Happy Endings By Margaret Atwood Essay

Throughout many of Toni Morrison?s novels, the plot is built around some conflict for her characters to overcome. Paradise, in particular, uses the relationships between women as a means of reaching this desired end. Paradise, a novel centered around the destruction of a convent and the women in it, supports this idea by showing how this building serves as a haven for dejected women (Smith). The bulk of the novel takes place during and after WWII and focuses on an all black town in Oklahoma. It is through the course of the novel that we see Morrison weave the bonds of women into the text as a means of healing the scars inflicted upon her characters in their respective societies.

In her short story “Happy Endings”, Margaret Atwood uses different literary techniques that can alter the interpretation of the story’s theme. The story starts off with a generic “fairy tale” ending in which a husband and a wife live a happy life together and eventually die. However, as the story progresses, Atwood’s style and tone makes the alternate scenarios of John and Mary give off a sense of uncertainty of what main ideas she is trying to convey. Good opening and thesis.

In “Happy Endings,” Margaret Atwood manipulates literary techniques to emphasize how each story can have different plots yet end up with the same ending. She makes the case that, in every ending, the characters finish having a happy ending and “eventually they die” (paragraph 4). She infers that it is the contents between the beginning, and the end that bring interest and challenge to the characters, while the beginnings are more fun. The “true connoisseurs” is an important element because it is what makes up the plot (paragraph 21). The six scenarios of “Happy Endings” introduce differences in the beginning and the middle of the plot but result in the same ending. The plot in each scenario focuses on the significance of understanding how

After reading Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, I could not help but feel shocked and taken aback by the detailed picture of life she painted for slaves at the time in American history. The grotesque and twisted nature of life during the era of slavery in America is an opposite world from the politically correct world of 2016. Morrison did not hold back about the harsh realities of slavery. Based on a true story, Toni Morrison wrote Beloved about the life of Sethe, a slave and her family. Toni Morrison left no stone unturned when describing the impact slavery on had the life of slaves. She dove deeper than the surface level of simply elaborating on how terrible it is to be “owned” and forced to do manual labor. Morrison describes in detail, the horrors and profoundly negative impacts slavery had on family bonds, humanity of all people involved and the slaves sense of self even after they acquired their freedom.

Waverly was going to tell Lindo of her and Rich’s engagement, but whenever she mentioned him, Lindo cut her off and began to talk about something else. Waverly was convinced that her mother did not have any good intentions, and that she never saw good in people. Due to this, she was afraid of what her mother will say when she would meet Rich. According to Waverly, she and Rich shared a “pure love”, which she was afraid her mother would poison. Waverly planned to go to Auntie Suyuan’s house with Rich for dinner, knowing that her mother would then invite the two over for dinner to her house, and this would give her mother a chance to get to know and warm up to Rich. However, when they went for dinner, Rich did everything incorrectly- he didn’t understand Chinese customs and made several mistakes that were seen as

In her novel Beloved, Toni Morrison spins an intricate web between names and numbers for the reader to unravel. The deep connection that lies between names and numbers is a direct correspondence to the identity and worth of black people during slavery. Beloved begins with the identity of the house which is characterized by a number. The house is given a temperament as if it is a living, breathing entity and yet it still referred to as a number. The significance of this is symbolic to the plight of the black slaves. Regarded as little above the common animal, slaves were defined by their selling price, essentially they were reduced to a number. Viewed as nonbeings they nevertheless feel and suffer their place in the south. The character Beloved is similar in this regard as well. All that defines her is an age and a name that remains unfluctuating through time. In an insufferable and cruel world, names and numbers play a critical role in understanding the identity of black existence in the South. To uncover the implications and nuances that names and numbers play will be instrumental to delving into the lives of black slaves. Beloved contains a vast amount of names and numbers and the connections between them deepen the novel and provide mammoth insight into understanding and interpreting Morrison’s work and purpose for juxtaposing such elaborate bonds between names and numbers.

Fahrenheit 451 is a novel of little happiness. Society as a whole has become content with watching television and wasting away their lives, while a few individuals ponder the true meaning of life and happiness. Bradbury throughout the book depicts what our world could become, and almost sends a warning to the reader on how to avoid this unfriendly fate.

Foucault, on one hand, believes that this motif turns that individual into a labeless subject being

In “To Read like a Writer” Mike Bunns introduces how writing is “a series of choices” with an account of his past as an employee at a theatre. As he was trying to concentrate on his reading, he had an epiphany that literary works are all “a series of choices”(Bunns 72). He then transitions to his main claim of how reading like a writer allows for the reader to determine whether or not to adopt the same style as the piece that the text may have. He breaks this down into subsections that readers need to observe before they tackle the writing, such as context, genre, and publication. Additionally, he points out the necessity to makes notes while reading the

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.

Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning book Beloved, is a historical novel that serves as a memorial for those who died during the perils of slavery. The novel serves as a voice that speaks for the silenced reality of slavery for both men and women. Morrison in this novel gives a voice to those who were denied one, in particular African American women. It is a novel that rediscovers the African American experience. The novel undermines the conventional idea of a story’s time scheme. Instead, Morrison combines the past and the present together. The book is set up as a circling of memories of the past, which continuously reoccur in the book. The past is embedded in the present, and the present has no

From the film The Joy Luck Club, Chinese girls were supposed to act obedient and respectful to their parents and elders. This included the girls having to abide by each and every Chinese tradition that their parents instilled in them. Girls were also expected to be quiet and considerate to their parents and elders. They were only supposed to speak when spoken to at all times. Acting out against anything their parents enforced upon them was completely unacceptable.

Nine patriarchs found a town. Four women flee a life. Only one paradise is attained. Toni Morrison's novel Paradise revolves around the concept of "paradise," and those who believe they have it and those who actually do. Morrison uses a town and a former convent, each with its own religious center, to tell her tale about finding solace in an oppressive world. Whether fleeing inter- and intra-racial conflict or emotional hurt, the characters travel a path of self-isolation and eventual redemption. In her novel Paradise, Toni Morrison uses the town of Ruby and four broken women to demonstrate how "paradise" can not be achieved through isolation, but rather only through understanding and acceptance.

Would you put your own life at risk to save someone else? What if they had a low chance of survival, and it was likely that the both of you would die? Many people would say yes. Ultimately, one has to look at this situation through the lense of an ethics approach, and which one is best for the situation. The short story “Bread” by Margaret Atwood describes different ethical dilemmas in which the reader is given different scenarios in which they must make a choice that can only come by deciding what their ethics are. Five different ethical approaches are described in the article “A Framework for Thinking Ethically”, which describes the meaning of ethics and the different viewpoints surrounding the topic. Out of these different approaches highlighted in “A Framework for Thinking Ethically”, the utilitarian approach along with the virtue approach would be best for solving the dilemmas presented in “Bread”.

124, a spiteful, grey and white house on Bluestone Road, a home where many reminisce details of their brutal and inhumane treatments. Many in which are unable to accept their past and look into their future. Toni Morrison concludes the novel “Beloved,” with an inconclusive phrase, “It was not a story to pass on...This is not a story to pass on,” suggesting the path of the characters to come. Throughout the novel, Beloved, the ghost of Sethe’s murdered daughter and a representation of slavery, forces the characters to recognize the pain from their past before they can work through it. Her presence causes Sethe, Denver, and Paul D. to come to terms with themselves before she disappears. These characters might try and forget Beloved but the