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Elizabeth Venegas Hernandez

Professor Ditch

English 114A

2 April 2019

Happy or Not?

“The secret of being happy is accepting where you are in life and making the most out of

everyday”- unknown. In the book The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary

Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows, the book discusses two characters, Elizabeth and Dawsey.

Elizabeth and Dawsey are both from the island of Guernsey during the time of the German

occupation. Elizabeth These two characters are considerably happy people in the book.

Elizabeth was a very happy and upbeat person that did not let anything negative influence her

life. While Dawsey is a shy person who was surrounded by happy people that made his life so

much sweeter. They come off as happy because of their cheerful and happy characteristics and

the loving influences that they had in their life. Although the two were not so happy in their

earlier life they did have a good life over all.

Elizabeth was a main focus in the story although she never was alive during this time.

She had a very cheerful personality that made the occupation a little more tolerable to some of

the islanders. Elizabeth’s childhood was not an entirely happy though, her mother, who was a

maid to a man named Sir Ambrose, passed away when Elizabeth was 14 and she stayed with his

after this. She willingly stayed on the island with her best friend Jane when it was clear that the

Germans were taking over the war. She did not want to leave her best friend even though she had

the chance to, because her friend was about to give birth and she wanted to be there for both, her

friend Jane and her father. Even Jane’s father. Elizabeth knew what she was getting herself into
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when she stayed on the Island but her charismatic characteristic would not let her. After

Elizabeth’s child was born, Elizabeth was sent away to a concentration camp for hiding a

prisoner, while in the prison she was able to befriend a girl that she had cheered up, but was later

sentenced to be killed after beating an overseer while trying to defend a fellow prisoner. Even

after all these negative events in her life Elizabeth was able to bring joy to many people and

contain the positive mindset she had.

Elizabeth had a certain loving characteristic that enabled her to spread happiness and

laughter to many people during the war. Elizabeth choose to stay in Guernsey when she had a

chance to escape because she did not want to leave Jane. While the kids were being evacuated

Elizabeth was getting Eli ready to leave however Eli was sad. To try and cheer him up she gave

him a pin that meant so much to her and told him that that pin would give him courage which he

believed. Elizabeth also volunteered at a hospital where she helped cheer up a patient who had

to get her head shaved due to scabies. Elizabeth would turn her treatment into a game by naming

“the names of every women who had ever suffered under the blade. ‘Mary, Queen of Scots-

Snip-snap!’ (Shaffer144).” Although the patient was in pain, Elizabeth was able to heal some of

the pain by bringing in some laughter and joy into the process and made the process more

tolerable and less humiliating. Elizabeth knew that although her patient was in pain that she can

still bring a little laughter back into her life by using the little songs and games that she used

when cutting the scabies off her head. This humor that she had helped many people not only like

this patient, she also helped Remy who was in the concentration camp with her. Elizabeth made

Remy happy while they were locked away in the concentration camp. Remy remembers the good

times she had with Elizabeth and described them as “In the bunks, the air we breathed was

weighted with sickness and filth, but when Elizabeth spoke, I could imagine the good, fresh sea

air and the smell of fruit in the hot sun(Shaffer180).” Elizabeth turned any negative situation into
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a positive one, which relates to Sonja Lyubomirsky’s article “How Happy Are You and Why?”

In the article Lyubomirsky discusses how it does not matter what events happen in your life to

feel happy for happiness comes within one's own mindset. Lyubomirsky states in her article that

“the reality is that the elements that determined our happiness in the past, and can make for

future happiness, are with us right now and are right here waiting to be taken advantage of...no

matter how positive and stunning, actually have little bearing on our well-being

(Lyubomirsky185-186).” She is saying that you do not need to connect to past experiences to

feel happy because you will only be happy if you find it inside you and not by waiting for

something to show up. Elizabeth is proof of this article because even though she grew up most of

her life without her family and she had countless hardship's, she still managed to have the caring

and loveable personality that she had.

Although one can argue that Elizabeth was not a happy person due to her past

experiences with her mom, her husband passing away and her having to leave her child. Even

though Elizabeth was left an orphan after her mother passed away, the love of her life having to

leave her and passing away shortly after while she was pregnant with their daughter kit, and

worse when she was forced to leave her daughter Kit while she was sent to a concentration camp

where she eventually died while protecting another prisoner. Even though these experiences

would put someone’s spirit down this connects to Mattieu Ricard’s article “The Alchemy of

Suffering.” This article illustrates that people will suffer at one point of their life. Although

Elizabeth did have many negative events in her life, she was not a negative person and her events

were normal tragic events that can happen to anyone during that time. There is so much death,

crimes, hunger or even small problems in someone’s life that it is inevitable for someone not to

experience suffering. Elizabeth’s suffering was a natural part of everyday life and did not impact

her overall personality of being a very nice companion and loveable nature.
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Someone who was as equally happy as Elizabeth was Dawsey Adams. Dawsey was

happy in my opinion despite being a shy and quiet character. He was an islander all his life. For

most of his life he grew up with a stutter and was very quiet and shy, especially after the early

deaths of both his parents. He was one of the first members of the Guernsey Literary and Potato

Peel Pie Society when he went to a dinner to eat a secret pig his neighbor had hidden. Although

he did not talk to most people, he made various friends in the literary society. Although Dawsey

was very shy he was very kind to the rest of the islanders and hard-working, working on his farm

and in various houses that needed maintenance. Dawsey soon fell in love with Juliet who he

would frequently mail to.

Dawsey’s happiness may not be shown much throughout the book due to his quiet nature,

his shy nature soon becomes vague close to the end of the book which could be due to people

like Elizabeth and the literary society, Christian Hellman, Juliet and Kit. Elizabeth was a

complete of Dawsey an which is why she forced him to befriend her. She was a positive aspect

to his life because she involved him into the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. The

literary society allowed Dawsey to connect to the islanders during the German occupation. The

society and reading soon became a haven for many of the islanders including Dawsey. A

surprising friend that Dawsey made was Elizabeth’s boyfriend Christian Hellman. Hellman

became friends with Dawsey after he helped him carry up water after he was struggling. Many

people find this surprising because Christian was a German soldier but as Duncan Barrett said

when he interviewed islanders for his book Hitler’s British Isles “While there were a few real

Nazis – individuals committed to national socialism and Hitler – the majority of Germans on the

island were just ordinary soldiers who wanted to go back to their homes and families,” like

Christian who was a very nice person since he helped Dawsey, Elizabeth and many other people

on the island. Reading in the club was a positive event in his life because it allowed him to meet
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Juliet. Dawsey’s happiness may be brought out more due to Juliet’s visit. While she was there,

he seemed more confident and more social that the islanders were even surprised by this change

of mood. He wrote to Juliet after reading a book that she had previously owned. While Juliet

was on the island, she and Dawsey would often spend many afternoons together exploring

Guernsey. Dawsey and Juliet eventually fell in love and married Juliet after a few months of

back and forth mailing. Although Dawsey can be portrayed as happy in this story, many people

can argue that he was far from happy. After Elizabeth was taken from the island to the

concentration camp, he and the other islanders would help take care of Kit, Elizabeth’s daughter.

Dawsey loved spending time with Kit as she brought happiness onto the island after Elizabeth’s

incarceration. Kit loved spending time with Dawsey as well, before Juliet came along she and

Dawsey would spend countless afternoon together.

Although Dawsey was a happy character in the book, there are people who can argue that

he is not because of his quiet and timid past. Dawsey lost both his parents at a very young age.

He grew up with a stutter and low social skills. He was a very anti-social person who hardly even

talked to his next-door neighbor or who even had friends. Many people may say that he would

have been depressed because he spent most of the time alone.

However in the article “The Alchemy of Suffering” by Mattieu Ricard in which he brings

up a point from Buddhism in which he states “according to Buddhism, suffering will always

exist as a universal phenomenon, but every individual has the potential for liberation from

it(Ricard 37).” Ricard's point proves that although everyone suffers it does not mean that they

will have a horrible life but rather it was just an unfortunate event. Ricard's article helps to prove

that Dawsey was happy in his life and the negative events were normal unfortunate events.
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While both Elizabeth and Dawsey are considerably happy character in the island of

Guernsey. While they both led two completely different lives on the island, they both were

happy due to their attitudes and the positive people that they had in their lives. With Elizabeth’s

happy and contagious personality and Dawsey’s caring nature they were able to not be to down

during the occupation. Although they both experienced the loss of loved ones and with Elizabeth

not surviving the World War they were still considered to be happy people.
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Work Cited

Dinning, Rachel. “Life Under Nazi Rule: The Occupation of the Channel Islands.” History

Extra, History Extra, 7 August 2018, http://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-

war/life-under-nazi-rule-the-occupation-of-the-channel-islands/.

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy Are You and Why?” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Mathew

Partiff and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/ St.Martins, 2016, pp.179-197

Ricard, Mattieu. “The Alchemy of Suffering.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Mathew Partiff

and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/ St.Martins, pp. 34-41.

Shaffer, Mary Ann and Barrows, Anne. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Dial

Press, 2008