Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Ironic, Bleak, Pessimistic, Optimistic, Hopeless, and Ambivalent
Phew! You may ask, how is it possible to be so many adjectives all at once? Well, take something like Sour Patch Kids. They are both sour and sweet, and this contradiction is exactly makes them so darn good. Happy Days is a bit like that. It offers bits and pieces of the many different emotions we might feel throughout a day, week, or lifetime. Within the bleakness of Winnie and Willie's dreary existence, Beckett finds a way to lighten the mood by inserting bits of hope and sheer persistence, kind of like the sweetness we find after we get over the sour bits of Sour Patch Kids.
Since there isn't any narrator (although at times it does feel like we are simply experiencing events through Winnie) it's hard to say precisely what the tone is. One thing we're certain about, though, is that irony abounds in this play. Just look at Winnie's predicament in comparison with the first words of the play:
Another heavenly day. (1.1)
Really, Winnie, another happy day? How?
This is Beckett's tongue-in-cheek way of saying that even though things are bleak and hard we mostly just soldier on. In that one little snippet we experience the optimism, pessimism, and ambivalence of the entire play.