"Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood

"Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood

Cultural Criticism

- Picture-perfect Relationship: meet spouse, get married, have kids, and stay happy/married

- Society wants an ideal relationship, but if one expects too much then a "tidal wave" could possibly come down and show a harsh reality (Part D).

Setting

Theme

Formalist Criticism

• Author Margaret Atwood does not specifically set a place for the setting.
• The only reference to a specific place is during Part F she says, “Remember, this is Canada.”
• She leaves the reader to realize this is a timeless story, and the setting can be anywhere. There is not one specific place but it almost depends on scene and economic class: House, Apartment, etc.

• Theme: Don't judge a relationship by what you see
• By section F, Margaret Atwood get to the point that, “You’ll still end up with A… 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: John and Mary died. John and Mary died. John and Mary died.”

• Margaret inserts brackets and categorizes each scene where understanding is very straightforward and simplistic letting the reader interpret their own meaning from the text. From a universal theme anyone can connect to, love. Using imagery and repetition referring back to point in A throughout the whole piece

Imagery

Part B -

Simile: “This other John will emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, a Jack from a box, a pit from a prune...”

Part C -

Simile: “Finally he’s middle-aged, in two years he’ll be as bald as an egg..”

Part D -

Personification: "Fred and Madge have no problems...and one day a tidal wave approaches...The rest of the story is about what caused the tidal wave and how they escape from it."

Part E -

Irony: "If you like, it can be like 'Madge",'cancer','guilty and confused,' and bird watching.' "

Part F -

Sarcasm: "If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent."