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.

At the end of both of these sections, we are asked by Atwood to then effectively return to Section A, in order to learn what happens to the characters comprising Sections B and C (and, also, Section D).

One outcome of this—which has its roots in postmodernism—is to divert or otherwise disallow the ‘natural’ movement of a narrative. In Western culture, we read left to right, and up to down. We move only forward in a text. However, by having the characters in the story wind up in the same place as those in Section A, Atwood implicitly asks the reader, also, to return to Section A, to see what happens to the characters. This implicit ask does two things: it explodes the traditional, figurative movement of the narrative while also employing dark humor—another postmodernist element—when the reader does as asked, as all the characters involved live out their days and then die.

This, of course, is how all stories must end; even if the characters in the story don’t literally die at the end of a narrative, they figuratively do so, in that our time with them, on the page, has concluded. This would seem to be reinforced by Atwood herself, who breaks the figurative “fourth wall” by directly addressing the reader in Section F, the story’s last section, and asserting, “the only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die” (45).

The progression and ultimate breakdown of plot, then, exists not only within each section but also at the macro-level of the narrative. Section A is tongue-in-cheek banal: two people marry; they have jobs, and kids; they live in a house; they retire and die. Atwood does break up the banality by offering that this first couple has a both “stimulating and challenging sex life” (42), but past this, the “plot” of the section is purposefully underwhelming. It’s also worth noting that the words “stimulating” and “challenging” are used to describe both the couple’s professions and their sex lives, thereby wedding the professional and the personal.

Atwood’s opening trio of lines allow the reader to enter the narrative as they would so choose, as opposed to assuming or implicitly demanding the text be read only one way. These lines—“John and Mary meet. What happens next? If you want a happy ending, try A” (42)—leave the reader the choice of how they want to progress further into the narrative. While Atwood understands and anticipates that the majority of readers will indeed move on to Section A after reading this trio of opening lines, she doesn’t mandate, explicitly or implicitly, that the reader do so, and instead offers choice, thereby accomplishing another way of moving through the narrative in non-traditional fashion and working against traditional narrative tenets as much as possible. This is a vital part of postmodernism, as in postmodernist societies, information is stored and distributed differently than in modernist societies.

Ambiguity—a further tenet of postmodernism—arrives in numerous places in “Happy Endings.” First, there is the choice, as mentioned, of how a reader proceeds through the text. Many details are left purposefully vague or inexact in Section A; while we know that John and Mary have kids and jobs, we do not learn the names of their children, nor what kind of jobs they have. They go on vacations, but the reader does not learn where they go; similarly, we learn they have hobbies, but have no idea what these hobbies might be (except when given the ‘option’ for possible details in the last sentence of Section E). Further, we don’t learn what makes their sexual relationship “stimulating and challenging” (42). Instead, these ‘details’ are purposefully inexact and open to interpretation as the reader sees fit.

We see somewhat of a return to a modern narrative in Sections B and C(though, ultimately, this is done to explode the concepts thereof). There are some definite, black-and-white details offered in both sections, such as the fact that James rides a motorcycle and Mary, in Section B, kills herself using sleeping pills, aspirin, and sherry. These details provide reason, and the characters would seem to have coherent, knowable selves, and the plots of the section are largely ordered, and governed by order.

However, the actions of the characters in these sections belie reason and order. Mary, in Section B, is so distraught by not being taken out to dinner that she kills herself. John, in Section C, upon seeing his love interest in bed with someone else, kills himself and them, despite that he is cheating on his own wife. While such events do happen in real life, this is also part of Atwood’s point: these decisions are, effectively, postmodern decisions: they don’t hinge on Enlightenment-era notions that reason is the only judge of what is true, or that the self is stable.

At a more theoretical level, we can view John and Mary as products of what Jean Baudrillard called “simulacra,” or likenesses—the notion that there are no originals, only copies. This can be seen in the “reproduction” of John and Mary in multiple sections in the text; indeed, even in Section A, and before, there is no truly “original” John and Mary. Instead, there are only versions of a supposed original that is not actually anymore in existence, in postmodern art and society. Simulacra works, then, as one more mode of ambiguity, and this inherent instability to meaning in “Happy Endings” illuminates further how it’s a postmodern narrative.

The notion of play is essential to postmodernism and arrives in many places in “Happy Endings.” It’s important to note that the places where the story is most modernist (Sections B and C) are also the places where the story is most grave in its subject matter,and might seem to take itself the most seriously. Play, then, is twofold in its meaning, here: not only are parts of the story purposefully funny, but, as mentioned, there is play upon meaning, play upon image, and play upon the structural form the narrative takes.

At a plot level, this is perhaps most apparent in Section D, where Fred and Madge encounter the tidal wave that kills thousands of people but spares them. In modern and/or modernist literature, the tidal wave and its act of coming to shore and killing thousands would be given ample space on the page; here, in “Happy Endings,” the tidal wave and the chaos it unleashes are barely mentioned at all. The damage and loss of life, while mentioned, is eschewed, and, in doing so, Atwood injects humor into the narrative.

In Section F, the final section of the story, Atwood employs an additional element of postmodernism—the blending of high and low/mass culture—when she says, “If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you” (45). Postmodernism essentially asserts that there is no single or ultimate source of truth—there is no universal order (often predicated upon science, in Enlightenment thought). If this holds true, then the line between a sort of bourgeois or “high” culture, and a mass, or “low” culture, would also begin to erode, and the two would naturally diffuse into one another. Atwood allows this sort of “mass” or “low” element into the text with the above lines, stating explicitly that there is no difference regardless of if she, or any writer or reader, were to lend the ‘characters’ she’s created here specific and traditionally-mass-market roles/professions. That is, it makes no difference if John and Mary’s roles or functions or professions are more highbrow or lowbrow—the end result is the same: they die, and the story ends.

Overlapping these many aspects of postmodernism is the thematic content of the story, which focuses almost entirely on traditional gender roles and the attempt, in some cases, to explode them, or, alternately, show that such an attempt at explosion is either, or both, a) impossible and b) arbitrary, as the end (death) is the only ultimate outcome to begin with.

One basic principle of feminist theory is that the relationship between men and women has nearly always been unequal, and, most often, oppressive for females. Further, nearly all societies have been patriarchal (ruled by males). One can make the case, then, that to write a narrative that follows traditional modes of narration is to implicitly write in a male-constructed way, and to a male-dominated society. Atwood’s offering, at the story’s outset, that one is allowed to move through the narrative in any way they (the reader) would please can thus be seen as an attempt to explode the notion that both reader and writer must exist in a preconceived and patriarchal mode of narration.

We would seem to see core feminist theory as functional, and functioning, in Section A of “Happy Endings”: both John and Mary have jobs, both would seem to love one another and play an equal part in raising their children, and they have a healthy sex life (even if it is “challenging”). In short, they would seem to be equal politically, socially, and financially/economically. There are no real differences between the male and female, and the man isn’t excluded, nor is the notion of only furthering women’s causes placed at the forefront. The same can be said for the Fred(s) and Madge(s) who appear in Sections D and E.

Running counter to this are Sections B and C, those sections in which Atwood proactively applies modern/modernist tendencies of narrative. Here, there is clear patriarchy and sexual objectification of women. In Section B, John uses Mary for sex two times a week, and Mary is relegated to the role of cook and cleaner. Further, she attempts to alter her appearance (via lipstick) in order to appease and appeal to John. John’s other romantic partner, Madge, is kept separate, spatially, from Mary in the text, thereby disallowing female unity in the face of patriarchy and sexual objectification. Further, Mary isn’t even upset that John is seeing someone else; rather, her despondency lies in the fact that John won’t take her out to dinner. The subtext of this is that it is the male, in pre-postmodernist societies, who affords the female access to capitalism; Madge is “allowed” to participate in this, while Mary is not. Further, when Mary attempts suicide, it is only John, the man, who can save her. John does not do so, and Mary dies.

In Section C, we again see objectification, but with gender roles somewhat reversed. John—here, married, and cheating on his wife—is in love with Mary, who is much younger than he is. In this sense, the traditional notions of patriarchy and sexual objectification remain in place. However, Mary chooses to sleep with John out of pity, which may also be seen as form of objectification. Further, Mary’s infatuation with James seems to have little to do with James himself and more to do with the material things James owns; namely, his motorcycle and record collection. In a moment that would seem to be fantastic/fantasy, James shows up at Mary’s place with marijuana and the two wind up in bed together (it is important to note, here, that there is no explicit mention of sex). This, too, can be seen as objectification of the male, albeit at the sake of attempting to invert or explode existing notions of societal patriarchy and objectification of women. John’s arrival, replete with firearm, disallows Mary’s fantasy to continue, and all three die. Madge, the single character to not participate in any of these events, is then afforded access to the core feminist theory present in Section A.

Atwood’s synthesis of postmodernist thought/theory and feminist thought/theory serves to unpack what traditional narrative is, while at the same time bringing the narrative, again and again, back to a place (Section A) where gender, in regard to social, economic and political power, would seem to be equal. This would seem, too, to be the end goal of the narrative, as, shortly afterward, all characters die. However, by forcing the reader to return to the beginning of the narrative again and again by referencing Section A throughout the narrative, Atwood creates a sort of figurative current that might be seen as an attempt to break even the universal truth of death (as postmodernist thought and art seeks to disavow universal truths). What “Happy Endings” certainly does, at virtually every moment, is create art that exposes the artifice of art, and, in doing so, brings to light to the inherent patriarchy in modernist thought and society.