happiness. In this paper I attempts to argue that writers and directors play an important role in depicting and in giving interpretation to the erroneous idea of happiness. My attempt is to convince that although the writer reflects the culture of his own time or he envisions the culture of a different time - past or present, he still depicts characters' pursuit of happiness in a conscious fictive intention to illuminate the concept. Through the conveyed opinions of characters, retrospective narratives, exchange of conversations and actions they experience we learn not only about their similar struggle to ours for happiness but also we are given the opportunity to hone our own talking and thinking skills regarding the subject. Subsequently, we will discuss the concept of relating it to the happiness of human nature. Happiness, in this sense, will have to go hand in hand with what is man without mutilating it or reduce it to one of its parts as has happened in some philosophies that exalt more or corporeal or spiritual detriment of its complement (Veenhoven, 330 - 343l).

Thus, beyond the Aristotelian Catharsis the depicted complex human situations in the course of search for happiness, which the writer articulates, stir in the emotions within us that can guide our future pursuits. The imagined and watched role play of the characters let us experience and integrate our own beliefs, feelings, and desires once in our awareness. Through the fictional world he creates, the writer helps us transform our beliefs into more stable worldviews, fix our fleeting feelings into permanent attitudes, focus our desires into solid intentions and plans (classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html). This exhibition intends to provide a broad understanding of human happiness, which should not maul the essence of man, that is, what constitutes the human being as such.

In my analysis of “Strange Interlude” and “The perfect American” I point how the writer's carefully chooses his characters' words and behavior to reflect a certain approach to happiness. Their journey manifests a particular belief or philosophy toward happiness and can be seen as a role-play, a theatrical /literary enactment for real life behavior whose underlying ideas of happiness are rendering our identification and emulation.

In Strange Interlude, particular the audience sense Eugene O'Neill somewhat plastic mold in representing with each character a different outlook of happiness. Sam Evans epitomizes the search for happiness as had been etched in the declaration of independence and is a central theme in American culture.  He symbolizes the insurance for the pursuit of happiness. O'Neill's play of 1920s followed world war I, and witnessed the Russian revolution resonates the beliefs of the time - enlightenment legacy that sees happiness as a responsibility of the individual and his subjective choice can be won through personal initiative rather than brought by a government. Sam typifies this path. He develops to a happy ...