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27 January 2018

Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood

Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood was published in the poems collection

Murder in the Dark in 1983 in Canada. American readers could read the poem first in

1994, when it appeared in the collection titled Good Bones and Simple Murders. Since its

publication, Happy Endings became one of the most famous works of Margaret Atwood

because of unusual writing style. It explores several themes, such as beginnings, middle

and endings of various lives of the same characters. The text contains many underlying

themes, such as marriage, love, romance and outcomes for life in middle-class families.

Among the questions raised by readers of the story is “what aspect makes Happy Endings

so fascinating to read and analyze?” Is it always that such stories’ success depends on

happy endings? What if the story ends badly? Is it even possible and realistic for such end

to happen? Did it really happen for someone? How can the difference between endings of

written stories and in real life be compared? This story cannot be perceived as traditional

writing because it depicts the storytelling itself and the newly introduced way of writing

about the art, which is called a metafiction. In traditional sense, the fiction is mostly

about describing the nature of the fiction itself. On the other hand, metafiction in the

Happy Endings was something new to readers because it challenged them, made things

strange and provoked several endings to one story, unlike traditional poems.
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The poem begins very commonly and familiarly to readers with “John and Mary

fall in love and get married” (Atwood ). Despite such simple and somehow inauspicious

start, the story provides the readers with A, B, C, D, E and F scenarios on how it could

develop and end. In some sense, it could be said that the poem is an example for young

writers to learn different options of ending a poem and inspire new ideas for writing. The

following scenarios are described in the story.

Scenario A is the promised to the readers from the very beginning of the story by

a separate quote; it is the “happy end” option for the lives of main characters. As the

author said at the beginning of the story, “if you want a happy ending, try A” (Atwood).

By this, the author shows sentimentality of people looking for easy ways of life. There

are not so many speculations about this version because the development of the themes is

very predictable, and unexpected events rarely occur. The relationship of John and Mary

does not have conflicts and affairs, and it is safe from outside influence. So, there is no

drama, which makes the story more realistic and reflects many relationships in real life.

Scenario B involves adding many complications to the story. The interest in writing is

fueled by depiction of the main characters, the couple, John and Mary, their behaviors

and attitudes towards each other. Their relationship can be characterized as unhealthy and

dysfunctional because the main characters have many arguments and fights with each

other. The husband “merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a

tepid kind.” (Atwood). The writer describes the relationship as one-sided because when

the woman runs down, John is not happy with her and goes to a restaurant with another

woman. This leads to a crisis in their relationship, and the end May dies because of OD,

thus ending the story with anti-climactic conclusion. Scenario C is all about love affairs.
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This scenario is in contrast to the option B because the main characters are having affairs.

For example, Mary meets the 22-year old man named James and goes to dates with him.

The plot reaches its peak when the lovers and caught by John in bed. In the end, he gets

very angry and kills James and Mary and eventually takes his own life: “He purchases a

handgun, saying he needs it for target practice this is the thin part of the plot, but it can be

dealt with later and shoots the two of them and himself” (Atwood). Scenario D is another

option for ending, where the author is more focused on adventures that are unrealistic,

just like the hero himself. It is a survival story with the heroine. The scenario E is not so

much interesting because it uses the same people as characters and develops a

sentimental plot. The scenario F is used by the author for direct communication with the

readers. Atwood writes, “If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary

and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you,” implying the pursuits

are the same, the characters are unimportant (). People have their own dreams and ideal

partnership, but Atwood makes the statement that everything will eventually lead to

death.

According to the author of this unusual story, the one and only guaranteed

conclusion to her poem is the guarantee of death for all people. She writes at the end of

the story, “the only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John

and Mary die. John and Mary die” (Atwood). Since the readers know about the possible

ending scenario, they get bored reading further. Naturally, in some cases readers can

predict the outcome by looking through the middle of the story. For example, if a

character dies in prison, they can naturally assume that he was imprisoned for a crime.

However, if a character dies because of some disease, readers can guess that the person
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got an infection. Therefore the content in the middle may be predicted. Accordingly, if

readers know about the middle, they can easily guess the ending if they told that the first

person killed people and the second had health problems.

On the other hand, if the reader does know about the middle, he cannot guess

about the beginning and ending because the reason an event happened is unknown.

Atwood says that the event is not important, and what are important are the reasons and

how the even happened. These aspects make any story different from others and add a

personal touch.

This story is considered as literature, which is pretty interesting given the fact that

it illustrates differences in opinions. The majority of literature tries to make a particular

point and persuade the reader to think about the subject from the author’s point of view.

This way, the writing can be determined as literature or not. In the case with Happy

Endings, it is different because the reader does not make one particular point and presents

the situation from several angles. In the story, Atwood warns the reader about

sentimentality and fakery and says that the endings are not important by the end of the

day. According to her, the answers to questions “why?” and “how?” are the ones worth

attention and where the interest lies. So the plots are the main purpose of Atwood in

Happy Endings and they represent different scenarios to be selected by readers. But the

author also writes that regardless of their choice the end for each one is predicted long

before they even chosen their way.

The last paragraphs of the story illustrate this inevitable outcome, death. So, no

matter how happy people are with their partners, the life is concluded with the statement:

“Don’t be deluded by any other endings, they’re all fake, either deliberately fake, with
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malicious intent to deceive or just motivated by excessive optimism if not downright

sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die.

John and Mary die. John and Mary die” (Atwood). Another quote by the author may be

used for conclusion to the story: “People cry at weddings for the same reason they cry at

happy endings: because they so desperately want to believe in something they know is

not credible” (Goodreads).

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Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. "Happy endings." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry,

Drama and Writing (1983): 485-491.

"Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood." GoodReads. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

<http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13250990-happy-endings>.