Happy endings margaret atwood pdf

Though Mary loves John, John "merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind. After John eats the dinner Mary cooked, has sex with her and falls asleep, she stays awake to wash the dishes and put on fresh lipstick so that he'll think well of her.

There is nothing inherently interesting about washing dishes—it's Mary's reasonfor washing them, at that particular time and under those circumstances, that is interesting.

In B, unlike in A, we are also told what one of the characters Mary is thinking, so we learn what motivates her and what she wants. Atwood writes: You can also see from this passage that the language in version B is more interesting than in A. Atwood's use of the string of cliches emphasizes the depth of both Mary's hope and her delusion. In B, Atwood also starts using second personto draw the reader's atten In C, John is "an older man" who falls in love with Mary, She doesn't love him, but she sleeps with him because she "feels sorry for him because he's worried about his hair falling out.

In short, Mary is his mid-life crisis. It turns out that the barebones outline of the "happy ending" of version A has left a lot unsaid. There's no end to the complications that can be intertwined with the milestones of getting married, buying a house, having children, and everything else in A.

In this version, Fred and Madge get along well and have a lovely life. But their house is destroyed by a tidal wave and thousands are killed. Fred and Madge survive and live as the characters in A. Version E is fraught with complications—if not a tidal wave, then a "bad heart. As Atwood writes: It doesn't matter whether it's Fred's bad heart or Madge's cancer, or whether the spouses are "kind and understanding" or "guilty and confused.

Every version of the story loops back, at some point, to version A—the "happy ending. She's led the reader through a series of attempts to try to imagine a variety of stories, and she's made it seem within reach—as if a reader really could choose B or C and get something different from A. But in F, she finally explains directly that even if we went through the whole alphabet and beyond, we'd still end up with A. On a metaphorical level, version A doesn't necessarily have to entail marriage, kids, and real estate.

It really could stand in for any trajectory that a character might be trying to follow. John has never taken Mary to a restaurant. Mary collects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them and a half a bottle of sherry. You can see what kind of a woman she is by the fact that it's not even whiskey. She leaves a note for John. She hopes he'll discover her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then they can get married, but this fails to happen and she dies.

John, who is an older man, falls in love with Mary, and Mary, who is only twenty- two, feels sorry for him because he's worried about his hair falling out. She sleeps with him even though she's not in love with him. She met him at work. She's in love with someone called James, who is twenty-two also and not yet ready to settle down.

John on the contrary settled down long ago: this is what is bothering him. John has a steady, respectable job and is getting ahead in his field, but Mary isn't impressed by him, she's impressed by James, who has a motorcycle and a fabulous record collection. But James is often away on his motorcycle, being free.

Freedom isn't the same for girls, so in the meantime Mary spends Thursday evenings with John. Thursdays are the only days John can get away. John is married to a woman called Madge and they have two children, a charming house which they bought just before the real estate values went up, and hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging, when they have the time.

John tells Mary how important she is to him, but of course he can't leave his wife because a commitment is a commitment. He goes on about this more than is necessary and Mary finds it boring, but older men can keep it up longer so on the whole she has a fairly good time. One day James breezes in on his motorcycle with some top-grade California hybrid and James and Mary get higher than you'd believe possible and they climb into bed. Everything becomes very underwater, but along comes John, who has a key to Mary's apartment.

He finds them stoned and entwined. He's hardly in any position to be jealous, considering Madge, but nevertheless he's overcome with despair. Finally he's middle-aged, in two years he'll be as bald as an egg and he can't stand it. 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.

Madge, after a suitable period of mourning, marries an understanding man called Fred and everything continues as in A, but under different names. Fred and Madge have no problems.

They get along exceptionally well and are good at working out any little difficulties that may arise. But their charming house is by the seashore and one day a giant tidal wave approaches.

Real estate values go down. The rest of the story is about what caused the tidal wave and how they escape from it. They do, though thousands drown, but Fred and Madge are virtuous and grateful, and continue as in A. Yes, but Fred has a bad heart. The rest of the story is about how kind and understanding they both are until Fred dies. Then Madge devotes herself to charity work until the end of A. If you like, it can be "Madge," "cancer," "guilty and confused," and "bird watching.

If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you. Remember, this is Canada. You'll still end up with A, though in between you may get a lustful brawling saga of passionate involvement, a chronicle of our times, sort of.

You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality.

The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with. That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what. Open navigation menu. The bandits die. Well, all except one that had his hood on the entire time.

That turns out to be King John's most trusted advisor. Mary was meant to die because she refused to help the advisor overthrow the King. Mary moves into the castle at King John's urging.

She becomes a castle witch, helping with cures for illnesses and whatever else the gentry need. The advisor stays quiet. Neither John or Mary know what the advisor has in store for them, until it is almost too late.

They are married because they also realize they have fallen in love. Mary and the child dies in labor; John kills himself with no heir apparent to the throne. The family line ends there. The only true ending is John and Mary both die.

Not right away, of course, but they do die and thus their story ends. As Ms. Atwood states in this short story, "True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with," plot is the most important part of a story.

It's also the part most writers hate the most as it's very difficult to keep going at when writing. It becomes exhausting. You want it to end. You want to cheat your readers and yourself and wrap it up half way through the second major battle with, "And Mary and John both get a sword to the chest and die.

The End," but you don't. You keep going because you have to. Look at how many trilogies are put out instead of longer series. No matter what choices any of us make, in the end, the only thing we have guaranteed in life is that we will all die.

We do not get to have a picture perfect life all the time. If you're lucky, you get moments "Life is made of moments, many worth exploring"- Yes, Into the Woods quote, had to that are picture perfect and that is illustrated in this short story.

Every novel that has become popular follows a formula no matter the genre. As writers, we can try to not follow formulas, but as time goes on, it becomes more and more impossible and unlikely that you shall find a unique narrative. It is neither bad nor good; it just is. It's a realization most readers and writers eventually have and, eventually, most of us at least, get over it.

We realize we still love anything to do with word craft despite there maybe not being anything new because a story can still grasp us and teach us something new about ourselves. What did this short story teach me? That every single writer and most readers go through the being jaded with everything to do with it phase. It's almost become a right of passage, it seems, to hate everything about a particular craft that you do truly love.