Happy Endings By Margaret Atwood Essay

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

Their "charming house" is right on the beach and they undergo a near-death experience when a tidal wave hits. Although the diction in this storyline is seen as bland and hollow, Atwood continues the story of Fred and Madge in storyline E. However, "Fred has a bad heart." (292) Atwood continues the stereotypical gender roles when she mentions, "Madge devotes herself to charity work until the end of A [death]. If you like, it can be ‘Madge,' ‘cancer,' ‘guilty and confused,' and ‘bird watching'" (292). Implying that now the male figure in her life is gone she is no longer able to go on and will spend the rest of her days lost without a man to guide