In Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings”, the plots center around the two major protagonists, who are John and Mary. The central themes of the story are about marriage and romance. In every version of the story, the main protagonist will get married and live happily ever after with their partner on the end. No matter how many obstacles the main protagonists have faced in the story, they never give up on finding their loves and live a happy life with his or her partner. Therefore, the protagonists in the story is like a hero that have faced many difficulties before they can find their true love and also like a fairy tale which the prince and the princess will always live together happily ever and after. “Happy Endings” is a romantic type of love which includes plots that usually comes up in heroine novels. In Atwood’s version A of the story, the plot begins with the two main protagonists John and Mary fall in love with each other and gets married. Atwood uses the phrases “stimulating and challenging” three times to emphasize the happiness in their lives (326). Even though their happiness is not explained in the details and has nothing to do with the readers, it is still romantic enough …show more content…
Loving someone can always bring you happiness; therefore, in version C, John is an old man who has a wife named Madge but falls in love with the twenty two years old Mary. However, Mary does not love John and the only reason she sleeps with John is that she pities him. Murder and having affair always happens in the romantic novels. John, who really loves Mary and could not stand that she’s sleeping with another man, so he murders both of them and then he chooses to shoot himself as well (328). But all the romantic and fairy tales usually have a happy ending; therefore, John’s wife, Madge, marries to a man named Fred and they live happily ever
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
During a time of lost hope, death and war, the `golden thread', Lucie Manette plays the roll of a heroine doing everything she can to make sure the important people in her life are loved. Lucie provides not only warmth toward her father, Dr. Manette, but also towards the man that yearns for Lucie's love; Sydney Carton. Despite all the negativity that surrounds Lucie and her loved ones, she doesn't fail to lead her father and Carton to rebirth.
The main character tells us that she has a nice family that consists of her husband John and a little baby, but John does unusual things that someone would not expect in a normal marriage. She says, “John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.” (Gilman 647). Men back then did not treat or think highly of women due to men being more superior than them. John also seems to complain
In fact, I am glad the book ended with the focus on the character of St. John instead of with Jane or Rochester, as it hints to us that the importance of the book is not about finding the right person, falling in love, and living happily ever after. The theme of this book is about following your conscience. In this regard, Jane and St. John both did the same thing in this story: They both had strong, driving consciences; they both were tempted but pursued their course; and they both found a satisfying life in the end. This book is not about developing a relationship with a romantic partner, but about developing a relationship and learning to follow and live in tune with your own moral conscience.
To start things off by focusing on John, his character had completely dominated over his wife by putting her in a more inferior position. The narrator thinks, "John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that" (Gilman 544). John treats his wife's problems as a laughing matter because he doesn't take her beliefs seriously and as it is implied, a woman's problem isn't seen as something of high importance since laughter is an expected response. This is justified even more when the narrator would tell him about the wallpaper, "He laughs at me so about this wallpaper!...He said that after the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead...and so on"(546). As a man, he would see his wife's dilemma with the wallpaper as childish despite her sensitive mental state, it didn't seem like a high priority to him so he casually disregards his wife's demands. The idea of the narrator being deemed as a child and immature is much visible when John calls her a, "...little girl"(550). Ultimately John's ignorance is what leads to his loss of control along with the narrator's freedom. T...
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.
The stories suggest we shouldn’t be spending so much time trying to get to the “Happy Ending”, and we should be more concerned about what’s going on in the middle. The majority of us are that typical person living the typical life, and perhaps Atwood is suggesting that we strive for more.
In Margaret Atwood’s short story, “Happy Endings,” the central theme of fiction provides several different kinds of marriages and relationships that ultimately result in the same ending. The “Happy Endings” shows that it’s difficult to have complete control over day-to-day events. No matter how hard society tries to achieve the perfect life, it does not always go as planned. It doesn’t matter if the characters are bored and depressed, confused and guilty, or virtuous and lucky; the gradual path of version A is not always in reach.
As the story begins, the narrator's compliance with her role as a submissive woman is easily seen. She states, "John laughs at me, but one expects that in marriage" (Gilman 577). These words clearly illustrate the male's position of power in a marriage t...
During the era in which these stories were written, marriages were an economic arrangement which had very little to do with love. In both stories, the couples seem to have an ideal marriage, which eventually turns to aloofness. This could be that ending a marriage during this time was unheard of.
In Margaret Atwood’s Happy Endings, the main characters, John and Mary lives are explored through many different scenarios that include their lifestyles, lust, and love. In each scenario, the writers placed the same characters throughput each setting but with a different plot. In scenario A, Atwood describes to the reader a perfect couple who fall in love and get married, they have children and live happily together this is the beginning of the "happy ending." This first scenario is wonderful, but I feel like the author wanted to make it dull at the same time. Atwood is able to create scenario A as an unimaginative situation. She is trying to connect the reader with these characters, but in the first scenario there is very little that we know about the couples lives. The only information we have on John and Mary is that their children turn out well and they are devoted to them, they go on vacation together, they have an interest in the same hobbies and they retire. When she uses the term “stimulating
As the poem begins, Sexton starts with how the Prince and Cinderella are living happily ever after, but compromising the original naïve direction, she gives the poem a modern context bringing the reader back to reality. While it is obvious to the audience the discrepancies in Sexton’s version, it brings out many jealousies many of us struggle with, such as wealth and everlasting happiness. Sexton makes her audience notice early on many of the pre-conceived notions and expectations we bring to fairy tales. Sexton knows that real life gives no reason to be perceived as happiness, because why learn something that will never amount to use in reality? This tale is Sexton’s answer to her audiences of the “happ...
It is sad that three of the marriages in the novel ended up as unhappy
Now that we have a little background on the author, we can take a closer look at the actual work and its characters. The two main characters of the story a narrator and her husband, John, and the story takes place in the 19th century. Life for the two is like most other marriages in this time frame, only the narrator is not like most other wives. She has this inner desire to be free from the societal roles that confine her and to focus on her writing, while John in content with his life and thinks that his wife overreacts to everything. Traditionally, in this era, the man was responsible for taking care of the woman both financially and emotionally, while the woman was solely responsible for remaining at home. This w...
Historically, women have been seen as the weaker person in the bond of marriage. Throughout the story, the narrator is degraded in various ways due to the ramifications of engaging in this institutional practice. First, she mentions many instances where John has been erroneous, insensitive, or abusive, but is unable to vocalize any disconnect for fear of repercussions. “He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures” (271). The narrator feels as if John is a hindrance to her being beca...