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Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” is an Author’s telling of societal beliefs that encompass the stereotypical gender roles and the pursuit of love in the middle class with dreams of romance and marriage. Atwood writes about the predictable ways in which many life stories are concluded for the middle class; talking about the typical everyday existence of the average, ordinary person and how they live their lives. Atwood provides the framework for several possibilities regarding her characters’ lives and how each character eventually completes their life with their respective “happy ending”.
At the outset, Atwood gives the reader an exceedingly basic outline of a story with characters John and Mary in plotline A. As we move along to the subsequent plots she adds more detail and depth to the characters and their stories, although she refers back with “If you want a happy ending, try A” (p.327), while alluding that other endings may not be as happy, although possibly not as dull and foreseeable as they were in plot A. Each successive plot is a new telling of the same basic story line; labeled alphabetically A-F; the different plots describe how the character’s lives are lived with all stories ending as they did in A. The stories tell of love gained or of love lost; love given but not reciprocated. The characters experience heartache, suicide, sadness, humiliation, crimes of passion, even happiness; ultimately all ending in death regardless of “the stretch in between”. (p.329)
At the beginning of the story, in plot “A”, John and Mary are introduced as a stereotypical happy couple with stereotypically happy lives of middle class folks. Words like “stimulating” and “challenging” are used repetitiously to describe events in thei...
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...ation of men and women to the reader; we accept the cliché’s and gender-roles as the collective standard.
Atwood’s “Happy Endings” retells the same characters stories several times over, never deviating from clichéd gender roles while detailing the pursuit of love and life and a happy ending in the middle class. The predictability of each story and the actions each character carries out in response to specific events is an outline for how most of us carry on with our lives. We’re all looking for the house, the dog, the kids, the white picket fence, and we’d all like to die happy.
The stories suggest we shouldn’t be spending so much time trying to get to the “Happy Ending”, and we should be more concerned about what’s going on in the middle. The majority of us are that typical person living the typical life, and perhaps Atwood is suggesting that we strive for more.
It is then, when Gatsby emerged from F. Scott Fitzgerald. A true character of 1920’s America, the parties, the young-money, the helplessly in love, the pursuit of happiness. Darrin McMahon’s “In Pursuit of Unhappiness” explores the topic of seeking felicity and encountering barriers that we would not preoccupy ourselves with if we existed in an otherwise empathetic society. “Secular culture since the 17th century made "happiness," in the form of pleasure or good feeling, not only morally acceptable but commendable in and of itself.” (para. 4). As this quote exemplifies, there is a cultural notion of happiness being expected to be our default state of being. Due to this ingrown conception, we are riddled with the demand of forcing our path to contentment, as Gatsby, a character dumbfounded by a love he thought unmatched with a young debutante,
All the stories were very similar, in that they all end the same way. The message, in my opinion, that Atwood was attempting to tell was that there are many different ways to the end. The ideal route to the end that we all wish it is to "have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends... have hobbies which [we] find stimulating and challenging." and eventually die happy and together with the one we love and cherish the most. Most of us know that the odds of this ever happening are very slim, plus when telling a story this version has the potential to be quiet boring. Therefore Atwood analysis life and creates different variations that are presented to you which made you wonder, "What if...", and therefore gives you the reader, the opportunity to look at your life and ask yourself that same question.
Innocence, happiness, success, and optimism, are all characteristics of human kind. A cure for cancer is superior to the elimination of physical abuse and suicidal death’s. A result to have all people treated equally appreciated and loved. Is it a possible gesture? It may not happen in our lifetime, but if powerful and caring individuals join forces, it is possible to draw conclusions. To live the dreams and allusions each identity performs and has a reality to people and society. Within the three novels, Ellen Foster, A Virtuous Woman, and A Cure for Dreams, all written by the author Kaye Gibbons, each character from different novels struggles to face reality and find the correct path that will lead them to the right direction in life. While coping with the endless pain, Ellen, Jack, and Betty have only hope to lead them into the direction they encounter to approach. A fate in their lives can change forever. In addition, keep their “depressing days” only a memory so that they will become successful. All characters are determined to overcome their obstacles and misery through hope, courage, and inspiration.
The couples in “Happy Endings,” are comprised of John and Mary, John and Madge, and Madge and Fred. They all show the view of society on middle-class values. Both partners of the relationship hold good jobs where they make good money, allowing them to live luxurious lifestyles. The different versions of the story also mimic clichéd romance novels, they share similar plots and the overrated happily ever after ending. However, Version A differs from the other versions because the couple is not faced with tragedies and obstacles that they have to overcome. In order to show that romance leads to death, Atwood uses the characters and parodies of typical romantic
Love caused his logic and sensibility to fail him, and provoked him to commit monstrous acts that destroyed many lives. Through analysis of “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood, it can be concluded that one of her many intended lessons was to show the value and the powerful effects of love. Atwood successfully proved this lesson by using powerful examples of both successful and disastrous relationships to illustrate the positive and negative effects of love. Atwood truly demonstrated what it is like to follow your heart.
...the narrator and all people a way of finding meaning in their pains and joys. The two brothers again can live in brotherhood and harmony.
The story Happy Endings is a meta fiction. This format works well in portraying the various archetype of men and women in relationships. Both men and women are portrayed in a realistic light and are portrayed from the stereotypical to the unimportant. There is a difference of the portrayal of the characters in the different parts.
Stories have been told far and wide, for thousands of years, all following a critical archetypal formation. The specific formation or formula in which a story’s “hero” or protagonist must comply with has been coined by Joseph Campbell as the Hero’s Journey Formula. The journey is made of three rights of passages: separation, initiation, and return. While surveying, each passage shows a way of the character being separated from their known environment, leading them to a path of discovery and growth, much different than their commonplace. In the short story “The Storm”, Kate Chopin addresses the intricacies of marriage and traditional roles, by introducing the character Calixta. Following the life of Calixta within the storm, it is easy to detect how the confinement of marriage and the way in which it can thwart a person’s loyalty, resulting in infidelity, is associated with Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey.
Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
All in all, Chris McCandless is a contradictory idealist. He was motivated by his charity but so cruel to his parents and friends. He redefined the implication of life, but ended his life in a lonely bus because of starvation, which he was always fighting against. Nevertheless, Chris and the readers all understand that “happiness only real when shared.” (129; chap.18) Maybe it’s paramount to the people who are now alive.
The philosopher Aristotle once wrote, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” This famous quote compels people to question the significance of their joy, and whether it truly represents purposeful lives they want to live. Ray Bradbury, a contemporary author, also tackles this question in his book, Fahrenheit 451, which deals heavily with society's view of happiness in the future. Through several main characters, Bradbury portrays the two branches of happiness: one as a lifeless path, heading nowhere, seeking no worry, while the other embraces pure human experience intertwined together to reveal truth and knowledge.
Curley’s wife is a complex, main character in John Steinbeck’s novella, “Of Mice and Men”. She is introduced as an insignificant secondary character, but evidently posses the importance of causing the end of the novella. Despite the weight of her role, her value is hindered because of the culture towards women in the 1930s. Steinbeck uses imagery, foreshadowing, and metaphors to show loneliness analyzed through a Feminist Lens.
The stories setting takes place in Western Colorado. In Western Colorado in a home of a retired nurse named Annie is where the whole story takes place. Annie's home is a two story log cabin out in the middle of nowhere. The closest neighbors are miles away. It takes place in the middle of winter snow storms.
In the story “Two Kinds”, the author, Amy Tan, intends to make reader think of the meaning behind the story. She doesn’t speak out as an analyzer to illustrate what is the real problem between her and her mother. Instead, she uses her own point of view as a narrator to state what she has experienced and what she feels in her mind all along the story. She has not judged what is right or wrong based on her opinion. Instead of giving instruction of how to solve a family issue, the author chooses to write a narrative diary containing her true feeling toward events during her childhood, which offers reader not only a clear account, but insight on how the narrator feels frustrated due to failing her mother’s expectations which leads to a large conflict between the narrator and her mother.
In ‘Happy Endings’ by Margaret Atwood there were six life scenarios that were giving and some had remarks. In the first scenario A it was about John and Mary meeting they eventually got married. They got a house together that went up in value. They had two children together. They had a really challenging sex life and friends that were barely around. They enjoyed life together went on many vacations together, And eventually died. Atwood said this to say that John and Mary had a pretty good life and they lived together faithfully until they die. To other writer’s they may see this as saying that they had a good life that they enjoyed together and they went through everything including hardships and still remained strong. To me I feel that it’s