“Happy Endings” Analysis Everybody dreams of a beautiful life with a partner, some money, children, hobby, job, and death. Love story, revenge story, detective story, mystery story…they all have one thing in common even though the story that is given to us is limited. In the end, everyone dies. In her short story, “Happy Endings’, Margaret Atwood states that regardless of what the person has experienced in life, ending is equal for all people. Likewise, regardless of what the ending looks like, process is the part with true meaning and flavor. The very irony of these two clauses reveals the two-sided world we live in. In doing so, Atwood uses a unique “mutation” of style – metafiction, a conversational tone, same or similar character names, …show more content…
“He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner…which he took them off.” (Atwood 18) and “He doesn’t take off Mary’s clothes…they do the whole thing over again.” (Atwood 18) These compound-complex sentences hint that these series of events that John is experiencing is simply a boring routine for him – something ordinary, blasé, and selfish. In contrast, version B’s Mary is characterized by this ordinary, blasé, and mandatory daily routine, who cannot escape John, “a rat, a pig, a dog” (Atwood 18). This expectation that Mary grabs within her deep heart only makes “Mary [is] hurt” (Atwood 18), but there is nothing that she can do about it because her personality is simply too hopeless, helpless, and submissive, just like her attitude towards her days with John. The short sentences used by the writer such as “…John complains about the food” (Atwood 18) and “Mary is hurt” (Atwood 18) are usually characterizing John’s thoughtless and careless actions, which spears Mary’s tender heart like a bullet. The contrast between his painful actions and words (short sentences) with his infinite selfish actions (long sentences) showcases the cruelty of version B’s John and the helplessness of Mary. Similarly, as the author explains the stories with a similar phrase at the end, “…everything continues as in A”. Atwood does this to show that “happy endings” happen no matter what the process is. At the same time, endings do not matter because “happy ending” will happen no matter what. The repetition of the same phrase emphasizes the “no matter what” part of fate. Mary’s happiness might be Madge’s; John’s happiness might be James’s or Fred’s. Mary might die today, Madge might tomorrow; John might die on the next day, James on the day after, and Fred, ten years from now. The
Mary is still in deep love with John, conversely John only uses Mary for selfish pleasure. In here, Atwood breaks away from the telling of stories from third person to sentences of second. “He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner, you’ll notice that he doesn’t even consider her worth the price of a dinner out…” (96). This interruption is to revert back to the main idea of Atwood talking directly to the audience and informing them of how the character John treats and views Mary, which is complete turnaround from the previous Story A which went into no detail into either character’s thoughts or actions whatsoever. Another form of specific detail gets used through similes.
That man surely won't respect you. In the end Mary kills herself but she hoped John would find her and try to save her but obviously he didn't care and when she passed he lived happily ever after with a woman he was really in love with. It’s sad that Mary went through all of that and didn’t get what she expected but I guess now she doesn’t have to deal with John and the heartache he brought along with him.
Treating the narrator as though she is incompetent and not capable of taking care of herself, John does not care
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.
He tells the narrator time and time again that she is sick. He can be viewed as a very controlling man in which everything must happen his way or not at all. John was a metaphor for the type of society in the 19th century. He is the image of a male-dominated culture where every woman and child had to follow the rules without complaint. The narrator is like a child taking orders from the male doctors in her life, even going on to say, “personally, I disagree with their ideas.”
Although the narrator feels desperate, John tells her that there is “no reason” for how she feels, she must dismiss those “silly fantasies”(166). In other words, John treats her like a child and gives her reason to doubt herself. “Of course it is only nervousness”(162). She decides. She tries to rest, to do as she is told, like a child, but suffers because John does not believe that she is ill. This makes her feel inadequate and unsure of her own sanity.
Pure Love in Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood, through a series of different situations, depicts the lives of typical people facing various obstacles in her short story “Happy Endings”. Despite their individual differences, the stories of each of the characters ultimately end in the same way. In her writing she clearly makes a point of commenting on how everybody dies in the same manner, regardless of their life experiences. Behind the obvious meaning of these seemingly pointless stories lies a deeper and more profound meaning. Love plays a central role in each story, and thus it seems that love is the ultimate goal in life.
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 vision “she does the dishes” (Margaret Atwood 331) is not a fact that will interest the reader, but through this vision, we find out her reasoning “so he won’t think she is untidy” (Margaret Atwood 331). We learn a bit more about Mary’s character and her motivation that in the first story A. “Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer” (Margaret Atwood 331) is a statement that helps us to understand the depth of Mary’s hope and delusion. By using second person tone, the author prompts the story with her own comments, attracting the attention on certain
Mary has never been sick since she married Elton causing her family to disowned her and “she and Elton had quarreled the night before” (65). Mary’s husband is off at somebody else’s farm for the day, far from her and at home Mary is sick, alone, and miserable--her mood reflecting the weather. Berry tells us about their neighborhood of six small farms working together in fellowship and genuine camaraderie. Berry builds a setting in which Mary is happy and feels a sense of belonging which he juxtaposes with an insecurity wrought from sickness and doubt. Mary describes herself and Elton as each other’s half and even in quarrels, their halves yearned towards each other burning to be whole. Berry again juxtaposes, “their wholeness came upon them in a rush of light, around them and within them, so that she felt they must be shining in the dark. But now that wholeness was not imaginable; she felt herself without counterpart, a mere fragment of something unknown, dark and broken off” (79). There is a noticeable shift in Mary’s normal attitude as a result of her sickness and this is emphasized the emotional setting. In the physical setting, Berry uses the stove and the fire to limn her emotional setting, as she goes to bed the fire is burning low but she doesn’t have the energy to bring herself to rebuild the fire. When Mary wakes, Josie Tom has rebuilt the
...ssion and intrusiveness. John’s lack of having an open mind to his wife’s thoughts and opinions and his constant childish like treatment of his wife somehow emphasizes this point, although, this may not have been his intention. The narrator felt strongly that her thoughts and feelings were being disregarded and ignored as stated by the narrator “John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him” (Gilman 115), and she shows her despise of her husband giving extra care to what he considers more important cases over his wife’s case with a sarcastic notion “I am glad my case is not serious!” (Gilman 115). It is very doubtful that John is the villain of the story, his good intentions towards doing everything practical and possible to help his wife gain her strength and wellbeing is clear throughout the story.
Unable to “dismiss the possibility entirely from [her] mind,” (Agee) Mary still believes that “sinking ships have lifeboats,” (Flynn) and that there’s still a possibility of survival. It all boils down to Mary’s uncertainty of the state that her husband is in. She is obliged to consider both options: the one where Jay lives and the one where he dies. Of course, she is going to indulge in the one where he lives—to, even for a moment, relax in the possibility of life over death, of innocence over
Happy endings to stories are often times pre conceived to mean something considered good -- things such as a romantic kiss confirming mutual love, a heroic “saves the day” moment, or a grand victory in an epic battle. However, the notion that happy endings only spur from sentient fortunate events is a misconceived one; in fact, happy endings can also be moral or spiritual, even if the final act closes with death. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, John’s suicide that ends the novel gives him both spiritual reassessment and moral reconciliation as he searches for isolation both for his own sake and for what he believes to be the sake of World State as a whole.
Atwood states near the end of the short story, “You’ll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don’t be deluded by any other endings, they’re all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary died. John and Mary die” (690).
Margaret Atwood’s novel, Survival: a thematic guide to Canadian literature, discusses common themes throughout Canadian literature. Primarily, she discusses how victimhood and survival are an integral part of Canadian writings. Her ideas can also be applied to writings outside of Canada, such as my ISU novel, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. In Atwood's book , she brings forward the concept of four basic victim positions. The portrayal of the protagonist in Lolita, Humbert Humbert, fits Atwood’s 2nd basic victim position.