Happy Endings was one
of my favorite stories this semester- in a short space it touches upon the
realities of long term relationships while taking into account different
perspectives of both men and women and the obstacles the social construction of
long term relationships and marriage creates for them and the different manners
in which each deals with their circumstances. The irony of the story lies in the title- no one really ends up happy; that is if you interpret "stimulating and challenging" as monotony as I did.
The
writer intelligibly embeds identifiable themes that manage to engage the reader
through the story. For instance, the use of “real estate” as a symbol for
economic standing reiterated the importance of money in a stable relationship.
This was further re-emphasized when John didn’t “even consider her worth the
price of a dinner out.” This technique greatly complemented the underlying
theme of realism through the story. Additionally, by focusing on the
insecurities of each of character; aging for John in C “in two years he’ll be
bald as an egg and can’t stand it”, marriage for Mary “She hopes he’ll discover
her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then they can get
married.” etc, the manner in which the writer builds the characters, each of
whom are representative of daily realistic problems makes the characters all
the more identifiable, engaging readers further.
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