Happy Endings

“John and Mary meet. What happens next? If you want a happy ending, try A.”

These are the opening lines of the story. Structurally, they implicitly afford a reader multiple paths into the narrative, thereby eschewing a traditional—and, in turn, necessarily patriarchal—singular point-of-entry. Further, the use of the verb, “try,” signifies ambiguity, a postmodernist element that will return often in the narrative. 

“Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.”

These are the last sentences of Section A. Every ‘character’ in “Happy Endings,” barring those that die in other sections of the story, returns here, and their own story ends back at the beginning. 

"Mary falls in love with John but John doesn’t fall in love with Mary. He merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind.” 

Atwood, especially in Sections B and C, aligns patriarchal objectification of women with modernist elements of narrative. Her inclusion of postmodern literary devices is strongly tied to an infusion of feminist thought and theory into the story.