Happy Endings By Margaret Atwood

Nearing the conclusion of the story Atwood changes the tone saying: "The only authentic ending is the one presented here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die." At the end of every person's life, regardless of how they lived it or what they experienced, they will encounter death. Atwood recognizes that society tends to not think about death because it is not the most comforting of thoughts, and uses the title "Happy Endings" to give the reader the opportunity to be reflective.

In comparison to scene A, John and Mary have a “stimulating and challenging sex life” (paragraph 3). While in scene B, the sex life of the characters is more descriptive, as Atwood states that John “fucks her [Mary] and after that he falls asleep” (paragraph 5). There is a shift in tone between these two scenarios. For example, in scenario A, the tone appears to be so optimistic and positive that it is almost impossible to believe that everything is going well with a smooth ending. With this over-positive tone, Atwood inserts an instance of hyperbole where she repeats John and Mary’s lives being “worthwhile” and “stimulating and challenging” to suggest a fairy-tale like story. Within this optimistic tone, a positive diction is also witnessed, throughout the story, when Atwood mentions words like “remunerative,” “worthwhile,” “charming,” “well,” and “fun,” to give the audience a sense of perfect life. At the end, both eventually

The ends of the story are very different from each other in quite a few ways. Let just say there is a good ending in one story and a bad ending in another. Lets go deeper

The denouement occurs with each main character with their own page with a close up of their happy face and sunshine and flowers and colours with a happy connotation. The picture book closes with Mr. happy saying that he didn’t know such a place as Miseryland existed and little miss sunshine replying with ‘there isn’t!’

From a surface level, Atwood parodies the unrealistic simplicity that fairytale-like stories present. As children, readers are accustomed to stories with happy endings; two people fall in love, any problems are solved, and all of the loose ends are tied up in the end. As these readers become adults, however, they realize that life is not

     There is a pervasive notion in fiction that the work must have a happy ending. That

Chapters 32-43 (XXXII-XLIII) pages 165-220: The Rescue and Happy Endings: Realism vs. Romanticism, Reality vs. Imagination

As we grow up we all hear stories. Stories of wizards, elves, dwarves, and little men who hunt for rings, or stories of wars in far off galaxies. Or even of caped crusaders, who always seem to win against all odds. Regardless of the genre of the story, they all have one thing in common - a happy ending. An ending in which everything ends up all right, the hero wins, and the villain is defeated. But as we grow up, we see that in real life there are no such things as perfect storytale endings. Despite this, we still tell ourselves stories of hope, stories of utopia, and of dreams of a better place. We pass these on to children, and to all the subsequent generations that will succeed us. But after the devastation of human caused World Wars, countless mass genocides,the losses of millions of lives, and massive impact on such a

Story A of Happy Endings, is the ultimate story of love. Everything is smooth throughout the whole story and both characters are happy and live happy lives. We as the readers find out that John and Mary go on “fun vacations” and that their children “turn out well”. This is by far my most favorite story out of all six. I find it interesting and funny that Atwood uses

Happy Endings is an oddly structured, metafictional story; a series of possible scenarios all leading the characters to the same ending. Atwood uses humour and practical wisdom to critique both romantic fiction and contemporary society, and to make the point that it is not the end that is important, it is the journey that truly matters in both life and writing.

In the story “Happy Endings” the author Margaret Atwood gives 6 scenarios in alphabetical order from A to F of how a couples life could play out over the span of their lives. In these six scenarios Atwood uses satire to emphasize how interchangeable and simple each couples life is. In this story Atwood uses character, style, and point of view to chastise the desire for the everyday common life and the concern for only the “whats” in life and not “how or why”.

In “Happy Endings” the main symbols are how the relationships end –be it cheating, age, or health complications. Cheating is symbolic of the relationship being dominated by only one person involved in it. Age is symbolic of both partners sharing or being equal in the relationship. Lastly health complications are a way of saying that fate, be it good or bad, can be involved, or that not everything works out according to plan. These are all related to the idea that by placing a dominant person in the relationship

The idea of a happy ending, to the common person, is the cliche ending of a story in which the protagonist gets the damsel, saves the world, and survives near death. However, this is a very simple way to look at the concept of a “happy ending” and neglects the grand scheme of things, just as there are more complicated equations in mathematics as one progresses in school, there are more complicated elements in a story as we look to dig deeper into literature. A story that has a complex happy ending is Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the story of a man seeking revenge on his family that has caused him much despair. If we look at this play in a simple manner, we will probably not look at the ending as happy ending as our beloved characters die,

Every story that begins must eventually come to an end, and that is true for both literary and commercial fiction. In literature, there are three types of endings an author can provide within their writings: a happy end with the protagonist’s conflict resolved, an indeterminate end where the resolution is inconclusive or undefined, or an unhappy end where the conflict is not resolved at all. These three types of endings can be found in both types of fictions, with literary fiction characteristically possessing unhappy endings, and commercial fictions ending more on a happier note. In Tobias Wolff’s story of “Hunters in the Snow”, the author clearly depicts an unhappy end resulted through his characters, conflict, and overall story

Arguments for the position held by Atwood with respect to the perfect ending to a work of fiction can be drawn from the societal relationships such as marriages and romantic affairs. These relationships are perceived as beautiful and comes with a form of fulfillment, thus should have a beautiful ending. Life should be easy and relationships should be successful. The ‘happy ending’ adopted by Atwood is an illustration of how easy life should be and how successful relationships such as marriages should turn out. She