Surprised that so many seem sure he's talking about death. Into the Woods' isn't about wishing for death, it's about the fact that to live is inescapably to live with desire, that living with desire is painful ("Agony"), that no desire becomes real without consequences, and that in life desire is inescapable even when one's earlier desires are achieved.
What the Baker does think about, what he wishes for is the ability to run away from his desire-dependent and desire-consequent pain and suffering. The Witch has just been able to escape her worldly pain by distributing the beans and returning to her previous state of ugliness (resigned to exactly the state she had wanted to escape from; this time, however, unlike before, leaving "the World" to its to their own devices). The Baker, like his father before him, would like to escape his pain as well. To run away. Not to death. But to the illusion of living relief that all run aways run to.
Yes, everyone is concerned with death at this point in the show. People are dying all around them, and they could be next.
But the happy day the Baker is wishing for is not death. It is the day in which one can be content and not live in a state of deprivation and desire, i.e. a state of wishing for that which one doesn't have and that which one is convinced will relieve the pain and suffering of not having it.
Until that nirvana-like day arrives one can't ignore all the dreaded consequences (see list) that come from living in a state of desire. Which is what the entire show is about.
Which is why he wants to run away.
There is no such day. There is no such life. There is no such escape.
Updated On: 12/27/14 at 09:25 AM