Happy Ending story review
In the story “Happy Ending” by Atwood, one of the main themes is sex and gender. In the story, there are various scenarios concerning stock characters as described by the author, calling them John and Mary to reflect upon the theme of sexuality and gender. She shows sexuality as heavily conditioned by gender and social norms, usually to the detriment of women. She is writing in this manner to show that women’s sexuality is always socially dependent upon men. These men’s needs are placed first above and over women “Freedom isn’t the same for girls.”. The title of the story is referring to the sexual actions showing that happy endings in real life and sex are significantly the domain of men. Finally, the author claims that gendered expectations around sex are usually leading to situations that benefit men and harm women.
In scenario B, for instance, John is only using Mary for sexual gratification who consents since she is willing John to marry her although she doesn’t enjoy it. “Mary falls in love with John, but John doesn’t fall in love with Mary. He merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind”. This shows that sex for men is about pleasure but for women, it is fraught with gendered expectations of self-sacrifice “she acts as if she’s dying for it every time, not because she likes sex exactly, she doesn’t, but she wants John to think she does because if they do it often enough surely he’ll get used to her, he’ll come to depend on her, and they will get married.” This theme affects my reading positively. By reading about this theme, I get the urge to learn more since the theme is more of what is happening currently in the world concerning gender and sexuality. Most men would only want sex for pleasure while women make a sacrifice to get married by those men or benefit from their earning. Women would do it, not because they enjoy it, but because they want money. The theme also improves my interpretation of the story since I can get a deeper meaning of what Atwood is talking about.