Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings,” is an unraveling fairy tale that illustrates the author’s belief that fiction has many beginnings and middles, but only one eventual ending. The ending she refers to is of course, death.
A classic boy meets girl plot line is employed here because so many fairytales are based on a love story. These boys and girls then slowly disintegrate until we have nothing left but the same ending, no matter how happy the story was. By using these characters and old standby writing techniques, Atwood seeks to show how a reader’s perception can change from childhood to adulthood.
“Happy Endings,” offers many versions of realistic love stories by separating the versions into six parts, A through F. A is the happiest version of all, where boy meets girl, they fall in love and live happily ever after. This version is the story children grow up hearing in fables and bedtime stories, where the couple has a perfect life once they find each other and the ending is a happy one. There are no conflicts in version A, and the couple has no problems. This is the story they want to believe in and that is why Atwood must begin with this version, in order to tear away pieces of it throughout the rest of the story.
Version B introduces the cynicism that many adults have about love stories by writing about a boy that uses his girl instead of loving her back. The girl sets herself up to be rescued by the boy when she takes some prescription pills and sherry and waits for the boy to arrive and whisk her off to the hospital. This situation is symbolic of past fairy tales where the man was the hero and came to the rescue of the damsel in distress, who in childhood stories was always afflicted by something out of her control like her evil stepmother, certainly not her own suicide attempt. In this version
