Mary Atwood stated in her short story “Happy Endings,” “You’ll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it.” This quote reflects from a short story that gives the readers interest with several different scenarios with different plots that leads up to the same ending each time, death. This causes the title “Happy Ending” to become irony within itself because there is really no happy endings, just the same. The beginning even gives the readers the choice of starting with A to get the feel of what really is the true Happy ending. In many cases people choose the scenario A not because it provides a happy ending but because it is the first scenario on the list and it is only right to start with the first one. But as you read all of scenarios you’ll find some to be quite similar within the plots but different at same time. However, the most important factor is how it ends.
The two characters both fall in love and get married, have good jobs, charming houses, two children who turn out well, go on vacations, have hobbies, and retire. Everything that they do is “stimulating and challenging”, this phrase also becomes very repetitive throughout this short story because it gives the reader the knowledge to know that some of the characters do things that aren’t boring but some of their actions do not match up. Although scenario A is all good and the idealistic expectation of a happy life, they eventually die. That 's the end of the story for A. This is considered the happy ending because the life of both John and Mary is smooth sailing but as we move on to the other scenarios you’ll find that the plot gets more interesting and the characters face more conflict which leads us to the next scenario which is
In these two stories both of the main character have there happy ending at the end of the story. In the short story ‘Ashputtle’ after all she has been through her evil family and her mother dying at such a young age. Ashputtle finally got the happy ending that she was hoping for: “On the day Ashputtle’s wedding.” (Straub 858) This quote shows out of her her evil step sisters the prince finally found out Ashputtle is the girl he has been looking for all along. Ashputtle finally had the wedding she has alway
“The Lost Children of Wilder” is a book about how the foster care system failed to give children of color the facilities that would help them lead a somewhat normal and protected life. The story of Shirley Wilder is a sad one once you find out what kind of life she had to live when she was a young girl. Having no mother and rejected by her father she has become a troubled girl.
The tragicomic Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, is generally considered one of the most important pieces of the modern LGBTQ canon of literature. The graphic novel tells the story of Alison Bechdel’s attempt to find the truth about her father’s sexuality and what lead him to possibly commit suicide. Along the way, Bechdel finds her own sexuality. Bechdel’s choice to write about her and her father’s simultaneous journey to finding their sexuality was revolutionary at the time. Very few authors were writing openly about their own sexuality, and something even more revolutionary that Bechdel addressed was mental illness. It’s unexpected so late in this story, on page 137, that Bechdel would include a lengthy section discussing her childhood Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Why
In the book Cycle of Hope, Tricia Downing went from a competitive cyclist to a paraplegic in a matter of minutes. After spending the summer competing in multiple cycling races, Downing is back home enjoying the sunny autumn day riding her favorite route with her friend, Matt. Together, they go for a bike ride sightseeing and appreciating the beauty of the city. As they reminisce about their enjoyable summer, a car appears out of nowhere, and crashes into her. After landing on her back, Downing recalls that something feels terribly wrong; consequently, this woman becomes paralyzed from the waist down. The author uses the strength, courage, and determination learned as a competitive athlete to overcome her disability.
The unknown is commonly something that people fear, but what happens when intelligent individuals dare to uncover the facts within it? The answer to this question is that remarkable discoveries are made that change human knowledge, technology, and health forever. Possibly the most beneficial of these discoveries are the ones involving the betterment of human health. Doctors and scientists are often viewed as the most intellectual people in the world’s communities, but they are still human and therefore prone to error. However, Morton A. Meyers’s book Happy Accidents: Serendipity in Modern Medical Breakthroughs explores the various positive outcomes that arose from human error. Specifically, Meyers writes about the diverse serendipitous breakthroughs
Gail Godwin's short story "A Sorrowful Woman" revolves around a wife and mother who becomes overwhelmed with her husband and child and withdraws from them, gradually shutting them completely out of her life. Unsatisfied with her role as dutiful mother and wife, she tries on other roles, but finds that none of them satisfy her either. She is accustomed to a specific role, and has a difficult time coping when a more extensive array of choices is presented to her. This is made clear in this section of the story.
In the essay Why Happiness, Why Now? Sara Ahmed talks about how one’s goal in life is to find happiness. Ahmed begins her essay with skepticism and her disbeliefs in happiness. She shows her interest in how happiness is linked to a person’s life choices. Ahmed also tries to dig deeper, and instead of asking an unanswerable question, “what is Happiness?” she asks questions about the role of happiness in one’s 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.
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...
Although their love has endured through many years, it has come to an end in the story. All throughout the story the couple is reminiscing about their life and while they are there are some odd details that are strewn throughout.
There is a old time saying that “you will never know what true happiness feels like until you have felt pain”. In order to reach where you are going in life you have to go through hardship and pain to find your inner contentment. Often times,people who have too much in life always takes it for granted ,because all they have is pleasure and not knowing the feelings of pain and being without. Martha C. Nussbaum author of “who is the happy warrior” states that you have to go through pain to find the true meaning of happiness while Daniel M.Haybron author of “Happiness and Its Discontents” states that pain doesn 't bring happiness,happiness is just a thing you feel when you think you may have enough. To find happiness you have to go through the unbearable process of life.
Grief Girl is a novel written by Erin Vincent about her and her sibling’s experience of losing both their mother and father. Vincent was only fourteen years old at the time of her parents’ death. The chapter goes into detail about the events of the night of Vincent’s parents’ death. Based on the chapter, I can conclude that Vincent definitely went through at least two of the stages of grief. The fact that the novel is nonfiction helps me connect with the emotions that Vincent felt that day. Her details are extremely vivid and it is recognizable that Vincent recalls the events from that day very well.
Are you more of a glass half-empty type of person or a glass half-full? In the essay “Happiness is a glass half empty” writer Oliver Burkeman would say he is a glass half empty type of person. In his essay he writes, “Be positive, look on the bright side, stay focused on success: so goes our modern mantra. But perhaps the true path to contentment is to learn to be a loser” (Burkeman). I think what he means in this statement is people nowadays are taught to always look on the brighter side of life. When in actuality people should be looking on the negative side of life to realize how great their lives really are. In this essay writer Oliver Burkeman uses rhetorical devices such ethos, pathos, and logos to prove that maybe being negative
The ending of Mary Anne’s story could have been beautiful and civil to her, but ugly and chaotic to you, and that was her liberation.
In the free verse poem "When death comes" by Mary Oliver, the speaker contemplates what the inevitability of what death means to humans. Structurally, the poem bears no rhyme scheme as it depicts the free thought of the speaker. The voice of the speaker in this poem resonates with curiosity and the idea of life after death. Through the utilization of rhetorical devices such as repetition, alliteration, symbolism, and personification, the reader will come to understand that underlying tone that death is imminent regardless of how one 's life is spent. Within the poem, the source of tension resides in the constant internal struggle to oust the cycle of life and death. In some instances, Oliver’s curiosity and acceptance of death allows her to