Name that Genre! x2 - "Happy Endings"

I would label "Happy Endings" as a dry and sarcastic choose-your-own-adventure story. Margaret Atwood provides us with several options for how we would like John and Mary to live. She gives the reader responsibility to figure out the details and the key events of the story. In doing so, she characterizes the details of the story as ultimately unimportant: "If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you" (479). She has a haphazard attitude, letting the reader "make" John and Mary whatever they want, to empathize the unimportance the details of their lives in the face of death.

I did not find the ending to be as grim as others made it out to be. Yes, the author does say that what we do in life is unimportant in the face of death, but the last line, “Now try How and Why,” indicates that we should maybe spend more time focusing on the reason we do things (479). Also, notice that “How” and “Why” are capitalized, further indicating their importance. Essentially, this story indicates that we can choose our own adventure in life, and while there are many adventures from which to choose, what we choose to do in life is unimportant. As Sheridan noted, the meaning we make out of our life is more important, especially in the face of death.

I agree with Sheridan that there are existentialist elements in "Happy Endings," but more because of the face that every story starts with life, ends with death, and has a rather dismissive tone about everything that happens in between. It appears that the work is suggesting that nothing that happens in life really matters because every ending is inevitably going to be the same anyways. Tons of interesting events can occur in the lives of these people, as is shown by the multiple variations of one story, but no matter how many different stories there are or how many characters are involved, it will all boil down to the final fact of life: that everything must come to an end, and in every case involving a realistic though fictional human, that end is death.

When reading "Happy Endings" I couldn't help but relive my childhood with Goosebump's "choose your own adventure" novels. In these books, you were the character making the decisions to what page you'd flip to, the only one deciding whether you would be buried alive, run over, eaten, or narrowly escape. "Happy Endings" is like a deeper version to the adventure books I used to read. "Happy Endings" has the options Goosebumps has, but also goes one step further in announcing that everyone's real decision is already final; the decisions one can make are shallow compared to the fact that everyone eventually dies. "So much for endings. Beginnings are almost more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with" (479.) This quote confused me greatly. I thought at first the whole point of "Happy Endings" was Atwood's way to say that the same ending for everyone is inevitable. So why does she say that the middle of our lives is the hardest to control, the part of our lives that we can actually make choices for ourselves?

"Happy Ending" is in the genre of horror fiction because Goosebump's adventure books are in the genre of children's horror fiction. What's more horrific than choosing A, B, C and then realizing that while you were choosing your letter in the meantime someone had taken a crap on your car? "Happy Ending" describes life perfectly in this context.

I perceive “Happy Endings” as a Juvenalian satire, and, I suppose, a sort of call-to-action, as Madison put it. But because the call-to-action part is implied in the definition of satire—the use of a sort of humor, in this case, parody, to make a point—I think that it fits nicely into the already-created genre of Juvenalian satire.

Atwood sends clear messages through her synopses of plots about the state of literature and the plots that are common. Often, as others have pointed out, they are also quite humorous, so I won’t spend much time proving these points.

The Juvenalian aspect, though, is something I think worth noting. (Juvenalian satire is basically “angry satire,” where the speaker is incensed, indignant, and ridiculing, and not just good-humored or focused purely on funny entertainment.) Atwood’s conclusion and diction makes the reader (or, at least this reader) feel as if she is legitimately annoyed by the frequent number of novels that employ such allegedly meaningless plots. As she writes at the end, “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 downright sentimentality” (479). “Deluded,” “malicious,” and especially “downright sentimentality” all carry connotations of an angry writer or narrator. Furthermore, the satire ends at this point, for Atwood scribes, “John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die” (479). While that perhaps could be funny if you shouted it aloud at the top of your voice in class, the italics and repetition make it seem more like a rant than a joke. Even the language in the plots presented suggests that Atwood is tired by these simple plots; she uses phrases like “the rest of the story” and “see how far that gets you” (478, 479). Overall, Atwood’s diction and voice convey her message to other readers and writers in an angry or annoyed tone.

In addition to a formalist critique of the tone of the work, I think the genre of Juvenalian satire, and especially satire, can be further supported by a little biographical criticism. (Disclaimer: I’m a post-modern critic and may totally butcher this attempt at biographical criticism, as we have not had our presentation on this yet. For all I know this is also a mix of philosophical or feminist criticism.) The introduction to the piece mentions that Atwood is “a dedicated feminist,” that “she has continued to explore the complex relations between the sexes,” and that “Atwood has served as a writer-in-residence at universities” around the world (476-477). It doesn’t take a very deep reading of the text to realize that the female characters, especially the seemingly weak and emotionally needy Mary, are not what a feminist would want to see in a piece of literature. Furthermore, Atwood, as a writer-in-residence, already has a sort of “teaching” mentality. Combined, then, it seems that Atwood’s annoyance or indignation at the writers and readers who enjoy such simple “what and a what and a what” plots that ignore the how and why may spring from the fact that: a) these plots often have weak or clichéd female characters, and b) she is tired of seeing these plots again and again when she gives advice or presentations on writing. Thus, not only does the art itself support Juvenalian satire as (one of) the correct genre(s), but applying other critical lenses also suggests that Margaret Atwood is bitingly satirical for specific reasons to convey specific messages.

“Happy Endings” COMPLETELY reminded me of “Goosebumps” from 3/4th grade! If you want ____ choose ending C, if you want _____ choose ending D. As you figure out after reading a couple books, the endings all end up moderately similar. When I go back now and watch or read Goosebumps, it seems so incredibly silly and cheesy. Why do I even choose an ending if they all end up the same? It gives a false authority to the reader. Perhaps that’s a good genre, “false authority to the reader.”
“Happy Endings” is different, however, because the very ending changes everything. Atwood challenges the “How and Why,” which is of course very different than the cheesy ending of Goosebumps. I enjoy this challenge and its direct attitude, so for that I might categorize this as “time for the author to push everybody else.”
At last, the humor in “Happy ending” makes me crack up at a completely inappropriate time. Similar to Metamorphosis. In our discussion of Metamorphosis, we discussed how humor can be used in abstract ways, and this is certainly one of them. “You can see what kind of a woman she is by the fact that it's not even whiskey.” Now I'm laughing at suicide, isn’t that wrong? The satirical aspects are definitely not in goose bumps. This story could fall so many places, but its almost it’s own happy ending.

I started to believe more and more that "Happy Endings" was funny, as if it is making fun of other narratives, especially after Mr. Parris noted how everyone giggles after the notion of death. Section F of "Happy Endings" also wraps up my interpretation of the almost-satirical language the author uses. Atwood writes, "So much for endings. Beginnings are almost more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between... That't about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what." So basically, each different section sounds like a brief summary of life, always ending with a happy ending and death, and then everything is wrapped up with a "haha, that's how all of everyone's stories are." You can call my interpretation as strange as you wish, but it's reader-response criticism, so it's valid. Ha.

For these reasons, I place it under some sort of "Frankenstein amalgamation" (Bill Feng) genre containing writing-about-writing, literary reality, and satire.

I'm going to pose that it's remarkably unremarkable postmodernism. I think initially I loved the story so much because I wrote something very similar in form last year for a creative writing course, it easily being the most satisfying short story I've ever written. It could fall under post modernism, because of the way it's layed out, and that it breaks the fourth wall. I call it "remarkably unremarkable" because we're all obviously moved by this piece and it hits us in surprising ways, yet for what reason? Are these not things people encounter in their everyday lives? On the other thread, Kasey said that "No One's A Mystery" was something like "This happens 100 times everyday."( I apologize if I am misquoting you!) That notion really hit me, why are we constantly so surprised by reality? I also think it's rather romantic. The idea of of being encapsulated by crazed jealousy upon finding two lovers stoned in bed is just really compelling to me... But that makes me wonder, am I just romanticizing twisted tragedy? Why do I fall in love with terrible situations?