Margaret Atwood

These two stories were also very different, they were written in different views. The second story was written in first person, it told a story about a past experience. The first story was very general, it related to many women readers,

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 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

Weaknesses: He won’t ever be able to decapitate someone’s head off with an axe, though seriously he isn’t made for being in melee combat. While he ironically is a tad durable than what you would expect for a mage, Jared is nonetheless a dedicated supporting character who resists direct combat unless around his allies. He is vulnerable to electric magic, (in fact he has a phobia of lighting,) as well as Earth magic. Also he can be tempted and corrupted into becoming a dark mage and/or becoming evil.

At first, John from “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Leroy Moffitt from “Shiloh” seem completely different from each other. John is a physician who only believes in what he can physically see, while Leroy is a man lost in his own life, looking for a purpose. John’s wife is very dependent on him, whereas Leroy’s wife Norma Jean has her own life. However, the two seem more alike than first appears. If we compare John and Leroy, we can see both stories demonstrate how husbands can drive their wives away by being too restrictive of them.

The irony of each story came to light at the close of the writings. The ending turned out to be something totally different than what it would initially have thought to be, because of how the narratives

The narrators in the two stories both possess similar traits, but some aspects of each narrator are distinct. In “The Tell Tale Heart,” the narrator is

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

In class I read two completely opposite stories. The titles of the stories were The Run and An Unexpected Trip. In these two stories they are completely different but, when you think about it, they are not that different at all. One of the stories starts off like everything is okay and well while the other doesn't and starts off in a way that something is wrong and an emergency is impending doom. It is in a rural if it were Tennessee or Texas and they are leaving. That is what happens in the short story called the run. In the other short story, however, it is called An Unexpected Trip and what happens is that a girl named Sarah has to go somewhere with her family far far away and when she goes there she keeps hearing

John holds on to hope the whole book until he reads how the Amylix wasn’t able to stabilize the Alzheimer patients. John starts to cry after finding out, because this is basically the final straw. It was his last ditch effort and in knowing it failed it symbolized that he failed and that Alice was doomed. This forced him to admit to himself that the women loved and cared so much for was no longer there and will never be there again.

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 use of character, style, and point of view that Atwood uses to write this story gives you a real feeling of pity for these characters, only having horrible lows or average highs in their relationships. It appears that there is no great place to be in her story. Reading this story for the first time, the reader could assume Atwood has an obsession with bad relationships, boring average marriages, and death. The key to understanding what the author is trying to convey is realizing how the stories all link together and how they all lack the essence of excitement and desire. The author brings the idea that without focusing on the “how and why” of life and only focusing on the “what, what, what” will leave you with an average

Atwood, in the end, says that the only authentic ending is “John and Mary die.” Every other ending is contrived. All stories, at least in real life, end in death. All other endings are fake since “happily ever after” does not include the horror of loss and death.

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,

I like to read stories that have good endings, but some of the finest lessons we can learn come from stories with unhappy endings.