“Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

Introduction

“Happy Ending” by Margaret Atwood was published in 1994 for the American audience. It is in her collection of short stories known as Murder in the dark. Murder in the dark follows four types of work: travel notes, exploratory pieces, autobiographical sketches, and shirt stories dealing with the relationship between the sexes. Happy Ending follows experiential writing style.

The story displays the author's feeling about not only the creative writing but also the artistic way of living life to the fullest. The story breaks the thin wall between the writer and the audience by a unique writing structure that comprises of an outline or a jumbled notebook. This paper discusses “Happy Ending” in relation with the writing style and the relationships. It implies that there are more happy endings yet to be discovered, therefore, the story at hand should not be considered as an end (Atwood, 64).

Examination of the Relationships

Several versions within the story are described. Inversion A, the characters John and Mary fall in love with each other and live a happy life. The version two describes john as a person having an affair with marry for sexual lust. Despite Mary's endeavors, he does not marry her. Out of disappointment Marry dies and john goes out with another lady Madge and lives a happy life as described in version A. in version C john is unable to enjoy his life. Out of despair he commits suicide. The version D displays Madge and her husband living a happy life of the scenario A. However, in the end, Madge's husband dies. The scenarios E and F and F end with the death of marry and john again (Atwood, 20).

The purpose of these contemptuous scenarios is to remind the audience the bitter truth of death as an end. Each scenario creates two main characters named Mary and John. It would be appropriate to call them protagonist since they are the characters which are flat and continuously appear in every individual scenario with the similar names. Hence the readers can assume that there is no mystery involved in the characters, and this simplicity leads to the fact that in the relationships, the destiny does not matter. The only things matter is the journey towards the destinations (Atwood, 22)

Another significant fact mentioned in the story is that at the end, regardless of how people live their lives, they have to encounter death. The author observes that people do not notice this fact, partly because it is not a comforting thought, therefore, as she uses “Happy Endings;' to remind this introspective element. She uses a sarcastic tone to convey the truth of relationships among them characters, which is death. The fundamental purpose is to favor the stretch between the beginning and the end, only then can people make their happy endings.

Varying Criteria for Relationships

The stories have a typical connection, that is, all characters die. When one analyses the stories more closely, it becomes evident that every individual is striving to find love ...