However, whatever the plot maybe, we always end with Plot A. Finally, Plot F resembles that of the story of lovers caught up in the political turmoils of their time. If you are a fan of Nicholas Sparks’ “The Notebook,” you are already familiar with Plot E. Plot D is the well recognizable disaster story, like last year’s film “The Impossible”. (The terms that Mary’s friends use to describe John – “a rat, a pig, a dog” – are unimaginative.) In Plot C, John takes on the part of the insecure, middle-aged man seeking assurance from a much younger woman, Mary. Plot B places Mary in the role of the unrequited lover, just hoping that John, the insensitive male, will come to see how much she truly cares for him. Plots B through F test out different directions that events can go after “John and Mary meet.” Each of these plots are remarkably predictable, mainly since they are based on cliched, stock characters. (Plot A reminds me of a quotation from Leo Tolstoy: “All families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”) While a “happy ending,” Plot A falls completely flat. John and Mary become merely empty names there’s no reason to care for them. Without crisis, there’s no character development. Here the couple does not face any conflict, crisis, or tension. (Heck, their sex-life together doesn’t even fade!) Atwood offers Plot A as the stereotypical, cliched “happy ending.” The problem with Plot A, at least as far as storytelling goes, there’s no drama. “Happy Endings” primarily consists of 6 different bare-bone plots stemming from the very basic catalyst: “John and Mary meet.” Plot A – the one recommended it we want a “happy ending” – presents the ideal married life of Mary and John: they enjoy well-paying, fulfilling careers the value of their house skyrockets, their children “turn out well ” they go one vacation and even get to retire. ) Atwood’s goal is for the reader to contemplate what is the essence of a story. Did you notice those moments in “Happy Endings” when Atwood comments on the story she is writing? (For example, in plot C, the voice of the author mentions, “…this is the thin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with later”. With metafiction, the author becomes self-reflective about the act of writing. To clarify, in metafiction, an author writes a story in order make the reader think about the nature of a story. You may want to think of metafiction this way: it is a writer writing about writing. “Happy Endings” is an example of metafiction. In fact, we could even raise the question of whether it actually is a short story or not. So you may have found that this week’s reading left you with quite a few questions, such as, “What did I just read?” Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” is not a typical short story.
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