Pure Love in Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood

766 Words2 Pages

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. Love, however, is not

the only factor that creates and maintains a relationship. Love has

the power to bring people together, but can also break them apart. In

addition, it can lead to irrational decisions with terrible

consequences. In this short story Margaret Atwood shows the powerful

effect that love has on people’s lives.

At first glance, the short stories in "Happy Endings" have a common

connection: all the characters die. After a more detailed examination

of the stories, however, it becomes evident that each individual is

striving to find love. Though love is a universal goal, each person's

criteria for a meaningful, fulfilling and loving relationship varies.

This is clearly demonstrated by the different situations in which the

characters find themselves. The conventional, stereotypical, and

almost cliché demonstration of love can be seen in stories A & D,

where the characters simply "fall in love and get married". Love is

portrayed as effortless, and is a natural, rewarding, and mutual

...

... middle of paper ...

...uld not have been so profoundly shaken by Mary's

relationship with James. John was so upset by their relationship that

selfishness consumed him: he did not consider his family when

murdering and committing suicide. His own needs became his priority.

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.

Works Cited:

Atwood, Margaret. Happy Endings.

Show More
Related

  • Navigating Love By Amy Harmon Summary

    1675 Words  | 4 Pages

    The purpose of the article “Navigating Love and Autism” by Amy Harmon is to emphasize that autistic people can achieve love, even though the struggles of autism are present. In this article, Jack and Kirsten both have autism and are working to build a dating relationship. For Kirsten and Jack, being comfortable is a huge aspect in their relationship. After their first night together,

    Read More

  • Love and Hope in film Life is Beautiful and novel Night

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    "Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, we feel that we are greater than we know."- William Wordsworth. As stated in this quote, when we have something to hope for, and someone showing us love, we are capable of many things. In the movie Life is Beautiful and the book Night love and hope are the only things that keep the characters alive. This is shown through Elie and his father's relationship when his father reminds him of his fundamental feelings of love, compassion, and devotion to his family. Then Elie and his father look out for each other in hope to make it out the concentration camp alive. Love and hope are also shown in the movie Life is Beautiful when Guido and his son were taken to the concentration camp. Here, Guido's love for his son Josh, kept him alive. Dora, Guido's wife, shows persistent hope which ultimately leads to being reunited with Joshua. In both stories the hope that of rescue and the love that for each other gets the main characters through terrible times.

    Read More

  • Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine a time where every detail about your life (credit score, personality ranking, “hotness” ranking, etc.) was available to anybody around you through something similar to the present-day iPhone. Now imagine this world being reality. In Gary Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story, this idea is reality. Everybody in the world has an äppäräti, and everybody knows everything about one another. But is knowing everything about your friends and neighbors really a good thing, especially when the world around you is crumbling because of this knowledge? Perhaps it isn’t. As Bertrand Russell, a British philosopher, once said, “In all affairs, love, religion, politics, or business, it’s a healthy idea, now and then, to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for granted.” The relationship between Lenny Abramov and Eunice Park, the main characters of Super Sad True Love Story, could have used a question mark on how culture, media, business, and technology impacted their personal relationships throughout the book.

    Read More

  • Love And Passion In Laura Esquivel's Like Water For Chocolate

    502 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love and passion are themes that are brought up regularly in Laura Esquivel’s novel Like Water for Chocolate. These two themes are most often seen represented in the couples within the book. When these themes are seen, however, they are seen as separate with love and passion never mingling. The romances in the book, especially Tita’s, are always seen as having either love or passion, but never passion in a love-filled relationship or vice versa. To have both love and passion in a relationship is seen as impossible until Gertrudis arrives back on the scene after she ran away. Gertrudis’s relationship with Juan is the seamless mix of passion and love, the right amount of desire and tenderness that all other characters seem to have a severe lack

    Read More

  • All Kinds Of Love by Carolyn Jaffe and Carol H. Ehrlich

    3448 Words  | 7 Pages

    Throughout the course of our lives we will experience the deterioration of a loved one due to illness or aging. This may cause us to make a choice of how and where we choose our loved one to die. Authors, Carolyn Jaffe and Carol H. Ehrlich, in their book All Kinds of Love, illustrate how the relationships between doctors, patients', family, friends, hospice volunteers, and hospice nurses all play an important role during he patients last days as they try to reach a "good death". In the book's foreword, Rabbi Earl A. Grollman comments on Jaffe's history of nursing experience and states "Her stories bring alive the concerns, the surprises, the victories, the disappointments, the mistakes, the uncertainties, the joys, and the pain that are part of one's dying" (1, p. v).

    Read More

  • Ends In Katherine Mansfield's 'A & P'

    1263 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever experienced a day where nothing goes right? The story “A&P” written by John Updike is one of a teenage boy named Sammy who quits his job in hope of impressing some girls --- only to find they neither cared nor listened. “Miss Brill” written by Katherine Mansfield is a story about an elderly woman named Miss Brill who goes to the park to observe people; her evening is ruined when some kids make fun of the way she 's dressed. Miss Brill and Sammy started their day motivated, as the stories went on their moods shifted because their actions were affected by other people 's opinions. But sad endings don 't always have to be sad, there 's a lot a reader can learn from them. Sad endings are more memorable than other endings because there is a feeling of uneasiness left for the reader. It is also more realistic that people don’t have a perfect day or the hero gets what they wanted. Updike and Mansfield use sad endings to further the theme of disappointment.

    Read More

  • The Other Side Of Desire By Daniel Bergner

    1829 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sexuality is very diverse, in some instances normality is based on the cultural context of the individual 's society. In "The other side of desire" by Daniel Bergner, the author goes in depth into the lives of four individual 's whose lust and longing have led them far down the realms of desire. The current paper addresses the four individual 's Jacob, the Baroness, Roy, and Ron each exhibits a paraphilia that may or may not meet the full criteria in the DSM-5. Furthermore, each person’s specific paraphilia is conceptualized and explained in depth. Countertransferential issues anticipated before working with these individuals is analyzed and clarified. Also, the apprehension of sexual arousal and sexual behaviors is conceptualized into normality

    Read More

  • Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood

    1363 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Progress of Love by Alice Munro

    1590 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Progress of Love by Alice Munro Plot: Woman gets a call at work from her father, telling her that her mother is dead. Father never got used to living alone and went into retirement home. Mother is described as very religious, Anglican, who had been saved at the age of 14. Father was also religious and had waited for the mother since he first met her. They did not have sex until marriage and the father was mildly disappointed that the mother did not have money.

    Read More

  • Happy Endings By Margaret Atwood Essay

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Margret Atwood's work Happy Endings, we are presented with a series of different storylines in which Atwood portrays the lives of normal people going through real life problems throughout the short story. Despite insignificant differences, the story of each of the characters ends the same way, in death. Atwood makes a clear effort to comment on how everybody dies in the same manner, regardless of life experiences or financial stability. These stories all have one central theme in common, love. Atwood makes it seem like love is the ultimate goal in life to readers by making all storylines grounded around this one central theme. As we see in the short stories depicted love can also lead to irrational decisions that lead to terrible consequences. Atwood, who narrates the short story, introduces four characters to the readers, John, Mary, Madge, and James. Along with the characters Atwood introduces six alternate storylines all in which result in "the only authentic ending … [death]" (293). The story altogether is an illustration of the idea that the ending of the story could always be the same, but it's the middle or the struggles and strife in between that matter. Atwood's point is to focus the reader(s) on the importance

    Read More

  • True Happiness In Brave New World, By Aldous Huxley

    1524 Words  | 4 Pages

    Happiness is a trait that has definitely lost its true meaning due to superficial, materialistic extravagances. Society today has created an image of what happiness entails, and now there are many different ways to try to achieve that image. However, the question then becomes: is happiness, as a result of things like sex, drugs, consumption, real happiness? Is it better to feel fake happiness than to experience the drudgeries that come with living a sober life? In the novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, the whole society is built off of a precedent of fake happiness. The people take drugs to cover up their true feelings and individuality. Citizens are supposed to feel content with their lives and the society around them. In both the brave

    Read More

  • Happiness In True Love By Wislawa Szymborska

    583 Words  | 2 Pages

    After reading “True Love” I have concluded that Szymborska is trying promoting true love to the people who don’t believe, by stating the positive aspects to make people live a happier life. In the poem “True Love” by Wislawa Szymborska, it is obviously talking about true love such as how it happens, and when people are in love or a relationship. She uses a continuous form of sarcasm of people who do believe in true in love, and those who do. This making her a believer, creates an argument about the belief of “true love”. She promotes it by speaking from both sides of the argument including the people who don’t know exactly what true love is. Another method she uses is by expressing how true love happens, involving the emotions and impacts that it can create on a person’s life.

    Read More

  • Love by William Maxwell

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    Love has many definitions and can be interpreted in many different ways. William Maxwell demonstrates this in his story “Love”. Maxwell opens up his story with a positive outlook on “Love” by saying, “Miss Vera Brown, she wrote on the blackboard, letter by letter in flawlessly oval palmer method. Our teacher for fifth grade. The name might as well have been graven in stone” (1). By the end of the story, the students “love” for their teachers no longer has a positive meaning, because of a turn in events that leads to a tragic ending. One could claim that throughout the story, Maxwell uses short descriptive sentences with added details that foreshadow the tragic ending.

    Read More

  • The poem The Lover by Don Patterson.

    813 Words  | 2 Pages

    This is in such a tone, that it is suggesting that a higher being is

    Read More

  • The Lover's Tale

    1498 Words  | 3 Pages

    Whan that the goode Wif of Bathe hadde hir tale ytold, with ful light herte thought she, “Whan that I go again from Canterbury, Sekirly shalle I have a soper at the cost of alle.” Anoon a yonge lovere saide in parfit Englisch, “Lordings, now leten me tell the tale of most solas and best sentence.” The young lover paused for a moment: “Surely the tale would be much more enjoyable if we stop with all the Middle English.” The pilgrims nodded in agreement, wondering why they had not decided upon this earlier, and the lover continued, “Now, permit me to tell the most pleasant and meaningful tale.”

    Read More

More about Pure Love in Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood

Open Document