How It All Goes Down
At the beginning of Act I, we find a middle-aged woman, Winnie, buried up to her waist in the ground of a vast, empty space that has been scorched by the sun. She is completely exposed to the harsh weather; it is always day and it is always hot. Winnie tells us she was not always buried or trapped like this and yet, she never says why she is in this position now. Winnie's day begins and ends with the loud ringing of a bell, which we never see (this bell functions as an alarm clock for waking and sleeping).
She finds comfort in the items she fetches from her bag: a comb, a toothbrush with writing on the side (which she spends a large duration of the play trying to decipher), toothpaste, a half-empty bottle of red medicine, lipstick, a nail file, a revolver, and a music box.
All of these items trigger memories in her life, including moments shared with her husband, Willie, who lives in a hole behind the mound. He is a figure of companionship and frustration to Winnie. Throughout the play Winnie attempts to engage Willie in mundane conversations about ants, hair, and the inscription on the side of a toothbrush.
Act II begins with Winnie now buried all the way up to her neck. She cannot move, but she darts her eyes back and forth, and up and down. The parasol, the bag of goodies, and her trusty revolver all lie on the ground surrounding her head, out of her reach. As in Act I, she continues to draw memories from the objects around her and from Willie's interruptions about what appears in his newspaper.
Although her situation has gone from bad to worse, she is resilient, and is determined to believe that today will be another "happy" day. But the further she metaphorically "sinks" or is "buried" in disappointment and the past, the harder it becomes for her to keep up appearances.
At the end of the play Willie finally appears in a dazzling tuxedo, top hat and mustache, and crawls forward into Winnie's line of sight. He attempts to crawl toward her, possibly in a gesture of love (or is he reaching for the revolver?), but the curtain falls before he can reach her (or the revolver). The play ends with them sharing a look—what that look means, dear Shmoopers, is ultimately up to us to decipher.