Analysis of "Happy Endings"

664 Words3 Pages
Jason O Luna English 1102.108 June 27, 2012 “Happy Endings” Analysis In the short story “Happy Endings” Margaret Atwood approaches a story in nontraditional format. The first paragraph is about a typical happy couple with dull names, John and Mary; they live an imaginary life. The type of life that western society engrains into the lives of most of its citizens, the house, white picket fence and the smiley faces of a happy family waving to their neighbors. After which the remainder of the stories are still about the two characters but with the trials and tribulations of life and all paragraphs end with a variation of the phrase “and everything continues as in A” (Atwood 446). I believe that Atwood ends story B with “and everything continues as in A” because most of us want a happy ending to stories, especially if the title is “Happy Endings”. As soon as you read the second paragraph you look back at the first paragraph and compare. Both paragraphs are pretty straight forward; the characterization is very under developed. John and Mary are stereotypes of the American dream in the first paragraph and in the second it reads like a script for “days of our lives”. In the second paragraph she writes in third person the all of sudden switches to second person and say “you’ll notice he doesn’t even consider her worth the price of a dinner out”(Atwood 445). Because the author doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on characterization she comes out tell you how they are as characters. The paragraphs a very different from each other but she still ends paragraph B with “and everything continues as in A” shows her emphasis on the saying “It’s the journey that matters!” Atwood continues to use different variations of “and everything continues as in A” for the ending of each of the remaining 5 paragraphs. I suppose this ending of all the paragraphs stresses the
Open Document