Essay Example on Happy Endings: Margaret Atwood's Love Story with Unfortunate Fates

"Happy Endings" by Margaret Atwood is a short story that revolves around the theme of love, but also the way literature deals with this theme. It offers six different scenarios which are all related to a romantic relationship. The stories vary in terms of their plot and characters, some of them have happy endings, others do not, and it seems that the only thing that unites them is the ultimate death of the lovers. Yet, I would argue that no matter how ironic Atwood sounds when describing the relationships of her characters, in the long run all the six stories are about different shapes of love, the essential nature of loving another human being. All the parts of the short story speak about the eternal themes - love and death - this is why it is so easy to choose a matching poem for each of them.

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For Part A, in which John and Mary fall in love and get married, I have chosen the poem "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet:

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let's so persever,

That when we live no more, we may live ever (Bradstreet).

I have chosen this very poem because it is a classical poem about love which portrays an idealized relationship and paints a picture of complete domestic bliss. The poem clearly expresses the idea that the two characters are married, and, I think, this idea is very important for the first part of Atwood's short story. It also mentions death, the idea of which does not scare the narrator because her love is too strong.

For the second part of the short story, Part B, I have selected a mesmerizing and powerful poem by Jill Alexander Essbaum called "Poem":

A clementine

Of inclement climate

Grows tart.

A crocus

Too stoic to open,

Won't.

Like an oyster

That cloisters a spoil of pearls,

Untouched-

The heart that's had

Enough

Stays shut (Essbaum).

In my opinion, this poem suits perfectly the psychological state of Mary who loves John with all her heart. When her love does not find any response in John's soul, Mary shuts down like a flower in the night cold. Like a flower, her love could open up again warmed up by the sun of attention and requited love, but the night never ends and the flower dies. Though Mary commits suicide, she, in fact, dies of the broken heart.

To illustrate part C, I have chosen a poem called "Poem for My Love" written by June Jordan:

How do we come to be here next to each other

in the night

Where are the stars that show us to our love

inevitable

Outside the leaves flame usual in darkness

and the rain

falls cool and blessed on the holy flesh

the black men waiting on the corner for

a womanly mirage

I am amazed by peace

It is this possibility of you

asleep

and breathing in the quiet air (Jordan).

I believe that this poem brilliantly illustrates the feelings that Mary has towards James, her young lover. It expresses her tenderness towards him as she is watching him asleep after they have made love for the first time. The poem also conveys a hidden menace which is connected with the outside world, the darkness, the rain and some unknown men waiting on the corners. Thus, it is a perfect match for this very part of Atwood's short story.

For Part D I have selected a poem by Tony Hoagland called "Windchime":

She goes out to hang the windchime

in her nightie and her work boots.

It's six-thirty in the morning

and she's standing on the plastic ice chest

tiptoe to reach the crossbeam of the porch,

windchime in her left hand,

hammer in her right, the nail

gripped tight between her teeth

but nothing happens next because

she's trying to figure out

how to switch #1 with #3.

She must have been standing in the kitchen,

coffee in her hand, asleep,

when she heard it-the wind blowing

through the sound the windchime

wasn't making

because it wasn't there.

No one, including me, especially anymore believes

till death do us part,

but I can see what I would miss in leaving-

the way her ankles go into the work boots

as she stands upon the ice chest;

the problem scrunched into her forehead;

the little kissable mouth

with the nail in it (Hoagland).

I have chosen this poem for two reasons. First, it conveys the atmosphere of the approaching disaster. Everything is still, as if caught in amber. The windchime is the only messenger that is going to tell the news of the approaching tidal wave. The second reason is the narrator's attitude to the woman he loves: it is mature and extremely tender. I think that in this way Fred must have felt towards Madge.

My choice for Part E is a poem called "Bird-Understander" by Craig Arnold:

...You are a bird-understander

better than I could ever be

who make so many noises

and call them song

These are your own words

your way of noticing

and saying plainly

of not turning away

from hurt...(Arnold)

I have selected this poem because it is centered around a metaphor of a bird. This metaphor builds an associative bridge with the "bird-watching" hobby in Atwood's short story. But more importantly, this poem expresses the feelings that Fred must have had towards Madge. He was an understanding man and so he could notice that she was a sensitive and profound person. The poem also conveys a feeling of sadness due to the image of the trapped bird. Madge was trapped in the metaphoric airport that was her life after Fred's "departure." Death became a way to escape this trap for her.

Finally, for Part F I have chosen "A Glimpse" by Walt Whitman:

A glimpse through an interstice caught,

Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark'd seated in a corner,

Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,

A long while amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest,

There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word (Whitman).

I think that this poem fits the mood of the last part of Atwood's short story perfectly because its characters are a revolutionary and a counterespionage agent. It is very likely that they attented such places where no one payed attention to them, where they could sit in silence without saying a word. And yet, no matter how secretive the characters are, their love is obvious.

All in all, it is possible to say that Atwood's general statement about love is that it remains love under any circumstances, no matter how miserable, awkward, pathetic or complacent the lovers are. This is why, though Atwood's short story is extremely ironic and the narrator does not seem to sympathize with the characters, the themes that best capture its mood are "classic love," "teen love," and, at times, "funny love." The important word here is love, because it is the mysterious phenomenon being simplified and mocked at in Atwood's short story. A supporting theme would be "break up" because it is often an essential element of love: it is like a "comma," it does not end love. And, finally, "death" is an important theme because only with the arrival of death love ends. But if death is a full stop, then what matters most is what comes before it, the sentence itself, the love that lives as long as the human being lives.

Works Cited

Arnold, Craig. "Bird-Understander." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52207/bird-understander

Atwood, Margaret. "Happy Endings." http://www.napavalley.edu/people/LYanover/Documents/English%20123/English%20123%20Margaret%20Atwood%27s%20HappyEndings.pdf.

Bradstreet, Anne. "To My Dear and Loving Husband." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43706/to-my-dear-and-loving-husband

Essbaum, Jill Alexander. "Poem." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/53139/poem-56d2322bc1b1d

Hoagland, Tony. "Windchime." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48145/windchime

Jordan, June. "Poem for My Love." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49218/poem-for-my-love

Whitman, Walt. "A Glimpse." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50478/a-glimpse