Atwood's Happy Endings?

Summary

In this engaging podcast, Julian Thornton discusses Atwood's work 'Happy Endings,' touching upon themes of writing, endings, and how the journey matters more than the destination. Julian and his student, Taylor, explore how Atwood uses realism, humor, and societal stereotypes to communicate deeper messages about life and storytelling. They also delve into the differences in cultural perceptions of storytelling, the reception of Atwood's work, and what truly defines happy endings. The conversation further draws parallels with other cultural narratives, like Harry Potter, to emphasize Atwood's narrative brilliance.

Highlights

• Discussing Atwood's satire on happy endings and writing 🖋️
• Exploring cultural differences in storytelling 🌍
• Connecting Atwood's story to personal life experiences ❤️
• Unpacking themes of realism and social Darwinism 📚
• Drawing parallels with Harry Potter for universal understanding 🧙
• Critiquing societal expectations of stories 📖

Key Takeaways

• Margaret Atwood's 'Happy Endings' challenges the importance of story endings and highlights the significance of the journey. 🚀
• The podcast delves into how Atwood's work blurs cultural boundaries and pokes fun at societal norms. 🤔
• Themes of realism, social Darwinism, and stereotypes are central to understanding Atwood's narrative style. 📚
• Drawing parallels with other cultural phenomena like Harry Potter helps underscore Atwood's lasting impact. 🧙
• The dynamics of reader response critically shape the interpretation of such stories. 📖
• Critical reading involves asking how and why, not just what happens next. 🔍

Overview

Julian Thornton hosts an exciting discussion about Margaret Atwood's famous piece 'Happy Endings,' investigating how it transcends the mere importance of endings in storytelling. Throughout the conversation, Julian and his student Taylor highlight Atwood's intent to shift focus to the narrative journey and the in-between, rather than just the conclusion. Atwood's satirical take on endings is seen as a sophisticated commentary on both writing and life's unpredictability.

The podcast also dives into how cultural perspectives shape story reception, noting differences between Western viewpoints and those from other cultures. Atwood, through her Canadian lens, challenges Americans to reconsider their boundaries and what constitutes a 'classic.' This cross-border scrutiny reveals the inherent satire in Atwood's work where societal stereotypes and expectations about relationships and endings are put under the microscope.

Through a thoughtful dialogue, Julian and Taylor draw intriguing connections between Atwood's narrative structures and cultural icons like Harry Potter. The universal narratives and expectations of storytelling are questioned, providing listeners a fresh perspective on what truly makes an ending 'happy.' As they ponder critical thinking and reading, they impart valuable insights into how such narratives continue to teach us about life and writing.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Purpose In the introduction, the speaker welcomes listeners to the podcast while highlighting the thematic relevance of the podcast's location, which is symbolic of J.D. Salinger's 'Catcher in the Rye'. The host reflects on how often discussions centered around American classics tend to overlook perspectives outside the contiguous United States, pointing out a tendency to disregard Canada or other global viewpoints when considering American cultural narratives.
• 03:00 - 07:00: Discussion about Atwood's Intentions The chapter focuses on Atwood's perspectives and intentions, illustrating the differences in cultural perceptions between North and South Americans. A personal anecdote is shared, recounting the revelation of people in Brazil seeing themselves as Americans too. The central theme revolves around understanding cultural identity and vantage points, particularly about being Canadian and the associated perceptions.
• 07:00 - 11:00: Reception and Interpretation of Happy Endings The chapter titled 'Reception and Interpretation of Happy Endings' explores the thin line between Canadian and United States literature, with a special focus on how Canadian writer Margaret Atwood's work has been influenced and perceived. Despite geographical and cultural boundaries often seeming imaginary, Atwood's stories manage to resonate universally, as demonstrated in her story 'Happy Endings'. The discussion further draws parallels with other literary works and themes, highlighting the universal desire for happy endings in storytelling, much like the character Holden Caulfield's longing for a positive resolution in 'The Catcher in the Rye'.
• 11:00 - 15:00: Personal Reflections and Analyses In this chapter, the author discusses the potential misinterpretation of a character's actions in a story. Initially seen as mockery, there's an underlying sophisticated lesson intended for readers and writers alike. Taylor, presumably the character in question, is expected to reveal deeper insights as the narrative unfolds. Julian Thoron, the speaker, emphasizes the importance of deeper analysis and understanding in literature, hinting at the complex layers that may exist beneath the surface of a story. Taylor is encouraged to adopt the role of a student to explore these themes further.
• 15:00 - 20:00: Cultural and Feminist Perspectives The chapter titled 'Cultural and Feminist Perspectives' appears to delve into the themes of storytelling and narrative analysis. A conversation is presented where an individual named Taylor is interacting about the interpretation of a text. Taylor suggests that the text seemed to emphasize the process of getting to an ending rather than the ending itself, highlighting the less importance of the outcome over the journey. It suggests a form of pedagogic approach where the focus is on the experiences and lessons derived from the narrative rather than its conclusion. This interaction embodies a teaching moment, instructing writers or readers to appreciate and learn from the journey and narrative techniques rather than solely seeking the climax or resolution of a story.
• 20:00 - 25:00: Comparison with Harry Potter and Critical Thinking This chapter explores the concept of endings in stories, particularly focusing on the idea that the journey is more important than the destination. It touches upon themes of life and existential reflections, drawing parallels to social Darwinism, which suggests that regardless of a happy ending, the inevitability of death looms over the characters. The comparison with Harry Potter may imply a discussion about how the series handles these themes, though the exact details are not provided in the transcript.
• 25:00 - 27:00: Conclusion and Invitation for Feedback The chapter discusses the impact and reception of certain writings that incorporate realism with humor. It explores how audiences reacted to these works at the time they were published, questioning whether they were well-received or disliked. The dialogue includes a sense of humor as the speakers reflect on the varying reactions from the public.

Atwood's Happy Endings? Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hi and welcome to the podcast uh thanks for joining me here in the Ry again you know I felt like this was quite fitting since uh we always talk about holding callfield uh catcher in the Ry being one of these Great American Classics and uh to be honest with you sometimes we ignore people who did not grow up inside of the Continental boundaries of the United States it's almost like we think okay America is and then we only think of the 50 states we don't think that there is a Canada or we don't think
• 00:30 - 01:00 there is a Central or South America and I didn't really think that way myself until I lived in Brazil and I kept saying you know in America we do it like this and they're like yeah we're in America here too man I mean so I didn't really I didn't really understand that so anyway I thought the Ry would be appropriate again because here we go with this a Canadian writer who you know we could say she grows up with sort of this Montana likee mindset looking out in this giant field all right that's the way we think of Canadians there's only
• 01:00 - 01:30 like aund and something million of them but they're in this gigantic country and so a lot of times when readers run into Atwood's work you know they may have seen movies or other things that she's inspired or influenced it's kind of like the boundaries between Canada and the United States are are imaginary and she proves that by writing a story called Happy Endings because we all want a happy ending of course you know I mean Holden even in his story wants to catch the kids jumping over about to go over the cliff
• 01:30 - 02:00 and prevent them from certain disaster or destruction and I think in this case readers when they see her story they're going to say she's making fun of them but I have a feeling that you know Taylor once you you really get a chance to work with me some more on this we're going to discover she's really got a sophisticated lesson going on here for the reader and the writer so Taylor thanks for joining me and here you're going to play the role of the student feel free to interview me or back and forth and my name is Julian thoron and I'll do my best to do John and Mary good
• 02:00 - 02:30 service all right so Taylor what you have any questions I guess my first question is was my interpretation of this sort of towards the mark because it read like she was trying to teach me how to read and write in that the ending doesn't matter who cares about the ending they're going to die moving on what we're focused on is how they get that's right I think in in in two ways you know number one she's teaching a lesson to us as writers and that is it
• 02:30 - 03:00 doesn't really matter because that is the ending what matters is how you get there and you know the pathway that you're taking so that could reflect life but it could also be uh pretty profound like almost a form of social Darwinism taking place because you know in the end they just die and so that whole notion of having a happy ending even if you said that they lived happily ever after and then they die because ultimately social Darwinism says that they're going to die so this uh it's almost like she
• 03:00 - 03:30 has taken realism and crammed it down people's throat kind of with tongue and cheek humor yes yes yeah I'm go ahead go ahead so I guess my other question well I've got a couple I've written a few down um I'm seeing um that a lot of people in the class are wanting to know how writings were received when they were published so was this something that people understood was it well received people hate it oh good point uh most people did
• 03:30 - 04:00 not know what to think about it now the real artsy types the real Professor types yeah they got it they were like man this is kind of brilliant she's just doing a really wonderful job of explaining metap fiction and that's just a term we use in the academic circles to mean that you're writing about the act of writing uh so it's kind of like being a Godlike person and looking down on the self who's a writer and uh either talking about the craft in some really unique and interesting way or talking about it a rather mundane way like as a
• 04:00 - 04:30 writer you know maybe she's just really highlighting the fact that she's got to sit down and make these stories on a day that's her job right I mean she's she's doing this every single day working on stories but you know how do you think she feels at the end of the day whenever she's like well in the end all they do is die you know it's like she well that's what she says towards the end of it she's like so much for endings Beginnings are always more fun true connoisseurs however are known to favor the stretch in between since it's the hardest to do anything with that's right God sounds just like an an expert writer
• 04:30 - 05:00 doesn't it trying to give us right it's almost like um she's giving a master class so to speak on this is how writing really works this is how but nobody agreed to that's right that's right and it does sound very Bleak I guess but you know some of the some of the stories you know they appeal to different readers and and you know it's always funny to see students in a classroom and even adults who are just they're not even related to the school topic when they read this it's very curious to see who says they prefer what ending and why
• 05:00 - 05:30 that is really hilarious because some people like for example when a student asked me what do you think Julian I said you know I love ending B that just seemed like that just seemed like it could actually happen and it probably did happen to me at least once in my life you know and you know of course the student was looking at me with this mouth of gas like oh my gosh I can't believe you shared too much but you know it's like you know I've had students literally stand up and say oh see that just happened to me a minute ago you know and I'm like what I was reading
• 05:30 - 06:00 through them and I'm like okay well a lot of these are fairly realistic I didn't know I was supposed to pick a favorite dang my bad that's right so maybe you just had option well it gives you the illusion that you have options you know that's the the humor in the story is that we all think we have options but you know from that social darwinian perspective in the end we just die and of course she's really stressing the fact of how we live so you know as a psych major you could tackle that a different way right you could say you know the beginnings are always fantastic because right there's all these hormones
• 06:00 - 06:30 and there's all these these neurochemicals that are going on in us and you know some of those Beginnings aren't so great some of those Beginnings were just yeah we're here we're gonna have sex okay whatever like that's not a great beginning that's right yeah it makes you wonder like what's that build upon you know so right right yeah but but I mean I really love how we think of the endings being an either or option like it's very difficult to see them as all being plausible so it it is written to
• 06:30 - 07:00 suggest that you're going to pick one now I don't want you to pick one in front of our other students and I don't want to put you on the spot like that but oh I could pick one I would listen I I really am a fool for being in love sometimes and and I'm sure you've heard that before but I'm just curious why we can't have Happy Endings there's this piece of me Taylor that's just like I believe it can work this time it's gonna be perfect and you know I don't know well that's you being human and that's That's The Optimist in you that hasn't
• 07:00 - 07:30 died out or eaten to death or something that's a really nice thing to have that's right you know get focused on that concept that we have a happy ending and it lasts forever and they live happily ever after but life never works like that there's always going to be the next big bad no matter really how fast it gets to you like some people have several years of a happy ending right other people have like two weeks and something really bad happens life just kind of like happens it just kind of keeps coming like Smashmouth and it you hit the ground running and then it just doesn't stop like yeah absolutely and
• 07:30 - 08:00 then you die kind of like Atwood's saying here well that reminds me that you know like if students were asking questions about its reception this work was written during postmodernism and you know that's a tough term for most students and it just means basically after modernism but we generally say after the atomic bomb goes off nothing can be the same and we literally are splitting atoms so it's almost like there's a giant fragmentation occurring you know so we no longer think of Institutions like marriage as being
• 08:00 - 08:30 Sanctified or glorious we just instead think of them as being real and highly flawed and fractured and like you use the word human and I didn't want to go back to that word too hard but if you think about like this in humanistic terms you you you do tend to be optimistic if you think of this in behavioristic terms this is pretty darn negative because people just don't learn their lessons um you know like like you just hope that it's G to work out this time well that's right and that's that's
• 08:30 - 09:00 why I meant that I'm rather foolish sometimes because you know I'm planning on getting a plane on a plane soon and Landing somewhere in Europe and I tell you I feel like I'm I'm at Vegas it's like this time it's gonna land on black this time I'm gonna have 21 Blackjack and you know I'm gonna beat the house I and you know maybe that's my own human naive or maybe this is making fun of the youth culture in believing that there is somehow this perfect or retainable thing thing that's going to come about from
• 09:00 - 09:30 two peoples colliding you know colliding into each other right yeah it's kind of fascinating well I mean with you hearing this I mean you know I know you're an important juncture in your life you know I'm I'm Antiquated and at this point I'm not really sure there's anything but the going over the field or the holding C field you know over the cliff for me that's how I feel some days no I'm I'm really negative now about love I mean it's like okay be seems real see seems
• 09:30 - 10:00 real I don't know that I want to be a revolutionary in in Italy or Spain so I can't go that route but you know it's just going to end negative I mean like I really feel over a little bit I got to witness a sort of for a really long time in my parents and now they're getting divorced oh my gosh after after very nearly 30 years of marriage so like they have happy ending for for a long minute right yeah and then it just it hasn't panned out okay yeah that's life yeah I'm sitting thinking like what a disaster
• 10:00 - 10:30 for you and your sibling you know that you know you and your I guess you had this idealistic notion of the way your parents were but now looking back on it you probably are like they were headed over the cliff for a long time right I've been watching them just hang on with their fingertips for such a long time and I'm just going you could let go well that's right there are parachutes at the bottom I think that's interesting you know the way that uh Atwood actually talks about women in the piece you know some students they don't think to ask about how this this piece is feminist or
• 10:30 - 11:00 anti-feminist but it it sort of communicates something about women and it also communicates something about men here we have characters you know stock characters are basically like the guy in the white hat or the black mustache versus the you know the other kind of character the one that's completely static and never changes so we're really being introduced to you know from the writer's craft the way that characters can be sort of characterized and we're playing upon society's biases and stereotypes the
• 11:00 - 11:30 whole time don't you think absolutely yeah I'm wondering about Mary you know what do people say about Mary and ending a b CDE e and so forth you know I mean like do they judge her I mean I've heard some students say God Mary you should get a clue and dump him put him by the curb you know and you know I hear I hear some people say you know John he's got it going on he's got you know you know two women you know one
• 11:30 - 12:00 on the side and I'm like what what are you saying I mean it's it makes me feel kind of like I'm I'm really uneducated to the way real relationships work no I think I think you just like like like I am we're a bit of outliers and in sort of the Romantic sense but yeah I don't think the story would be the same culturally if you'd said it in Europe or goodness in Asian country oh yeah yeah the setting it's it's it wouldn't work you'd have to change it kind of drastically I think yeah very
• 12:00 - 12:30 Western the whole idea um I don't see so much of this in Europe and now I don't live there full-time but from the time I have lived in Europe I think you're right I just don't see this and you know cultural norms perhaps play a large role in what our expectations are of what happy Means I mean maybe Mary's happy in ending B you know I mean I can't Envision that but um you know I don't know I mean it it does make me think a lot about the way we expect characters
• 12:30 - 13:00 to play things out and you know I'm watching the new series on Prime and I'm I'm you know I'm a big TV guy sometimes and I didn't used to be but now I have become addicted to watching these sort of really silly shows and weirdly enough they're full of these stereotypes and I get it they're good formulas they're what people expect to see so you know the TV makers are just giving us probably what we're looking for or what we recognize well they're really dramatic Mary sleeping with John has a
• 13:00 - 13:30 wife you've got James who enters the pi it's really dramatic we've created this weird love not Triangle Square sort of square yeah I like that yeah it's Square yeah lot of people when does when does John's wife find out what is James gonna do like that that's riveting Keeps Us sort of on the edge of our seat so to speak that's right makes me want to know is James a motorcyclist or you know what I'm saying just like the classic bad boy or right you know so so when we read this piece I guess really my takeaway is
• 13:30 - 14:00 this every time I've had students ask me questions they want to know what my ending is and I'm I'm just I know I'm giving away a lot here but B is my typical response and then sometimes depending on how I actually feel or what's going on my life I pick C and I've noticed that what that says about us through criticism in other words is that reader response is really an important part of the way readers approach literature today even though we
• 14:00 - 14:30 don't typically think of this it does really matter what you think as an individual about what you're reading more so probably than what anybody else thinks right right well certain things just wouldn't become popular if the reader response wasn't there like could you imagine if Harry Potter just sucked oh right and nobody liked it like that's such a huge cultural thing now yeah you're right you're right because it does make me you know do you remember how you know people constantly getting angry over whether or
• 14:30 - 15:00 not Ron and Herm were going to get together or Harry and her yes that's exactly's going on here though okay okay okay so what I wanted to bring up is that I'm glad you said the thing about Harry Potter because that's such a culturally important story but it does express the same sort of basic plot that we're talking about in Happy Endings like we're all wondering is it going to end as a happy ending you know I I hate to say this Taylor but I when I was you
• 15:00 - 15:30 know younger and teaching younger kids and really enjoying that I was reading book six and I was actually thinking oh my goodness Harry and Jenny are gonna get together you don't sound happy with that I'm not I'm so angry at that but then everybody who reads it they're like oh Julian you completely missed it that's that's what's got to happen for the story to really gel and make sense and I'm like no the story is really about
• 15:30 - 16:00 snapee and Harry's mom and of course it is that is the story but it makes me think I'm like okay how does that does it sound like uh any of Atwood's endings they died everybody died but that I found the ending to that entire series incredibly unsatisfying oh right because I didn't care about the ending which is I guess what she's sort of trying to to make the point of here the ending doesn't matter get over yourselves what's happening in the
• 16:00 - 16:30 middle is what matters that's right but you know I'm still going to say it every time every time I read the passage where Snape you know we're reliving his memories through Harry's mind and he's revisiting the scene where Lily has been killed I honestly don't I can't even talk about it now Taylor because I'll burst into tears it's uh it's so sad to me that this person Loved Someone his entire life
• 16:30 - 17:00 yeah and gave everything that's right but maybe this is one of the reasons that Atwood is sort of poking fun at this is that maybe readers like me you know I'm so caught up with the tragedy and the catharsis that it's experienced there and I'm like okay it's a guy but she's dead I mean did Lily ever love Snape that way we don't know is very weird yeah and it's like I don't know there was a James right but they were friends before there was a James that's right and happened
• 17:00 - 17:30 right yeah and see students are gonna be listening to us thinking why are they talking about Harry Potter talking that was given us here is able to be transposed onto anything any story TV book whatever you can take one of the the plot points and go there it is I found it yeah that's pretty brilliant and that's a stud of view I really wonder I mean can you guess what any other student question might be about this because I feel like you just nailed
• 17:30 - 18:00 that with Harry Potter I have written down the quote for now try how and why question very last sentence yeah and I think it's because I'm kind of stuck on it and I don't quite understand what it means because I get what it's asking from a writing perspective now do the whole exercise again with the question how and then do it again with the question why because you sort of flesh out those plot points like we're talking about
• 18:00 - 18:30 if you ask how instead of well what's the ending well you know I think now I might be wrong but this is the way I have tried to express my opinion from a literary critic point of view you know even though I'm not a professional critic I I play this role largely as a professor and my best guess is that in the very last sentence we get a lesson on how to read critically that whenever we I mean you know you hear people say think critically all the time and when I ask people well what is that how do you
• 18:30 - 19:00 teach people to think critically the answer that comes back is usually people are like silent they blank they don't know what to say but I feel like Atwood answered that here she she not only demonstrated what critical writing looks like but the thinking involved is what is the plot you know what happens and then when does it happen how does it happen these are like the old timey reporter questions that you would ask if If You Came Upon a scene and you were
• 19:00 - 19:30 trying to unravel it so she's literally demonstrating in the last line to all of us who would be readers and thinkers that these are the things that make us really good at reading and understanding something and I guess conversely it gives us a lesson that if we're going to write something we need to make sure that we have answered these questions before making it seem so uh random or artistic you know like I used to have students come up and say well I bet you could write a novel in two weeks and I'm like no I couldn't because that you're
• 19:30 - 20:00 literally writing 2,000 words for 30 days straight to get a novel and how can you do that the planning is so important the working out all the details all of that has to take place as almost like a mechanical and engineered process and you're just living it out over and over again maybe that's the real lesson here that even though she's telling us how and why at the end you know that's showing us that there are these multiple
• 20:00 - 20:30 layers that we can read and analyze through and that in itself is a lesson in critical thinking oh I love that so now I'm just picturing in my head I'm gonna get on the little charlock Holmes hat I'm gonna get out a magnifying glass and just go back through it and just tease out the how and the why we're solving a mystery like you're saying learning how to how to critically think I love that yeah that's pretty awesome and you know I mean maybe this time uh we won't include it the podcast since we're gonna end here but uh maybe
• 20:30 - 21:00 you just jot down on a piece of paper what your your realistic ending is which which ending you prefer and which ending do you think is going to you're going to encounter and don't be surprised if you don't end up a little bit sour just like I did ending B ending C you know so we'll see I mean hopefully you'll share that with me when the time comes all right all right sounds good well thanks everybody for joining us for the podcast hope you learned something about happy ending hope you got one yourself and then if
• 21:00 - 21:30 you have any questions or comments please let us know we'll see you next time bye