“Another heavenly day.”
This certainly has to be one of the most ironic opening lines in the history of 20th century drama. According to the playwright’s stage directions, the 50-year old Winnie is buried up to her waist in the center of mound of earth. Ironically, if the line actually were delivered with irony by the actress playing Winnie, the entire point of the play would be undermined.
“…a happy day.”
A motif develops for Winnie’s outlook through repetition of this phrase which is preceded with variations such as “going to be” and “will have been” or just a simple present tense “this is.” Once again, this repetition underscores the irony of Winnie’s outlook considering her increasingly unhappy situation. (By Act Two she has become buried up to her neck.)
“Suddenly a mouse ran up her little thigh and Mildred, dropping Dolly in her fright, began to scream—and screamed and screamed”
Near the end, Winnie suddenly begin to tell what seems to be a strangely random story about a five year old girl named Mildred who is playing with a large doll fully dressed right down to underwear. In the early morning hours she creeps downstairs into the nursery and begins undressing the doll when the mouse appears. The story ends with the family rushing in see what was the matter, but it ends only with the words, “Too late.” Some see a Freudian symbolism here while others focus on the “dread” aspect of the young girl’s name. The symbolism is ambiguous to say the least.
“Fear no more.”
"Fear no more!"
Willie, Winnie’s husband, does not have many lines and so it is should be seen as likely meaningful that when two of his lines are the same words (spoken once with extreme irritation and once with violent exclamation) and those very same words are spoken twice by Winnie it is likely there is some greater meaning than might be apparent. In this case, Winnie is making one of the many allusions to other words by other writers in her monologue. This small section of repetition begins with Winnie recalling the entire quote, from Shakespeare’s little-performed play Cymbeline: “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun.”
