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“Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood: A Critical Analysis

“Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood was first published in the literary magazine “Canadian Forum” in 1983.

Introduction: “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

Table of Contents

“Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood was first published in the literary magazine “Canadian Forum” in 1983. The story gained popularity and was later included in Atwood’s short story collection “Murder in the Dark.” Atwood’s unique approach to storytelling and her focus on metafiction drew readers’ attention to “Happy Endings.” The story presents multiple scenarios that explore the possibilities of human lives, and the different paths that individuals can take. It challenges the traditional notion of a happy ending and the idea that life can be reduced to a simple, linear narrative. Atwood’s use of a detached and ironic tone, as well as her commentary on the writing process, adds to the story’s popularity and relevance.

Main Events in “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

Story A: The Idealized Ending (ll. 10-20): This path offers a seemingly perfect scenario. John and Mary find love, marry, and achieve professional success. They raise well-adjusted children, enjoy stimulating hobbies, and eventually die peacefully (ll. 13-19). This ending serves as a benchmark against which the narrator dissects the artificiality of happily-ever-after narratives.
Story B: The Unhappy Reality (ll. 21-54): This path presents a stark contrast. John exploits Mary for his own gratification, treating her with disregard (ll. 22-27). Mary withers under his emotional neglect, leading to depression and suicide (ll. 48-50). John remains unaffected and continues his life with another woman, Madge (ll. 52-54). This path highlights the potential for manipulation and heartbreak within relationships.
Story C: The Loveless Triangle and Violence (ll. 55-97): This path explores the complexities of love and desire. John, an insecure older man, seeks solace with Mary, who is young and unattached (ll. 56-58). Mary uses John for comfort while pining for James, her true love (ll. 59-63). John, burdened by his failing marriage, feels trapped (ll. 64-66). The discovery of Mary’s infidelity triggers a violent outburst. John kills Mary, James, and himself in a desperate act (ll. 88-92). John’s wife, Madge, remains oblivious and finds happiness with a new partner (ll. 95-97). This path emphasizes the destructive potential of unfulfilled desires and societal pressures.
Story D: Nature’s Intervention (ll. 98-110): This path introduces an external force that disrupts a seemingly idyllic life. Fred and Madge live contentedly until a devastating tidal wave destroys their home (ll. 99-101). The narrative shifts to focus on the cause of the wave and their escape (ll. 102-110). This path injects a sense of powerlessness in the face of nature’s unpredictable forces.
Story E: Facing Mortality (ll. 111-122): This path explores the inevitability of death. Fred, seemingly healthy, suffers from a heart condition (l. 112). Despite this, they cherish their time together until his death (ll. 113-114). Madge dedicates herself to charity work, finding solace in helping others (ll. 116-117). This path offers a more realistic portrayal of a happy life eventually ending, but with a sense of purpose and acceptance.

Literary Devices in “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

Allusion – a reference to a person, place, or event in history, literature, or culture. Example: “Mary and John met at the beach, just like Romeo and Juliet.”
Anaphora – repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences. Example: “And so on. And so on. And so on.”
Irony – a contrast between what is said and what is meant or what is expected and what actually happens. Example: “John had always dreamed of being a millionaire, but in the end, he won the lottery and lost all his money.”
Juxtaposition – placing two or more ideas, characters, or objects side by side for the purpose of comparison and contrast. Example: “In the story, John is presented as the perfect husband, while Mary is depicted as flawed and insecure.”
Metaphor – a comparison of two unlike things without using the words “like” or “as”. Example: “Life is a journey, and we are all just travelers on this road.”
Paradox – a statement that seems contradictory or absurd but is actually true. Example: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Personification – giving human qualities to non-human objects or animals. Example: “The sun smiled down on us, and the wind whispered through the trees.”
Repetition – the use of the same word or phrase multiple times for emphasis. Example: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.”
Satire – the use of humor, irony, or exaggeration to expose and criticize foolishness or corruption in society. Example: “The story mocks the unrealistic expectations of traditional romance novels.”
Simile – a comparison of two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”. Example: “The stars shone like diamonds in the sky.”
Stream of consciousness – a narrative technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur in real time. Example: “The story shifts abruptly from one character’s point of view to another, mimicking the flow of thoughts and emotions.”
Symbolism – the use of objects, characters, or actions to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Example: “The apple symbolizes temptation and sin in the story.”
Tone – the author’s attitude toward the subject or characters in the story. Example: “The tone of the story is ironic and detached, highlighting the artificiality of traditional happy endings.”
Understatement – a statement that intentionally downplays the significance or magnitude of something. Example: “After winning the Nobel Prize, the author remarked, ‘It’s a nice honor, I guess.'”
Unreliable narrator – a narrator whose credibility is compromised, often because they are mentally unstable, dishonest, or biased. Example: “The narrator in the story is unreliable, as evidenced by their contradictory and inconsistent descriptions of the characters and events.”

Characterization in “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

While the story focuses on plot variations, Atwood provides glimpses into the characters, revealing their motivations and flaws:

John : Across the stories, John appears self-centered and emotionally unavailable.
In Story A, she blends seamlessly into the idealized narrative (ll. 10-20).
In Story B, she embodies the vulnerability of being emotionally neglected, ultimately succumbing to despair (ll. 48-50).
In Story C, she appears caught between affection for John and love for James, highlighting the complexities of desire (ll. 59-63).
Madge : John’s wife in Story C, Madge remains largely unseen. She represents the “happily ever after” John fails to achieve, existing primarily as a contrast to Mary (ll. 95-97). In Stories D and E, she embodies resilience, rebuilding her life after loss (ll. 99-122).
In Story A (Happy Ending), he fulfills the stereotypical role of the charming husband, but his true nature remains unexplored (ll. 10-20).
In Story B, he exploits Mary for his physical desires without reciprocating her affection (ll. 22-27).
In Story C, his insecurity and neediness drive him into a loveless affair with Mary (ll. 55-58). His inability to cope with his failing marriage and Mary’s betrayal leads to a violent act (ll. 88-92).
Even in Stories D and E (where he’s not the central character), he remains somewhat of an enigma, existing primarily in relation to Mary or Madge.

Overall Character Portrayal:

Archetypes: Atwood utilizes archetypes like the charming prince (John in Story A) and the femme fatale (Mary in Story B) to subvert traditional expectations.
Limited Development: The characters are not fully fleshed out, serving as tools to explore the narrative variations and the artificiality of happily-ever-after tropes.
Focus on Relationships: The story prioritizes how characters interact and manipulate each other, rather than their individual personalities.

Major Themes in “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

Writing style in “happy endings” by margaret atwood.

Margaret Atwood’s writing style in “Happy Endings” is characterized by its concise and straightforward prose, which effectively conveys the author’s ironic and satirical tone. Atwood uses active voice verbs to draw the reader in and maintain their engagement throughout the story. The narrative style is fragmented, with abrupt shifts in tone and perspective that challenge the reader’s expectations and highlight the artificiality of conventional storytelling. Atwood’s use of metafiction further reinforces this theme, as she breaks down the fourth wall and comments on the process of storytelling itself. The result is a provocative and thought-provoking work that challenges the reader to question their assumptions about the nature of storytelling and the meaning of “happy endings.”

Literary Theories and Interpretation of “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

Metafiction : Atwood’s story can be viewed through the lens of metafiction, a genre that self-consciously reflects on the act of storytelling itself ([Hutcheon, 1980]). Her use of a narrator who directly addresses the reader (“Now try How and Why,” l. 121) and the exploration of various plot possibilities highlight the constructed nature of fiction and challenge readers’ expectations of a singular, definitive narrative.
Feminist Theory : A feminist critique of “Happy Endings” reveals how Atwood portrays the limitations placed on women within societal structures. Characters like Mary (Stories B & C) endure emotional manipulation and societal pressure to conform to idealized roles, highlighting the challenges women face in relationships ([Showalter, 2011]). The story deconstructs the stereotypical “happily ever after” that often objectifies women and undermines their agency.
Postmodernism : The fragmented structure and multiple endings in “Happy Endings” resonate with postmodern themes. Atwood subverts traditional narrative expectations, rejecting a linear plot with a clear resolution ([Jameson, 1991]). The story reflects a postmodern view of the fragmented nature of experience and the instability of meaning-making in a world without absolute truths.
Reader-Response Theory : Atwood’s use of second-person narration (“you can see what kind of a woman she is…” l. 45) and direct addresses to the reader (“So much for endings,” l. 118) embody reader-response theory ([Iser, 1978]). She invites active participation in the story, encouraging readers to consider their own experiences and expectations of love, relationships, and happy endings. The multiple endings emphasize the importance of the reader’s interpretation in shaping the meaning of the text.
Existentialism : An existentialist reading of “Happy Endings” recognizes the characters’ grappling with meaninglessness and mortality. John’s despair at his aging and failed relationships (Story C) and the characters’ ultimate deaths reflect the existentialist concern with human struggles to find purpose in an indifferent universe ([Sartre, 1943]). The various unhappy endings suggest the characters’ inability to control their destinies and the inevitability of death.

Questions and Thesis Statements about “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

How does Atwood’s use of metafiction contribute to her exploration of the concept of “happy endings” in literature?
Thesis statement: Through the use of metafiction, Atwood challenges traditional notions of happy endings in literature and forces the reader to confront the harsh realities of human relationships and the unpredictability of life.
In what ways does Atwood use irony and satire to critique societal expectations of relationships and gender roles in “Happy Endings”?
Thesis statement: Through the use of irony and satire, Atwood exposes the limitations and unrealistic expectations placed on individuals in romantic relationships, highlighting the gendered power dynamics that underlie these societal expectations.
How does Atwood use repetition and variation of the story’s structure to convey her message about the nature of storytelling and human existence?
Thesis statement: By utilizing repetition and variation in the structure of the story, Atwood comments on the nature of storytelling and the unpredictable nature of human existence, challenging readers to question their own expectations of narrative form and the stories they consume.
In what ways does Atwood use the character Mary to subvert traditional gender roles and expectations in “Happy Endings”?
Thesis statement: Through the character of Mary, Atwood challenges traditional gender roles and expectations, highlighting the constraints placed on women in romantic relationships and the societal pressure to conform to traditional norms.
How does the absence of traditional narrative structure in “Happy Endings” contribute to the story’s message about the unpredictable nature of life and relationships?
Thesis statement: The absence of traditional narrative structure in “Happy Endings” highlights the unpredictable nature of life and relationships, challenging readers to question their own expectations of story structure and the inevitability of certain endings.

Short Question/Answer Topics for “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

Deconstructing the “Happily Ever After”: Atwood’s Purpose: Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” isn’t your typical love story. Her purpose lies in satirizing and deconstructing the conventional idea of a “happily ever after” (l. 118) often found in traditional narratives. By presenting six variations of the same story’s beginning (“John and Mary meet,” l. 10), each leading to vastly different outcomes, Atwood reveals the limitations and predictability of these narratives. The story becomes less about the characters themselves and more about exposing the artificiality of the “happily ever after” trope and the lack of universality in happy endings (ll. 10-122).
Active Participation: The Impact of Second-Person Narration: Atwood’s use of second-person narration is a significant tool in “Happy Endings.” By directly addressing the reader with phrases like “Now try How and Why” (l. 121), she dismantles the traditional roles of reader and writer. The reader is thrust into the story, becoming an active participant who questions their own expectations of a happy ending. Witnessing the different choices characters make in each variation (“you can see what kind of a woman she is…” l. 45) and the resulting consequences adds to the story’s complexity and depth. The reader is forced to confront the lack of a singular, satisfying conclusion, mirroring the messy realities of life.
Unveiling the Craft: Metafiction and its Contribution: “Happy Endings” is a prime example of metafiction, a genre that self-consciously reflects on the act of storytelling itself. Atwood’s use of metafiction allows her to explore themes of power, control, and the limitations of storytelling. The narrator directly addresses the reader, questioning the purpose of plot and happy endings (“So much for endings,” l. 118). By exposing the conventions and limitations of traditional narratives through the multiple endings, Atwood challenges the power dynamics between author and reader, and between characters and their pre-determined narratives. She questions the way stories are often used to exert control and manipulate the reader’s perception of reality.
“And Then”: A Repetition with Meaning: The repeated phrase “and then” throughout “Happy Endings” is far from insignificant. It serves to emphasize the predictability and repetitiveness often found in traditional narratives. Each variation begins with “and then,” highlighting the formulaic nature of storytelling and its reliance on clichés (ll. 21, 55, 98, 111). This repetition underscores the limitations of storytelling and how narratives can be used to reinforce idealized and often unrealistic social norms and expectations. By highlighting this repetitiveness, Atwood critiques how stories can oversimplify real-life complexities and shy away from the messy realities of human relationships.

Literary Works Similar to “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood

Cat’s Cradle (1963) by Kurt Vonnegut: This satirical science fiction novel employs a dark and playful tone akin to Atwood’s. It dissects themes of war, religion, and technology, exposing societal flaws akin to the deconstruction of happy endings.
“Her Body and Other Stories” (2017) by Carmen Maria Machado: This collection of short stories, much like “Happy Endings,” challenges expectations around love and relationships. Machado’s unsettling narratives explore themes of gender, sexuality, and the body in innovative ways, mirroring Atwood’s exploration of unconventional love stories.
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (1979) by Italo Calvino: This work, similar to “Happy Endings,” blurs the lines between fiction and reality. A metafictional exploration of reading and the reader-author relationship, Calvino’s novel playfully dismantles traditional storytelling tropes, echoing Atwood’s use of metafiction.
Pale Fire (1962) by Vladimir Nabokov: Nabokov’s complex novel, like “Happy Endings,” challenges readers’ assumptions. Through an unreliable narrator and a blurring of truth and fiction, “Pale Fire” compels readers to question their understanding of the narrative, mirroring Atwood’s deconstruction of happy endings.
The Vegetarian (2015) by Han Kang: This disturbing and thought-provoking novel, similar to “Happy Endings,” delves into the darker aspects of human relationships. Kang explores themes of alienation, violence, and the female experience, challenging traditional narratives of domesticity, much like Atwood’s subversion of conventional love stories.

Online Resources:

GradeSaver: Happy Endings: https://www.gradesaver.com/happy-endings (Offers students a summary, analysis, and helpful resources to understand the story.)
LitCharts: Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/happy-endings/summary-and-analysis (Provides a detailed plot analysis, exploration of themes, and character studies.)

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Margaret Atwood’s Happy Endings

Analysis of Margaret Atwood’s Happy Endings

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 25, 2021

An innovative and oft-anthologized story that demonstrates the arbitrariness of any author’s choice of an ending, “Happy Endings” offers six different endings from which the reader may choose. “Happy Endings” was first published in the Canadian collection Murder in the Dark (1983) and then became available in the United States in Good Bones and Simple Murders (1994). Intentionally written in only 1,500 words, the story contains little plot, little character development, and little motivation. Readers, however, should not be deceived: Margaret Atwood is, according to the critic Reingard M. Nischik, “a chronicler of our times, exposing and warning, disturbing and comforting, opening up chasms of meaning as soon as she closes them, and challenging us to question conventions and face up to hitherto unarticulated truths” (159). “Happy Endings” is a story about writing a story, with thoughtful advice to both readers and would-be writers. In this unusual tale she demonstrates why “who and what” are insuff cient; the reader must ask (and the writer must supply) “how and why.” In addition to analyzing the appropriateness of the six endings, the reader might profit from comparing “Happy Endings” to Robert Coover’ s “The Babysitter,” in which the author offers several possibilities of what happens to the babysitter, leaving the decision to the reader’s imagination; and Akira Kurosawa’s 1951 film Roshomon , which depicts the rape of a bride and the murder of her husband through various eyewitness accounts; it demonstrates the near-impossibility of arriving at the actual “truth” of the events.

Atwood’s technique differs from that of Coover and Kurosawa, however, in that she fl eshes out nothing: Indeed, the six possible endings to the story of John and Mary are written as a skeletal outline. She opens with the words, “John and Mary meet. What happens next? If you want a happy ending, try A.” (1).

In A, John and Mary live a richly fulfilling life in terms of careers, sex life, children, vacations, and retirement, until they die. In Ending B, however, Mary loves John but he does not return her love, instead using and abusing her in classical doormat fashion. When Mary learns of John’s affair with Madge, she commits suicide, John marries Madge, and we are told to move to Ending A. In Ending C, John is an older man married to Madge and the father of two children. He falls for the 22-year-old Mary, but when he finds her in the arms of James, he shoots all three of them. Madge marries a man named Fred and proceeds to Ending A. In Ending D, Fred and Madge are the sole survivors of a tidal wave, and, despite the loss of their home, they are grateful to have survived the calamity that killed thousands and continue to Ending A.

Ending E follows Fred to his death of a “bad heart.” Madge soldiers on with charity and volunteer work in Ending A, until she dies of cancer—or, if the reader prefers, becomes guilt-ridden or begins bird-watching. Finally, for those who find Endings A through E “too bourgeois,” Atwood suggests making John and Mary spies and revolutionaries. Still, though, they will end up at Ending A because, after all, “this is Canada” (3). The only authentic ending, says Atwood, is this one: “ John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die. ” As the critic Nathalie Cooke points out, “For Atwood, writing is a fascinating but dark art—one where shadows lurk, not only in the subject matter . . . but also in the author’s role as a double being, and in the writing process itself, in which the writer must not only face the darkness, but learn to see in and through it” (19). As Atwood suggests to the readers at the conclusion of “Happy Endings,” that process is achieved by understanding motivation through asking “how” and “why.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cooke, Nathalie. Margaret Atwood: A Critical Companion. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2004. Nischik, Reingard M. “Margaret Atwood’s Short Stories and Shorter Fictions.” In The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood, edited by Coral Ann Howells, 145– 160. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Happy Endings

Margaret atwood, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Margaret Atwood's Happy Endings . Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.

Happy Endings: Introduction

Happy endings: plot summary, happy endings: detailed summary & analysis, happy endings: themes, happy endings: quotes, happy endings: characters, happy endings: symbols, happy endings: theme wheel, brief biography of margaret atwood.

Historical Context of Happy Endings

Other books related to happy endings.

Full Title: “Happy Endings”
When Published: 1983
Literary Period: Contemporary
Genre: Short story, literary fiction
Setting: Canada
Climax: The narrator reveals that the endings of stories are all the same.
Antagonist: Death
Point of View: Third person omniscient

Extra Credit for Happy Endings

Murder in the Dark: “Happy Endings” is part of a larger collection, Murder in the Dark , which features experimental short fiction and prose poetry.

A Summary and Analysis of Margaret Atwood’s ‘Happy Endings’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Happy Endings’ is a short story (or, perhaps more accurately, a piece of metafiction) which was first published in Margaret Atwood’s 1983 collection, Murder in the Dark . The story offers six alternative storylines which feature a relationship between a man and a woman.

Because of its postmodern and metafictional elements, ‘Happy Endings’ requires a few words of analysis to be fully understood. Before we begin, it might be worth summarising the plot (or plots) of the various storylines which Atwood presents to us.

‘Happy Endings’: plot summary

The story is divided into eight sections, the first six of which posit six different storylines. In the first one, labelled ‘A’, John and Mary meet and fall in love and get married. They both have good jobs and buy a nice house, and in time, they have children. When the time comes, they retire, enjoy their hobbies, and die.

In the second storyline, labelled ‘B’, Mary falls in love with John but John doesn’t love Mary back. He uses her for sex and she hopes that he will come to love (or at least need) her, in time. He never takes her out to a restaurant and instead comes round to hers and she cooks for him.

When her friends tell her he is cheating on her with another woman named Madge, she takes an overdose, hoping that John will discover her and feel so guilty that he’ll marry her. However, this doesn’t happen and she dies, and John marries Madge.

In the third storyline, ‘C’, John is an older married man who is having an affair with Mary, who is twenty-two. She really likes James, who is the same age as her, but he is too young and free to be tied down to a relationship. She takes a shine to John because he is older and worried about losing his hair, and this evokes pity in her.

John, meanwhile, is married to Madge. When Mary ends up having sex with James, John discovers them both and buys a handgun and shoots them dead, before killing himself. Madge, his widow, subsequently marries a man named Fred.

In ‘D’, Fred and Madge are happy together until a tidal wave approaches their coastal home and they narrowly escape. However, they remain together.

In ‘E’, Fred has a bad heart, and eventually dies; afterwards, Madge devotes herself to charity work. However, the narrator acknowledges that these details can be changed: Madge could be the one who is unwell, and Fred might take up bird-watching (rather than charity work) when she dies.

In the final scenario, ‘F’, the narrator suggests that the story can be made less middle-class by making John a revolutionary and Mary a secret agent who starts a relationship with him in order to spy on him. However, the story will still ultimately come to resemble ‘A’.

‘Happy Endings’ concludes with two brief sections in which the narrator (author? Atwood herself?) observes that the endings of all of these stories are the same, ultimately: John dies and Mary dies. After all, death is the ending that comes to all of us, and therefore to all characters. This is the only true authentic ending.

Having treated endings, the narrator remarks that beginnings are more fun, but mostly people are interested in the middle bits. Plot is, fundamentally, just one thing happening after another. The questions of ‘how’ something happens and ‘why’ it does are more interesting, and require attention.

‘Happy Endings’: analysis

‘Happy Endings’ is an example of metafiction : self-conscious fiction that is itself about fiction. It is, in other words, a story about stories and storytelling. Rather than work at creating a realist picture of John and Mary, the two protagonists of ‘Happy Endings’, so that we immerse ourselves in the story and view them as ‘real’ people, Atwood deliberately distances us from them, keeping them at arm’s length by reminding us that they are nothing more than authorial constructs.

Much of Atwood’s story is about delineating the six different scenarios, each of which involves a relationship between a man and a woman.

But as the story develops, the author breaks in on her characters more and more, ‘breaking the fourth wall’ to remind us that they are mere ciphers and that the things being described do not exist outside of the author’s own head (and the reader’s: Atwood’s fiction, and especially the short pieces contained in Murder in the Dark , are about how we as readers imagine those words on the page and make them come alive, too).

Why does Atwood do this? Partly, one suspects, because she wishes to interrogate both the nature of romantic plots in fiction and readers’ attitudes towards them. It’s a commonplace that happy endings in romantic novels ‘sell’: it gives readers what they want. Boy meets girl, girl falls in love with boy, and after various rocky patches they end up living, in the immortal words, ‘happily ever after’.

Atwood wants to put such plot lines under the microscope, as it were, and subject them to closer scrutiny. By the time we get to the fifth plot, ‘E’, the narrator is happily encouraging us to view the plot details as interchangeable between Fred and Madge, as if they don’t really matter. After all, do they? Perhaps the more important details are, as the closing paragraphs of ‘Happy Endings’ have it, not What but How and Why. Character motivation is more important than what they do or what is done to them.

Of course, as so often in Margaret Atwood’s fiction, there’s a feminist angle to all this. Relationships are not equal in a society where men have things easier than women, and the third of Atwood’s six scenarios, in which Mary is the key player, makes this point plainly.

Freedom, Atwood tells us, isn’t the same for girls as it is for boys, and while James is off on his motorcycle, she is forced by societal expectations to do other things. (It is not that she isn’t free herself – she is, after all, carrying on an affair with a married, older man even though society wouldn’t exactly view that kindly – but her freedoms are of a different kind. A woman motorcycling across America on her own would not feel as safe, for one, as a man doing so.)

In the last analysis, ‘Happy Endings’ is a kind of postmodern story about stories: postmodern because it freely and self-consciously announces itself as metafiction, as being more interested in how stories work than in telling a story itself.

But within the narratives Atwood presents to us, she also addresses some of the inequalities between men and women, and exposes how relationships are rarely a level playing field for the two sexes.

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“Happy Endings” by M. Atwood Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction, works cited.

M. Atwood, being called a classical writer of today, is a truly outstanding novelist, poet, short story writer. The matter is not included how much one writes, but rather how applicable and deep it is. The works by Margaret Atwood are found to contain deep context, enclosed within the novels, poems and even the shortest stories of hers. Besides, she is the writer, who puts her soul within the works. So, she is really concerned with the issues she writes about and with the matters she brings up within her writings. The short story called “Happy Endings” is not an exclusion from a general rule as Margaret Atwood managed both to put a deep context within a two-page-story and to reveal her own viewpoint to the reader of the story. The plot of the story, presenting some options of one and the same volume of people is able to still be the deepest thought within itself, being interpreted in a right way.

Firstly, after the reading of the story it occurs that it is a psychological story. This approach is being used frequently by Atwood, as it has been revealed by Rose Wilson in her study “Intertext in Atwood’s psychological text reverberates with mythic significance, giving us courage to face themes of sexual politics–in literature, society, and our lives.” (Wilson, xv). Atwood’s story evokes some non-material symbols and feelings in one’s sub-consciousness. The same characters are playing different roles each and every time, wandering from A part of the story to E part. And reading the same names within it one is forced to think “why?”. Why the same people appear to be in different life situations for five times. Probably, there is something missed by the reader or the author is eager to say something important by that. The same characters, used are piercing through the story, being a red line of it are used with a purpose, the author is to reveal only at the end of the story. Though all the stories are really different, they all have one and the same uniting factor, which is the same ending of them. Not only it a uniting factor for the stories, it also plays as a main symbol and a message of the story.

Then, the symbolism of the story can not be lost on the reader. As the characters have their place and functions, words are meaningful and the message itself is symbolic. In the short story like “Happy Endings” it is an impermissible way to put meaningless or spare words within. M. Atwood, being aware of it, puts much of the context in such a few content, that it makes one respect the author. The feeling of the deeper thought, enclosed in the plain content is evoked by miscellaneous devices, used by the author. For example, the repetition of some phrases like “Fall in love”, “get married”, “stimulating and challenging”, “real estate values”, the repetition of these words or phrases aims at emphasizing that no matter what the script of life is, people come across the same things during their lives. Whether it be John or Mary or James and Madge or whoever more, the obstacles, met by a person within his or her life denotes that the person is alive and moreover, is able to overcome them. Then, Margaret Atwood enlarges on the topic and proposes the different scripts with quite different endings to show, that a person has a right to choose. For example, it the section B, where Mary commits suicide it is well depicted. Actually, she thought that John would save her, take her to the hospital, repent and they would get married finally. But the brutal reality is that John is to decide for himself what he is to do in the life. And no matter how much Mary wants to see other decision, he is the only person to do this, and he made his choice. So is Mary to decide what to do. Having picked up the way with the medicine, she nothing but showed that she is a weak creature, who decided to follow the flow, not to resist the circumstances of her life. In this situation John was not the one, determined for Mary and being a great and tidy woman, very concerned about her man, she would have managed to find a better fortune for herself. But there was John, near, twice a week and she did not try to change the situation somehow, fully subordinating her own desires to John’s ones. Or in the C section, the topic of jealousy is being explored by the author. Being blinded with his jealousy, John kills Mary and her young lover James and himself. The choice he made, influenced the end of two lives and one more, the life of his wife Madge. The complicated interrelations of human beings are really hard to depict. But the short story by Atwood shows them in a best of her skills how they work.

It is really necessary to mark that the repeated word-combination “real estate” plays an important role as the other phrases used with it are also symbolic in the story. So, in the A section, the real estate values go up, then in B section John with his wife managed to buy their house before it happened, while in D section one finds to come across the tidal wave and the real estate values go down. This is an interesting psychology as it nothing but shows that no matter what might happen in our life, no matter what values are to go up or to go down, the most important thing to maintain is human relations, which are the eternal value in this world. By this the human are driven. Because of the relations one might live happily or die silly. A human relation is a treasure to keep. The relationships is a topic M. Atwood dwells on broad-mindedly, as it has been investigated “Like her fiction, poetry, and essays, many of Atwood’s visual works, sometimes untitled or undated, present Gothic images of female-male relationships in fairy tales, myth, legend, the Bible, literature, popular culture, and history” (Wilson, 36).

Besides of the above mentioned symbols, there are different gender images found within the text of the story. Margaret Atwood is among all, a famous feminist writer. Being a woman writer is marked by her writing style and also causes some translation difficulties. Rose Wilson’s work devoted to the study of M. Atwood’s contextual implications states that “Atwood is a woman author, and she uses fairy tales dramatizing cannibalism and dismemberment of females. Thus, one of Atwood’s major themes is sexual politics; recent feminist theory” (Wilson, xii). The evidences of the gender belonging are found in the general feminine and masculine images found in the story. The feminine image, which arises at the end of the story is a loving, caring and sacrificing one, like in the sections A, B, then compassionate, like in the C section, dedicated as in F. While men are not always presented as worthy and dignified creatures, as for example B section, or C section, which make the reader reflect what pigs are they, how come that such a worthy woman may come across such a contemptible man and destroy all her life to only satisfy him. Moreover, it is characteristic of the author to depict patriarchy way of relations “ … power structured in so that one group–males–controls another–females” (Wilson, XIII).

Still, among all these rich devices one appears to be unseen. The author, being a good psychologist presents at the end of the story a sentence, not repeated until the end of the story. It is “eventually they die.” At the end of each section the reader comes across the phrase, mentioning that and the rest of the story goes like in section A, meaning that “they lived happily ever after… and… eventually died” Margaret Atwood suggests this thought to the reader at the very end of the story, at the F section, saying that the end is one – Mary and John die. What should this mean? Is the author a pessimist, who does not believe in happy ends and made fun of this phrase, having entitled her story like that? – No, she is rather a realist, who understands, that everyone’s life eventually finishes with death. And the part that the reader fails to remember this phrase while reading the story suggests that it is not the end which is important in the life of a being, but it is rather his or her life, that really matters and sticks in one’s memory. The story message boils down to a simple axiom that one is to value life today, now, but not look for happy endings.

Inferring, it might be said that Margaret Atwood is a truly remarkable writer of today, who is presented as a classic writer. She manages to combine the deep thought enclosed within the shortest text, which make her stand out. At the example of a given story, she shows her psychological aptitude, giving the reader rich images and issues for reflection within a two-page-story. Using miscellaneous devices the author presents her viewpoint on the matters brought up in the book and finally, she resorts to the psychological device of using the phrase, which is not repeated in the text though implied in each sub-story. This device detects and reveals the message of the story, which is to value life.

Donald R. Gallo. Sixteen: Short Stories by Outstanding Writers for Young Adults, Laurel Leaf, 1985.

Jean A. McConochie. 20th Century American Short Stories, Volume 1 (Student Book), Heinle ELT; 2 edition, 1995.

Thomas E. Barden and Ira Mark Milne. Short Stories for Students: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories, Gale Cengage: Detroit. 2001.

Wilson, Sharon Rose. Margaret Atwood”s Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1993.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, October 23). “Happy Endings” by M. Atwood. https://ivypanda.com/essays/happy-endings-by-m-atwood/

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IvyPanda . 2021. "“Happy Endings” by M. Atwood." October 23, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/happy-endings-by-m-atwood/.

1. IvyPanda . "“Happy Endings” by M. Atwood." October 23, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/happy-endings-by-m-atwood/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "“Happy Endings” by M. Atwood." October 23, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/happy-endings-by-m-atwood/.

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Happy Endings

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"Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood

Overview, Background, Characters, and Analysis
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Masterpieces of short fiction, Part 2 of 2 by Michael Krasny Call Number: Audio Visual PN3373 .K73 2008 ISBN: 9781598034400 Publication Date: 2008 Discussion of Atwood's "Happy endings" as metafiction.

Margaret Atwood: Once in August Canadian author Margaret Atwood has achieved distinction internationally as both a poet and a novelist. She is the author of more than 50 volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and nonfiction and is perhaps best known for her novels The Edible Woman, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Robber Bride, and The Blind Assassin. Despite the fact that her work has been published in more than 40 languages, Atwood remains one of Canada’s most elusive literary figures. Filmed on Atwood’s island retreat, this classic program—an extended version of the documentary Atwood and Family—follows director Michael Rubbo as he seeks to discover what shapes this celebrated writer’s fiction and what motivates her characters. He finds instead that for Margaret Atwood, an enigmatic distance separates the life of her art from the art of her life. (57 minutes)
Literature Time: HeadRead. Margaret Atwood - Ilmar Taska On the evening of the discussion at the HeadRead 2015 Literature Festival, Ilmar Taska, a writer and director, is a lively Canadian poet, novelist and essayist Margaret Atwood, whose works have been awarded with numerous awards. He has published 15 works in Estonian, both prose and poetry. The conversation was recorded on May 31, 2015 in the Black House of the Writers' House. Director Elo Selirand, editor Reet Weidebaum, producer Kadi Priske.

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URL: https://libguides.southflorida.edu/literature/stories/happy

Happy Endings

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Analysis: "Happy Endings"

Atwood employs a broad range of postmodernist techniques in crafting “Happy Endings,” and, in doing so, explodes the notion of the traditional narrative , while at the same time providing commentary on what such narratives are composed of.

Like nearly all of the stories comprising the collection Murder in the Dark, in which this story first appeared, Atwood plays with the form story takes. “Happy Endings” is decidedly metafictional, meaning that it’s writing that is in some way about the process or craft of writing. To this end, Atwood’s division of her narrative into organized sections may be seen as the story’s form fitting its function: just as the content of the narrative is, ultimately, about how the notion of story works, the almost clinically-labeled sections can be seen as specimens, examples of the ways in which narrative follows an arc, from beginning to end. This is especially true in the story’s two longest sections: B and C. Here, we see Atwood employ traditional modes of storytelling, and craft genuine narrative arcs, with rising and falling action and clear moments of crisis, climax, and resolution.

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Happy Endings in Hollywood Cinema: Cliché, Convention and the Final Couple (2013)

Related Papers

Luciano Mariani

The ending of a film always represents a privileged moment, in which the meaning of the film itself and the emotions it conveys are concentrated in the minds and hearts of the audience. The classic Hollywood "happy ending" is not an absolute category: classic, as well as modern and contemporary, cinema offers a variety of endings, where "happiness" often implies a very wide variety of meanings and emotions. Even more intriguing is the distinction between "closed" endings, in which the story narrated by the film finds a complete resolution, and "open" endings, in which the events and characters remain "unresolved": of maximum importance becomes the role of spectators, who can perceive this type of ending in different ways depending on their sensitivity and attitudes. Contemporary cinema tends to "dialogue" with the audience and to involve them in "open", complex and stratified experiences. Part 2 is also available at Academia.edu

Happy Endings in Hollywood Cinema

James MacDowell

Catalin Brylla

This article explores the aspect of filmic narratolgy that has been neglected for a long time in cinema and media studies: endings. Richard Neupert’s The End – Narration and Closure in the Cinema (1995), a rare work on this topic, is examined, and its theory tested on Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975), a film that does not easily fit Neupert’s framework. This film has raised controversial views about whether it has an open or a closed ending. Trying to shade light on this debate Picnic at Hanging Rock is examined a second time by proposing a new model that relates the ending to the context the film was made in. Full article can be accessed here: http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/issue08/catalynbrylla.htm

Writing from Below

Heather Schell , Katherine Larsen

The happy ending is often considered a particularly pernicious form of American pablum, something that is simultaneously too easy, too simplistic, and too pleasurable to be trusted or valued. However, while foes and fans agree that happy endings to narratives are common, little critical work has been done to define and analyse this trope in more than a cursory way. To start this investigation, we invited a number of people in relevant fields and professions-from scholars in literature, cultural studies, philosophy, and fan studies to romance novelists, editors, and librarians-to respond to a handful of prompts about the happy ending. We then adopted Kenneth Burke's metaphor of scholarship as conversation (110), weaving their ideas together with the goal of creating a dynamic, polyphonic exploration about what happy endings are and what they signify.

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Nathan Holmes

Projections

Todd Berliner

In this reply to four commentaries on my book, Hollywood Aesthetic: Pleasure in American Cinema, I address several conceptual and methodological issues raised by the respondents. Those issues include the book's focus on aesthetic pleasure; the functions of narrative, style, ideology, and genre in Hollywood cinema; the relationship between ideology and aesthetics; the use of scientifi c research in the humanities; normative aesthetic evaluations; real versus hypothetical spectators; and the practices of aesthetic film analysis.

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Happy Endings

By margaret atwood, happy endings literary elements.

Short story

Setting and Context

The action of each mini-story takes place in modern-day Canada.

Narrator and Point of View

The action in the short story is told from the perspective of a third-person objective point of view. Occasionally, the narrator will address the reader directly, making use of the second-person "you."

Tone and Mood

The mood shifts based on each version of the story: sometimes it is pleasant while other times it is dark and suspenseful. However, the tone of each story is consistent throughout. The narrator describes the action of characters with a markedly straightforward and deadpan affect, suggesting that she is simply reporting events rather than admitting any investment in the characters or their lives. As such, the tone of the story is ironic, as the narrator maintains that the element of storytelling she is dramatizing – plot – is not as interesting as others.

Protagonist and Antagonist

There are no discernible protagonists or antagonists in the story. Characters shift depending on which version of the story is being presented.

Major Conflict

Conflicts, too, shift depending on which version of the story readers encounter. However, the story as a whole presents a conflict between the perceived expectations of readers – the desire for a happy ending – and the reality of what makes a good story – drama, intrigue, and conflict.

Each version of the story has its own climax, but the story as a whole features its climax in part F when the narrator acknowledges her own detachment from her subject matter. When she says, "You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it" (F), she suggests that the underlying concept of her entire story – endings – is actually not as important or interesting as most people think.

Foreshadowing

As the stories are self-contained and showcase only a straightforward, journalistic narrator, there is little foreshadowing to be found within them. The narrator suggests at the end of the story that foreshadowing and other literary elements become significant when one dispenses with the notion that plot is the most important element of fiction.

Understatement

When the narrator tells the reader to read version A for a happy ending, the author uses understatement to suggest that a happy ending is easily delivered but rarely satisfying.

There are no notable allusions made throughout the story, again evidence of the author's focus on plot alone and the shortcomings associated with that conception of fiction.

There is also a severe lack of imagery throughout the story, once again serving the author's purpose to put plot on display without the enhancing effects of other literary devices like imagery.

The story itself can be considered a paradox because it dramatizes the concept of lackluster writing by enacting it on the reader.

Parallelism

There are few instances of parallelism in the story, as the narrator does not attempt to craft deeper meaning or significance beyond the rendering of plot.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Personification.

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Happy Endings Questions and Answers

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Study Guide for Happy Endings

Happy Endings study guide contains a biography of Margaret Atwood, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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Essays in Search of Happy Endings

By Michael Winerip

Aug. 10, 2005

LOS ANGELES - LAST spring, not long after a ninth-grade girl was murdered in a drive-by shooting in front of Locke High School, Liza Levine, an English teacher, assigned an essay about what it was like being a student at Locke.

Teachers rarely know the full story behind their students, and this is particularly so at Locke, in South Central, one of the city's poorest and toughest areas. "So much goes on away from school," says Ms. Levine, who loses students to homelessness, pregnancy, work, drugs and jail. She never knows which ones will make it through. Most don't. The ninth grade at Locke four years ago had 979 students; in June, 322 graduated.

The 657 who disappeared? Much of current education reform is aimed at developing a formula to accurately calculate their disappearance; creating programs and new schools to prevent their disappearance, and punishing schools that lose them.

But those who disappeared are teenagers and remain elusive, even when you can ask them why.

Ms. Levine's favorite "Day in the Life" essay was by Lesly Castillo, 15, who was repeating ninth grade, and, the teacher feared, on the verge of dropping out. The teacher liked the quiet honesty of the essay. Ms. Levine usually has three or four students in each class who cannot read and more who do not focus, but says, "I can count on Lesly to be cognitively all there."

Being physically all there is another matter. From Lesly's tattoos, Ms. Levine suspected she was a gang member. Lesly has a history of skipping, and has been taken to court by school officials for truancy. When she missed a few days early in the semester, Ms. Levine called home.

Lesly's mother came in immediately. The parents are Mexican immigrants who do not speak English, common at Locke, where two-thirds of the students are Hispanic, the rest black. Her father works nights for a demolition company removing asbestos, and her mother is a housewife. Lesly's younger brother and sister get A's in elementary school.

"Lesly has two responsive parents," Ms. Levine says. "That's a big part of the battle. I told her mom, she's the kind of kid who can graduate, go to college."

Lesly's attendance improved, which gave Ms. Levine hope. Her midterm grade was C. Then she disappeared the week the class was preparing for the final on "Lord of the Flies," returning in time to try and bluff her way through.

"I gave her a mercy D," Ms. Levine says. "Was it right to pass her? Probably not. But the course teaches them to write for the state test and she has the capability. If I gave her an F, it would have just put her five credits further behind."

A Day in the Life. English, Period 3. Every morning I wake up around 6:30 and I tune in the oldies radio station My little brother runs to the bathroom first and he takes forever in there so me and my little sister just have to wait I wake up arguing with my mom for any reason, so I just can't wait to get to school, just not to be home any more. Once I'm in school I can't be there anymore. I get bored and sometimes that just makes me want to go back home.

When I get to first period it's boring throughout until third period, but not all the times, only sometimes when the lesson is hard to understand or sometimes it's just hard to concentrate in school when you have problems and you're thinking about when it's your next court date or after a whole day in court Or just thinking of a way to stay safe when you walk home.

Locke is one of the city's lowest performing schools, although the principal, Dr. Frank Wells, who is starting his second year, and several teachers say there have been gains in recent years. A new after-school program and night school give failing students the chance to make up credits; a second algebra class a day was added to help students pass the state test; a college-prep support program for midlevel students is credited with adding 100 graduates this year.

"Six seniors are going to Ivy League colleges," Dr. Wells says.

Even at Locke, the motivated find opportunity.

As with many city schools, a major obstacle to improving Locke is the exodus of veteran teachers. A quarter of Locke's teachers last year were new; three-quarters had been at Locke five years or less.

The principal is constantly filling vacancies. Lesly's summer school English course was taught by Ammarin Vacharaprusadee, 23 -- or Mr. V -- a recent college graduate, dispatched to Room 226 at the last minute. "They just gave me the key the first day and said take the class," he says. "They didn't give me a curriculum. No books. I'm making it up as I go."

Several of the 23 students had their heads down much of the class. A few slept. They were supposed to do a half-hour of silent reading and write about it, but only a handful brought books. The rest, including Lesly, were allowed to write an essay on why it's important to bring your book. "If I write, 'I ain't got it; that's why I don't got it,' is that worth points?" asked one of three boys who taunted the young teacher the entire two hours.

Lesly arrived that day in late July having turned in only 5 of 11 assignments. In an hour she handed in the missing six, and Mr. V quickly gave her credit in his grade book. "I was getting a failure and Mr. V said that boosted it to an A," she says.

Mr. V acknowledged that he barely skimmed the dozens of papers handed in that day. "As long as they're turned in they get credit," he says.

THIS is why veterans like Ms. Levine, 47, who started at Locke in 2001, are so important. "She's mastered her craft," says Dr. Wells, the principal, "and I love her heart."

Ms. Levine made a dozen home visits last year. When they read Elie Wiesel's "Night," she took the class to the Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. When they read "Romeo and Juliet," they translated it into modern speech. When a senior with a baby hadn't arrived to take the AP English test, Ms. Levine raced to the girl's home, dropped the baby off at day care and delivered the girl on time.

But it is hard to hold the Ms. Levines. At urban schools a major exodus comes by the fourth year, and Ms. Levine recently decided to leave, for a suburban job.

"I'm racked with guilt," she says. "But you burn out. There's always this feeling that something else bad is going to happen to the kids that's out of your control."

She was angry after hearing why Lesly missed the week before finals. "I called the house," Ms. Levine says. "She told me she'd gone to live with her boyfriend. She said, 'Don't worry, Miss, I'm not with him anymore, he's 24.' I said, 'Lesly, that's statutory rape, he can go to jail."'

And Lesly? "Didn't say anything," Ms. Levine says.

After fourth period is lunch and I like to kick back and just chill and talk about the problems we have and to find a way to fix them. We only get to kick it for a little while because sometimes we get searched just in case we have any type of weapons or drugs. Then the bell rings to go onto fifth period My friends have that class and we just make fun of the teacher.

At the end of the school day my mom picks me up and I go home and just talk on the phone until my dad gets home and starts ripping on me, then we all just start arguing over using the phone. Then around 5:30 me and my mom leave to go to the park to work out When I get home I take a look at my caller ID My boyfriend calls or just one of my friends calls to tell me about a new problem we have on our backs. Or I also receive calls from homies telling me that one of the homegirls or homeboys got shot or killed or just simply put in jail. Not long ago my homie Caprice, rest in peace, got shot and killed by the police It was all over the news.

The Castillos came from Mexico when Lesly was 4. As they struggled up the ladder, they moved eight times in 11 years. Her dad, Ramon, wanted to own a house, and the area he could afford was South Central. It is a small immaculate home on a street bordered by a freeway and junkyard. He says he hopes to sell for a profit, then move away, so his younger children do not have Lesly's troubles. "Everything I do in this country is for my family," he says.

In eighth grade, Lesly says: "My parents were real strict, they wouldn't let me go out. So I went out during school. I had a schedule. Monday I went to school. Tuesday to Thursday I didn't. Friday they gave tests; I went a half day and left after lunch."

Lesly looks mature for her age and liked the attention of older boys, even if they were gang members. "I was 13 they were 18, then like 20, 23, 24." She now attributes much of her trouble to her relationship with the 24-year-old gang leader. At one point, she was sent to court for truancy, another time for a fight when she kicked a girl's eye shut. She had her gang name tattooed in inch-high letters on her left breast. "My dad wouldn't talk to me," Lesly says. "He kept saying why did you do it? You have a family, why do you need them?"

Why did she? "I don't know," Lesly says. "I guess I was just hanging with the wrong people, doing the wrong thing at the wrong time."

Moving in with the 24-year-old was a turning point. It was miserable, she says. He was lazy, wasn't around much, spent most of the time at the house of another girl he'd gotten pregnant. After a week, she returned home.

Recently, through a mutual friend, he sent back her love letters and photos. She tore them up. "He has no power over me," she says. "He can't force me to go back to him."

I also have to go to counseling. Counseling is mostly given to you by court or your parents sign you up It's when you do bad in school or at home and in counseling they try to help you Personally I think it doesn't work.

When I get home I take a shower. I like to draw and listen to some oldies and start to worry on what you have done bad and the consequences. I also think on how to do things right and not to get caught doing bad things. I also try to find a way to stay out of probation, house arrest or do things right so I won't get locked up. After I get tired I put everything away and I go to sleep.

The guidance counselor told Lesly that she still does not have enough credits for 10th grade. Lesly says this fall she will go to after-school from 3:30 to 5 and night school from 5 to 8 to make up the credits. But Ms. Levine says it is a bad sign that Lesly dropped her second summer course, algebra.

"I hope she'll make it," Ms. Levine says. "But I'm too much of a realist. I don't think so."

Lesly's father, too, is guarded. He says he sees small signs of change, but wants to see the grades.

Lesly herself is not sure. "Sometimes I think I can," she says, "but I may not. I've been in ninth grade so many years. Ninth grade! What's hard about ninth grade? I think it's that I haven't been to school so much."

The only person Lesly is allowed out with now is Stephanie Zamora, her best friend since seventh grade. Stephanie is in 11th grade with a B average and has plans for college. Stephanie takes Lesly to her church. Her boyfriend is a senior who plans to join the Marines.

"My boyfriend treats me right," she tells Lesly. "He tries to help me in school. He shows me he cares about me. He's a serious person."

"So serious," Lesly says.

"He cracks a little joke," Stephanie says.

"Only with you," Lesly says.

"Lesly's problem is she goes for the easy stuff," Stephanie says.

"I do."

"She just thinks about the right now," Stephanie says.

"Yeah," Lesly says.

"I'm still worried she'll go back to this guy."

"I'm not going back to him," Lesly says.

ON EDUCATION E-mail: [email protected]

Picture of a newlywed couple on a beach.

Why our obsession with happy endings can lead to bad decisions

Computational Neuroscientist, University of Cambridge

Disclosure statement

Martin D. Vestergaard is a Fellow and trustee of Wolfson College Cambridge. This research was supported by Wellcome Trust Grants 095495 and 204811, and European Research Council Advanced Grant ERC-2011-AdG 293549.

University of Cambridge provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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“All’s well that ends well”, wrote William Shakespeare over 400 years ago. The words may still seem to ring true today, but turns out they don’t. We have just busted the old myth in a recent brain imaging experiment, published in the Journal of Neuroscience .

Experiences that end well are not necessarily good overall and experiences that end less well are not necessarily all that bad. For example, if you play five rounds of poker you get more overall enjoyment from winning twice in the middle than once at the end – but we don’t always realise this. In fact, one of the numerous foibles that prompt us to make poor decisions is an unwarranted preference for happy endings.

A happy ending means things got better as the experience unfolded. However focusing on happy endings can make us neglect what happened along the way. A happy ending may be brief and come after a long period of mediocrity.

Most of us enjoy it when our pleasant experiences are as long as possible, but at the same time we want things to end well. When Dumbledore died at the end of the Harry Potter film, some people might have felt that their whole experience was ruined. But enjoyment that has already been had should not be discounted because of a disappointing end. A long holiday with brilliant weather except for the last day is not worse overall than a much shorter holiday with good weather throughout.

However, this is exactly how some people feel about past experiences. And this obsession with things getting better and better all the time is a Banker’s Fallacy – focusing on short-term growth at the expense of long-term outcome. The core of the problem is a difference between what we enjoy while it lasts and what we want again after the final impression. Fixating on the happy end only maximises our final impression, not our overall enjoyment.

The neuroscience of happy endings

To examine this phenomenon, we invited 27 volunteers to take part in a virtual gambling experiment. The participants watched pots of money on a computer screen as gold coins of different sizes dropped into the pots one by one. A happy ending would be one where larger gold coins dropped at the end of the sequence.

The experiment took place in an MRI scanner, which allowed us to monitor the brain’s activity as the participants examined pairs of sequences of gold coins. After each pair they got to decide which pot they preferred.

It turned out that there is a good reason why people are attracted to happy endings. Computational analyses of the brain recordings showed that we register the value of an experience in two distinct brain regions. The overall value is encoded in a brain region called the amygdala, which has a mixed reputation. It has been argued that amygdala activation mediates emotional responses that can lead to irrational behaviour, but it has also been shown that it can rationally encode the outcome of economic saving strategies .

But the amygdala’s influence on decision making is marked down by disincentive activity in a region called the anterior insula if a previous experience doesn’t end well. The anterior insula is sometimes associated with processing negative experiences, such as disgust – suggesting that some people are actively repulsed by the unhappy end .

In the gambling experiment, good decision makers picked the pots with the most money in total, regardless of whether they got larger gold coins at the end. They showed a strong representation of the overall value in the amygdala, whereas suboptimal decision makers had stronger activity in the anterior insula. In other words, good decision makers need to be able to overrule a displeasing impression of an experience, such as an unhappy end.

Let’s say you are going out for dinner and you chose between a Greek and an Italian restaurant where you’ve been before – essentially asking your brain to compute which meal was best last time. If all the dishes in the Greek restaurant were “quite good” then clearly the whole dinner was “quite good”. But if the Italian starter was “so so”, the main dish was only “alright” but the tiramisu at the end was amazing, then you might have formed an overly positive impression of that Italian restaurant because the meal had a happy ending.

Since these brain mechanisms operate whether we want it or not, they may be reinforced by human culture with its interest in manipulating our perceptions through advertising, propaganda, fake news and so forth – exploiting our susceptibility to narrative and storytelling. No one is immune to advertising. The more institutions manipulate our thinking, the more our capacity to make good decisions is threatened.

Our intuitive brain really needs intervention from our more deliberate thinking processes to help us resist fake news and other manipulation. Most of us already know how to do this for example by writing a list of pros and cons to support ourselves into wiser decisions, rather than relying on our gut feeling.

So it’s not only Shakespeare who was wrong. If our daily behaviour becomes too narrowly focused on the immediate past, we’re missing out. We need to stop and think about what we are doing using our prefrontal cortex and overrule these impulses and focus on the most relevant aspect of the decision.

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Some stories do have happy endings.

TALLAHASSEE — Some of the 49 migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration are now able to work legally in the United States and have temporary protections from deportation because they are considered victims of a potential crime, their attorney says. The migrants are eligible for protection because they applied for a special kind of visa meant for crime victims who are helping law enforcement investigate suspected criminal activity. They applied for what are known as U visas last year after they said they had been tricked into taking charter flights from San Antonio, Texas to the Massachusetts island with false promises of jobs and other aid, said Rachel Self, an attorney for the migrants. The migrant flight program was designed to remove “unauthorized aliens” from Florida. But critics, including immigration advocacy groups, have pointed out that the migrants had legal status in the United States as asylum seekers and that they were found in Texas, not Florida.

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Netflix’s ‘baby reindeer’ ending explained—your questions answered.

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Richard Gadd as Donny in "Baby Reindeer" on Netflix.

Baby Reindeer is currently the No. 1 series on Netflix in the US. If you just finished watching the disturbing series, then you might have questions about the ending of Baby Reindeer , including what happens to Martha, Donny, and the meaning behind the last scene.

The limited series stars Scottish comedian Richard Gadd as a fictionalized version of himself named Donny Dunn. The show is based on Gadd’s real-life experience with a stalker — who goes by the pseudonym Martha in the series — a middle-aged woman who obsessively followed and sexually harassed the actor for years.

The stalking started in Gadd’s early 20s, when Donny served the woman a free cup of tea at the bar where he worked. Although the kind gesture seemed harmless, it set off a chain of events with dire consequences for his own life and those closest to him.

Gadd recalled that the woman sent him 41,071 emails, 350 hours’ worth of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages, 106 pages of letters, as well as strange gifts, including a reindeer toy, sleeping pills, a woolly hat and boxer shorts. She went as far as to harass his loved ones, including his ex-girlfriend, his parents, and Teri, a trans woman he was dating.

But one of the most traumatic moments from the series doesn’t involve Martha at all. The flashback in Episode 4 depicts Donny’s relationship with a successful, older TV writer named Darrien, whom he met at the Edinburgh Fringe. Although Darrien promises to help Donny with his career, he takes advantage of him, sexually assaulting Donny during intoxicated blackouts.

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“It was difficult going back to these things,” Gadd told Tudum about Episode 4. “A lot of people who worked on the show found it incredibly hard to read and do. I hadn’t admitted some of it to anyone. I think I’d obviously said that I’d been sexually abused and various other awful things that had happened to me before, but I hadn’t gone into that [level of] detail, and it was quite confronting.”

Baby Reindeer Ending Explained

If you’ve watched all seven episodes of the limited series, dive into the ending of Netflix ’s Baby Reindeer , including what happened to Martha, the meaning behind her weird nickname for Donny, and that final scene at the bar. (Warning: Spoilers ahead.)

Does Martha Get Arrested?

Jessica Gunning as Martha in "Baby Reindeer" on Netflix.

Yes, Martha finally gets arrested after Donny finds a threatening voicemail that he uses to expedite his case against her. Martha is arrested and charged with three counts of stalking and harassment. She pleads guilty to all charges and is sentenced to nine months in prison. Donny is also granted a five-year restraining order against her.

It’s unknown what happened to the real-life Martha. In an interview with The Times , Gadd suggested his stalker did not go to prison, saying that he “didn’t want to throw someone who was that level of mentally unwell in prison.” He said that he had “mixed feelings about it,” but the situation was now “resolved.”

How Does Baby Reindeer End?

With Martha finally out of his life, Donny and his ex-girlfriend Keeley reconnect. She suggests that he move back in with her mother, Liz. There, he discovers an old script filled with notes from his assaulter, Darrien, so Donny decides to visit his former mentor.

It turns out Darrien saw Donny’s confession video that went viral and called it “brave.” He also offers him work, but overcome with emotions, Donny leaves and collapses on the street to process it all. For comfort, he turns to Martha’s old voicemails, organized neatly into categories like angry, sad, happy, distressed, and compliments.

“I love that sequence. I like the surprise of going back to Darrien’s door. I love the surprise of listening to the voicemails. I just think there’s a deep psychology to it that I really like the idea of,” Gadd told Tudum. “Someone being so lonely and so isolated that they decide to listen to their old stalker’s voicemails.”

What Does “Baby Reindeer” Mean?

Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning in "Baby Reindeer" on Netflix.

At the end of Episode 7, Donny listens to Martha’s voicemails at a pub. He opens up one that he’s never heard before, which contains the meaning of Martha’s creepy nickname for him: “Baby Reindeer.”

In the voicemail she says, “I had this wee cuddly toy when I was young. Went with me everywhere. Earliest memory I have, I think, was Christmastime. This old photo of me, sitting with this paper hat on my head and this baby reindeer beside me. Anyway, this reindeer was this cuddly, fluffy thing. It had big lips, huge eyes, and the cutest wee bum.”

Martha continues, “I still have it to this day. It was the only good thing about my childhood. I’d hug it when they fought. And they fought a lot, you know? Well, you are the spit of that reindeer. The same nose. Same eyes. Same cute wee bum. It means so much to me. You… You mean so much to me.”

Donny starts crying, and the bartender asks if he’s okay. When he gets his drink, Donny realizes that he’s forgotten his wallet. The bartender kindly says the drink is on the house, sparking a full circle moment that pays tribute to the opening scene with Martha.

Baby Reindeer is streaming on Netflix.

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The neuroscience of happy endings

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