Analysis Of Great Writers - 1532 Words

Great writers are also great observers. Authors from Maugham to modern writers like Margaret Atwood have used the short story to make social criticisms against established social constructs. In their stories these authors use irony and a strong narrative presence to challenge the idea of stereotypical happy endings. Social constructs are defined mostly by our expectations. When an audience walks into a movie theatre to see a movie, they already know how the story will end, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is the plot: what happens to the characters as they move toward their expected ending. Different kinds of stories are expected to have different endings. It is assumed that the couple will end up together in a romantic comedy and†¦show more content†¦Although the narrator claims it is a â€Å"stimulating and challenging,† life, it sounds incredibly boring. After reading it, the reader would not desire a life that plays out that way, while in reality it is the stereotypical American Dream that most people aspire to live. Since Section A wasn’t exciting enough, the narrator places John and Mary, the various stock characters chosen to live out plots in each section, into different scenarios, each one more melodramatic than the last. The more dramatic they become, the more these scenarios reflect common Hollywood stereotypes. However, no matter what happens, the characters seem to end up at the end of Section A. The irony of these situations lies in the fact that whether or not the characters actually fulfill the type A happy ending their fate is the same: â€Å"Eventually they die.† Another layer of irony is added to John and Mary’s circumstances in sections A and B because the trigger that causes them to snap is the result of a personality flaw, not the actions of other characters. This irony plays on the idea that the cyclical nature of these situations is due to a fault in the audiences that have come to expect and enjoy a simple plot with a happy ending, rather than a story tha t talks about deeper topics like the inevitability of fate or a story that deviates from the expected. Atwood uses a narrator with an exceptionally strong presence to address the problems she sees plaguing the