Critical Response #3

Kelly Hanken

Critical Response #3

Atwoods, “Happy Endings”

“Happy Endings” is a great story that analyzes itself, as well as other stories of its ilk. The concept of the “happy ending” is always prevalent in most fiction, and the story does a good job of giving a nod to the truth of the matter – everyone dies in the end. The best part about Atwoods’ story is that it presents this truth in several different ways, all with a bit of grim humor. Though the characters are very plain – you don’t know the physical description of any of them – you can still see them walking around in your head.

I especially enjoyed the almost “choose-your-own-story” quality to how it was set up. You could pick any of the answers, but they’d all come back to A, and eventually to the final outcome: death. It also does a good job of showing how transparent and fake a plot seems – most of the answers bordered on soap opera melodrama – until you add more detail. Without a narrative (all of the choices are 3^rd person omnipotent), the stories feel trite and boring. This is something that the story picks at, pointing out that plots “are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.”

The urging to figure out the How’s and Why’s of the choices is what really sells the story’s ending.

Z. Goldstein - Crit. Response to Atwood's Happy Endings

Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood (Crit. Response)

This is a story for which the latter elements are entirely dependent upon self-analysis of the earlier elements. The structure resembles a plot list more so than an actual continuous narrative. Label ‘A’ is the stock “happy ending” where everything goes according to plan and John and Mary live happily ever after. As we move down the list the tales become grittier, more real, and more...human. It exposes the insecurities and indiscretions driven by base human nature coupled with societal constructs. Still, labels B-F only hold meaning as direct comparisons to the outcome of story ‘A.’


Story A is the ideal; the standard Disney fairy tale plot progression with no mention of any conflict whatsoever. Soon new characters are introduced such as Marge and Fred but we are still referred to the original happy-go-lucky tale of John and Mary for the outcomes of the later stories. It is meant to expose how fragile plots can be and how interchangeable the characters can become. After the last sub-story ‘F’ the tale breaks off and the reader is addressed directly if not by name but under the pretext of “you.” The message is that all endings are the same: John and Mary die. What matters (and where creative fiction writers are left to fill in the gaps) is the “stretch in-between.”

Plot progression is dependent upon one thing after another, and too often the plot is moving but the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ are left behind. This story teaches us to slow down and let the reasons catch up to the results and the cause catch up to the effects. As a literary exercise the story works because it isolates the plot from the narrative and thus exposes how fragile the former can b. In this sense the story is a novelty and rather interesting to read. However in terms of practical application this is something already known to me and thus of no further use stylistically.