Happy Endings by Margaret Atwoods Essay

Every literature tries to make a specific point. A good writer always associates her opinion, ideas and thoughts in her or his masterpiece. Some produce literature are purely for entertainment stressing that life is funny and humorous, some include many ironies highlighting that life is complicated and hard to understand, some literature especially those classics are for the purpose of political movement portraying the kind of values and morality the society has, some are for the purpose of religion and spirituality and some literature was made to emphasize creativity or unconventional way of creating a literature. Happy Ending by Margaret Atwoods  was used by her to portray what makes a literature genius, more authentic and interesting. Most readers consider a literature ‘nice’ if the ending satisfies them and satisfaction is always in connection to happy ending, giving a social justice to the characters’ predicaments especially of those protagonists. However Margaret Atwoods illustrates in her short story that it is not the end of the story that is important but how well the beginning especially the middle were structured. How and the characters’ circumstances happened are more significant than what happened in the end. The creation of â€Å"Happy Endings† by Margaret Atwoods is not so much about the how the story ends. The writers give different options on how the story might end and the various possibilities of John and Mary’s love story. The story is divided into six possible life scenarios of John and Mary’s love story. Atwood sums it up in her concluding remarks. â€Å"John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die. † On plot A, it offers the classic boy meets girl story that demonstrates the usual â€Å"live happily ever after† ending. This is the type of story that most readers wanted to believe in. However the succeeding version breaks away from the cliche of fairy tales, introducing a more realistic perspective in the midst of dominance, tragedy and cynicism. The point is that the writer compels and reminds us to the basic reality of life, that every body dies and that everybody fades away- that is the real and ultimate ending for every human being. Margaret Atwoods is particularly stressing that the readers should not seek the satisfaction on the ending because the ending will not help them to relate about life because all lives has the same ending. In order to fully embrace the importance of literature, one must critically meditate on how and why the characters commit a particular action and decision. The story is not found in the ending but it’s in what we do while we are alive that gives meaning to our existence. Literature for Atwoods has no ending if the characters did not die. The author’s belief that fiction has many beginnings and middles, but only one eventual ending. Margaret Atwoods suggests that we can do nothing about our mortality but we can precisely do something about the quality of our lives. Atwoods says that life is a continuous and never ending journey that there is no concept of happy ending as long as you live in this world. You might end up marrying your dream person but that doesn’t already mean and guarantee that your life is a happy ending; no one knows what will happen next. Every existing being has only one ending and that is death. This story also takes us through our childhood preconception about how love and life is supposed to turn out based on what has been written in fables and fairy tales. As human being grows older, they slowly realize through experience that most fiction fairy tales ending is unattainable. Obviously Atwoods opens up with various settings, different versions and opportunities that are grounded to reality. Atwoods may also want to redefine the stereotypical characterization of men and women and to the readers who readily accepts such gender typing. Most love stories always employ women as a weaker sex who is incapable of themselves most of the time. But in this story, Atwoods introduces the different facets of women who are both capable of vulnerability, unselfish love and extraordinary strength just like men. Atwoods employ both the weaknesses and strengths of Mary and John from those various possible plots. It challenges the writers on where to proceed next from the typical and conventional creation of love story with a more realistic endings and scenarios. Writers must not stay to those predictable stories that will not help the readers much. Writers must be more realistic in portraying themes so that the readers’ life will not lead to destruction. Typical fairy tales as we all know has been destructive, it makes the readers detach to reality, hoping unreasonably that everybody has a happy ending. Hoping of something unattainable will corrupt one person and eventually the society.