Margaret Atwood 's Happy Endings

The sadness and unhappiness displayed by both of the married women in “A Sorrowful Woman” and “The Story of an Hour” shows that marriage does not always bring the typical ending of most fairy tales. Thus being living happily ever after. It is evident that both of these women feel trapped in their marriages as many people feel today. Growing up with eight sisters I have also seen this feeling of entrapment in the world as well. In both of these stories the women display such a lack of love towards their spouses and in fact in “The Story of an Hour” it seems as though Mrs. Mallard never really loved her spouse and is the happiest for the hour that she thinks her husband is dead. The woman in “A

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.

     Ernest Hemingway's "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" ultimately leaves us with a paradox. From its opening line, the story defines the marriage of Hubert and Cornelia as a marriage of failure: failure to conceive a child, failure to communicate, failure to have good sex. Indeed, the story's opening image seems the perfect metaphor for the marriage as a whole: "Mr. and Mrs. Elliot tried very hard to have a baby. They tried as often as Mrs. Elliot could stand it" (161). The Elliots' marriage is one of unfulfilled desires-of trying as much as one "can stand it", but never achieving success. Nevertheless the story's final line asserts, "they were all quite happy." How can we reconcile the failures of

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

An individual’s Pursuit of Happiness can be achieved in many ways. Throughout the year we have read a good amount of literature that contains either characters pursuing happiness or the authors themselves showing their own ways of pursuing their dreams. There are always ups and downs, but the end result is people will follow what they believe will make them happy. Whether it is Gatsby following Daisy, becoming rich for her and following her to New York, or it is George trying to find a better life for him and Lennie, the end goal is the same. Even in The Crucible, John Proctor is searching for happiness when he tries to save his family from being accused of witchcraft, even if it ultimately fails. All of these pieces of literature are similar

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.

Mythologies create constructs by which a population's morals and ethics are formed, they also establish standards of women’s behavior and appearance. Margaret Atwood takes these fairy tales and through the use of metafiction critiques these constructs. She writes the stories from the women’s point of view to allow for an expansion of a character that falls outside of the normal one-dimensional depictions. Siren Song, The Little Red Hen Tells All, Happy Endings, Spelling and Lusus Naturae highlight the way in which a female personality is split in mythology to either demonize or infantilize. The dichotomy of good vs evil, that is prevalent among mythological characters, Atwood combats using metafiction as a tactic to humanize women.

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

Humanity’s inherent desire for results and rewards belittles the process of a journey, undervaluing/deprecating the character development that comes within, which notably can be portrayed in Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings”. In her metafictional short story, Atwood includes six different scenarios that are labeled A to F, which briefly describes the characters’ lives, ultimately ending with death. Moreover, the names of characters recur in each scenario, referencing one another throughout the entire short story. Particularly when Atwood’s short story “Happy Endings” was published, people noticed that she was questioning gender roles and Canada’s progress towards equality (Seaman). In recent times, critics see her short story attacking

In Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood, there are six different but uniquely connected stories with the same ideal ending. Each story gives us different characters with very diverse lifestyles, told at different tones and paces, but all ending exactly as the other before. In the end we realize that no matter what details we are given of each character and their life, they always die.

Throughout reading Margaret Atwood’s Happy Endings I was astonished numerous times. Margaret was able to convey many different forms of a relationship and every single one left me feeling frustrated as I realized how brutally true they all are. As I was reading the story I wasn’t understanding to the full extent what Margaret was trying to express until the line “The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.” This nearly gave me chills when I read it as it all come together and I finally understood the meaning of the story and the power of Margaret's words. As I finished the story I was left with a sense of reverence for Margaret as she cut deep exposing how imperfect love really is. I chose to write my response on this story because it was the one that gave me the best initial reaction and I loved the way it made me feel after reading it.

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,

Margaret Atwood uses diction, tone, and flat characters in “Happy Endings” to relay the theme that life is more than just a beginning and end, what motivates a person’s actions and how they make the most of their time on earth is where the true story lies. Atwood uses noticeably unique diction throughout this short story. At times, she writes with minimal evaluation of a character. Other times she develops an intricate storyline with many characters and illustrates obstacles. The author reiterates phrases throughout the story to bore the reader: “John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life… They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging” (1). By using repetitive phrases and bland wording with little detail,