Happy Endings Margaret Atwood

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.

John taking his own life. Irony plays a big role in the novel, pointing out that no corrupted

Happy Endings by author Margaret Atwood is a prime example of the literary device known as “a story within a story”. This short story has six different stories within itself. Due to the broadness of each story within the main story, Happy Endings can be classified as flash fiction. The two main characters, Mary and John have six different scenarios which are labeled A-F.

My first thought when I started reading Imperfect Endings was that it was going to be a depressing story about a selfish woman who planned to end her life, and her loving daughter who was dragged into her mother's complicated life. How wrong I was! It was really about the struggle of a daughter, and the suffering of a mother with their fair share of setbacks. The tension slowly faded when Carter distributed generous intervals of humour in between and at serious points of the memoir. I began to unearth and piece together the messages that were scattered throughout the book. Certain events immediately jumped out at me while others took a bit longer for me to make connection with but I finally got the gist of it. Carter addressed relevant

Orient: A happy ending does not always mean that everything works out perfectly in the end. Authors can compose powerful happy endings through the moral development of a key character.

The end is something anyone can foretell. Sarah gets the dollar bill and tracks John while John gets the book and tracks her all the way to England. They both break off their engagement and later become engaged to each other. This movie represents how the characters end up falling in love with other people, only relying on fate to bring them to one another.

Happy Endings Everyone deserves a happy ending not matter what you have done, or what is done to you. John Steinbeck is a famous author in the 1930’s, many of his books are set in California on immigrants who left home to start a new life out west. One of his books, Of Mice and Men is located on a ranch in Salinas California about two migrant workers George and Lennie and their unusual friendship. George is a quick, witty man and acts as Lennie’s caretaker. On the other hand Lennie is a juvenile, buff giant who can’t remember what he had for breakfast.

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.

The interesting thing about the short story "Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood, is that the story is metafiction. As it states on page 284 in, "this is the thin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with later." Atwood is adding notes within the story almost mocking the point of the story itself. Metafiction literally means the author parodies the main point of the literature. The way Atwood creates multiple scenarios which plot makes her piece of literature very unique from others. She clearly states on 285, "That's about all that can be said about plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what."

“Happy Endings,” written and narrated by Margaret Atwood, takes the appearance of a story where the reader chooses the ending. The short story includes six possible endings for when the characters, John and Mary, meet. However, each ending reverts to A which ends with death. Atwood uses second person point of view to point out the theme of the story. Moreover, the second person point of view helps exemplify the theme that no matter what one achieves or endures throughout life, life will always result in death by the narrator showing all the stories go back to story

There is a rising action ("If you think it is too bourgeois..." etc. (71)), the discriminated occasion ("The only authentic ending is the one provided here..." etc. (71)), and the falling action ("That's about all than can be said for plots... Now try How and Why (71)." The story shows us that life can never be the way we want it to be. The author uses not really kind and simple way to reveal it through John and Mary's story because even life at times gets very rigid and hard.

My first text, The Notebook, has a happy ending for the couple in love in the book and for the readers as well. Allie and Noah overcome many different obstacles thrown at them, however, they find their peace with each other and stay together in love at the end of the book. Allie is forced to choose between another man and Noah, she follows her heart and chooses her true love, Noah. Nicholas Sparks has written this novel in a way which allows for the readers to fall in love with Noah’s character when he is forced to leave Allie. We feel sad and sympathise with him. When the end of the book comes and we read over Allies moment to decide, we almost feel the pressure Allie does in the hope that she chooses Noah. The happy ending in this novel then becomes a happy ending for the character and the reader. My second text, Pride and Prejudice also subverts to the romance genre as Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet fall in love with each other and get married by the end of the novel. Titanic also links closely to my connection as Jack and Rose are together in love, however, Jack dies in the Titanic incident leaving Rose on her own to live her life without him. As we listen to Rose tell her story of Jack's death, we see the very end of the film in Rose’s mind, where she is back on the Titanic and sees Jack. She is reunited with him once and for all in her dreams. All of these romance texts and films end with the

Happy Ending by Margaret Atwood is a truly unique story. This story is unique not because of the dialog, but because of the multiple endings that are within the story. The story follows the life of John and Mary. It is up to the reader to decide the life that John and Mary live. The reader can determine whether or not John and Mary have a happy life together or a complicated life together. However, no madder what choice the reader may chose, the story always ends the same way. Each of the endings results in death.

While being able to escape from our reality can be a good thing, it doesn’t mean that happy endings don’t have a negative effect on us. Most, if not all, books that have happy endings are fiction. Jonathan Gottschall thinks “fiction is dangerous because it has the power to modify the principles of individuals and whole societies” (Boston Globe). This supports that when we read fiction we become gullible, changing our minds at any given

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,