Literary Elements In Happy Endings By 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.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury uses the character Mildred to convey how many people in society are discontent, even though they may seem happy. Throughout the novel Bradbury creates many characters that seem satisfied with their life of work and electronics, but Mildred in particular suggests that even one radiating happiness can still be broken and depressed inside.

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

Happiness is a fundamental right that all human beings are allowed to pursue of their own accord by the government. Yet, imagine a society in which all the thinking is done for their citizens, feelings are gotten rid of before they could be felt and it was encouraged to not accept the downsides of life. Throughout the pages of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, he describes the lives of many characters. Specifically their relationship with the emotion of happiness. Bradbury brings to the attention of the reader of whether the characters are happy or distracted. A person cannot be happy if they do are not honest with themselves and if they do not feel or think for themselves. Through the experiences of the characters spoken about, it will be seen how happiness is not felt and lived, because their distractions take place.

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” –Abraham Lincoln.

Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” is not a typical short story. With remarkable brevity, it provides readers a gold mine for discussion on the nuances of relationships and storytelling. Best described as metafiction, “Happy Endings” self-consciously draws attention to its artificiality; it is less a story and moreover an instruction manual on how to write one. From a surface level, the author parodies storytelling conventions. Upon deeper examination, however, the story is actually a satire on on the collective psyche of the middle class. This essay will explore the story’s meaning from these two levels.

From the beginning of our lives, our parents, for the most part, want us to be happy. Pursuing that happiness becomes a goal that we strive for on an everyday basis. In America, it’s the American Dream. People come to this country in search of that elusive happiness. Ever since Thomas Jefferson wrote a very important sentence in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson), our goals have been the same; searching for that happiness no matter what. However, as Ray Bradbury writes, if we focus too much on those aspects that make us

In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury an important theme is happiness. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman whose job is to burn books. Montag realizes the importance of the books he has burned and how happy they can make people. Happiness is a theme because everyone in Montag’s community is looking for happiness, because the people who read books are happy, even though books have been outlawed, and because Montag changes his whole life when he began to question his happiness.

Most people want to be happy. Happiness is what most consider to be the ultimate fulfillment in life. But what is happiness without knowing what sadness is? Can you truly be happy and appreciate life when all you know is good things? In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, everyone seems to be what they think is happy. Clarisse makes Montag question himself if he really is happy. She tells him that you can't feel happiness without beforehand knowing what unhappiness is. Mildred shows that people are empty inside in this society because they don't know real emotions and what it's like to feel them. Faber, Montag, and Clarisse represent how knowledge makes people more “real” and happy with life because it helps them realize what's important in life.

In a story there are many things that come together to form a story that we can all relate too with the setting and any given symbol in the story allowing us to relate too as the reader. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, a story that takes place in the summer where the flowers are blossoming and the grass is bright green painting a story of life and prosperity and by the end the story takes a dark and mysterious turn. “Hunters in the Snow” by Tobias Wolff, a story of three men who are on there way to a hunting trip mid winter where the snow is falling and the heater in the truck is not running, though out the story there selfish attitudes changes the lives around them. In “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates, A fifteen year old girl named Connie egger to be older, and gets herself a stalker by placing her self in a dinner, Arnold Friend represents evil in the foot steps of her house.

"Happy Endings" is a short story written by Margaret Atwood. The story is different than what readers may be used to because it doesn't follow a traditional plot line. Instead, Margaret's story follows an experimental "narrative progression". This type of story progression is a way that an author can manipulate, contort, or obscure the "5 Stages of Plot" structure (Hillard, "Point of View in Fiction"). In this essay, I will explore how experimental "narrative progression" is used in "Happy Endings", how it works in the story, how it relates to the story, and my opinion on experimental "narrative progression" in Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings".

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.

“And they live happily ever after”... We are all familiar with the phrase and have learned to expect the, often times, ‘cliche’ conclusion to a story or movie. Although the predictable endings to most folktales are generally happy, the plots and themes to the stories themselves often contain varied emotions and similarities to other works. Two stories that have relatable similarities between characters and their emotions are Hamlet by William Shakespeare and Cinderella, a fairytale.

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”.

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,