Biography 

• Born in 1939 in Canada
• First known for award winning poetry in the 1960's.
• Atwood's work is strongly feminist, seen most exemplary in The Handmaid's Tale and The Edible Woman
• Most well known for The Handmaid's Tale, a novel telling the story of a dystopian society run by misogynistic religious fundamentalists
• Named woman of the year by Ms. Magazine in 1986
• Has written many other dystopias like The Year of the Flood 
• Professor Wend says The Edible Woman is the book that changed his life as a teenager...   

Journal

• Compare this story with The Garden of Forking Paths? How are they similar? How do they differ?  

About

Summary

In this short story “Happy Endings“, the narrarater gives as six different endings for a similar situation. The similar situation is when the two main characters John, and Mary, meet each other story A ends with a happy ending couple meets falls in love gets married has a family and lives happily ever after, then eventually die. story B Mary falls in love with John, but John is not in love with Mary he uses her for her body and treats her extremely bad though she did all she could for him, in the end Mary commits suicide, and John marries a new woman named Madge, whom he loves, and "everything continues as in A. In story C, Mary has sex with John, even though he is married to Madge. Mary is actually in love with a man named James. John finds Mary and James in bed together and shoots them before turning the gun on himself. Then Madge goes on to marry a man named Fred, and they continue as in A. In story D, Fred and Madge have a good relationship but their house is swept away by a tidal wave. They emerge "wet and dripping and grateful, and continue as in A. In story E, Fred has a bad heart, Madge nurses him until he dies. In Story F the author suggests to make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets us (the reader), and still end up with A. 

Questions?

• What do you think matters more here, the journey or the conclusion?
• What role does reader agency play in this story?
• How does gender relate to Happy Endings?  

Analysis

• Very straight forward using simple sentences
• Stereotypical names
• Characters are plagued with middle class values and boredom. 
• Is this a satire of romance plots?
• About how women are socialized to never stop being mothers
• About saving yourself "B" 
•  Assumes a Western view of "happy endings" by means of wealth (ie. "They buy a charming house," "Real estate values go up," "they can afford live-in help")
• Bases happiness on relationships (everyday and sexual) and wealth  

Characters

• John: John characters seems like the “typical” men coming from Margaret Atwood’s view. In story A, John is a loving husband, he finds her, loves her, then eventually dies. In story B John is the “old dirty dog” who uses women, but won’t love them. In story C, John is the “deceiver” who is elder and instead of accepting the fact that he can’t turn back age, cheats on his wife to be with a younger woman.
• Mary: Mary is story A is very happy. She is living her dream, finding a man and making him her husband then eventually dying together. In Story B, Mary is miffed, not letting go of the fact that the man she loves, doesn’t love her back. Story C, Mary is mischievous, sleeping with an older man to gain sexual satisfaction and communication from him, in which her much younger boyfriend does not have time for.
• Madge: Madge similar to Mary in story A is a happy woman in Story B. In story C, Madge is the blinded and deceived. She is an elderly woman who seems comfortable with her age but is blind to the fact that her husband is no longer attracted to her, in the end her life continues as it would in Story A. In story D, Madge is very solemn and life continues as story A.
• Fred: Fred is a genuine man to his new wife in story C. In story D, Fred lives for the most part, comfortably. He faces minor issues within his marriage but still manages to continue life as story A.  

Symbolism

• Do we see any symbolism?

Gender

• In Happy Endings, men make all of the decisions. Compare this to Story of an Hour where a women thrusts her independence. 
• Women are portrayed as gullible and naive  
• No happy endings for women (always ends the same).
• Both genders fall to their egos and insecurities 
• Critique of capitalist/hetronormative idea of happy ending.

Point of View

• Omniscient point of view- aware of and understanding the perspectives of both the male and the female

Irony

Ending

• Death is the only inevitable ending
• "And they lived happily ever after..." is a deception because that is not the true ending to the story- the true ending being "and they died."
• The possibilities of the plot are simply a means to an end
• Atwood writes of dramatic endings to the stories (ie. B and C) that are not often the case. In many peoples' lives, the relationship aspect of story A is achieved, yet perhaps not the first time it is sought. For example, John and Mary strive for story A, yet end up in story B, but both John and Mary find other relationships that allow them to attain story A. 
• What determines whether someone ends up with story A, B, C, D, E, or F? The luck of the draw?
• All stories end with story A, yet not for all parties.
• The ending is not the most important part of a story, for it is same for everyone. But it is the way one got to the ending that is important, for that is what determines whether or not is a "happy ending." 

Adaptations

Wordle

Bibliography

Previous Paper Topics

1. The way in which men and women interact has been a topic of discussion in class lately. We have seen this topic in stories like A & P, Happy Ending, and The Yellow Wallpaper. Pick at least one of these stories, but perhaps more, and write about how interaction between genders are used to affect one of the themes which we have covered in the course so far. 
2. Talk about the role of making decisions in some sort the works we have discussed this semester. Among your choices could be A & P, The Parable Of The Prodigal Son, Happy Ending, and The Garden of Forking Paths. Pick at least one of these stories, but perhaps more, and write about how decision making is used to affect one of the themes which we have covered in the course so far.
3. In Sonny's Blues and Happy Endings (and others? Tell me please), ideas about success play an important role in the story. Pick at least one of these stories, but perhaps more, and write about how success is used to affect one of the themes which we have covered in the course so far. 
4. There have been a number of stories that we are reading dealing with gender or where gender stereotyping is a potential issue for close reading and discussion. Some of these include The Storm, Harrison Bergeron, Happy Endings, Young Goodman Browne, and others. Pick at least one of these stories, but perhaps more, and write about how gender is used to affect one of the themes which we have covered in the course so far.  
5. In the stories we read for our discussion of plot, we talked about how plot can be used to critique various things, whether literary, political, or otherwise. Pick at least one of these stories, but perhaps more, and write about how plot is used to affect one of the themes which we have covered in the course so far.  
6. How does gender performance affect men in these stories? We see typical, and not so typical, women throughout the stories we have read (Young Goodman Brown, Happy Ending, The Yellow Wallpaper). Their performances of femininity in the stories greatly affect the behaviour and characterisation of men. Write a paper where you engage with how gender performance affects the perception and behavior of men in one, if not more, of these stories.