Happy Endings and Short Happy Lives
This post is hearkens back to an old post I did in an old blog of mine. I plan to update several old posts and flesh them out into full essays on this site. Some of them, if they're acceptable, will be transferred unaltered. Secret admission: this blog is designed to showcase my non-fiction, essay-length writing ability. It may feature some short fiction later, but that remains to be seen.
In any case, the phrase "'Happy ending' is a contradiction in terms" is one of my favorite little aphorisms that I have managed to come up. I thought of it without having heard it from someone else, even though I have no doubt that other people came up with it on their own. In fact, I have good evidence that at least a few others did. An essay about originality this is not, but I should approach that at some point in the future.
In any case, what do I mean when I say that? 'Happy ending' is a commonplace phrase, which does not generally carry any hint of paradox to it. What I mean is that in order for the ending of a story to be happy, it must imply a continuation beyond the scope of the particular telling. For example, the fairy tale tag line "happily ever after" implies a happy ending because it says explicitly that the ending of the story is not the ending of the relationship between the two main characters. In fact, they manage the impossible feat of living happily ever after. How they managed that, no one can be sure.
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night's Dream end happily because they both point towards the successful relationships of the protagonists, which it can be presumed last for some significant length of time after the action particular to the plays comes to a close. Similarly, it would be difficult to make an argument for the endings of Hamlet or Macbeth to be happy, because at the end, everyone dies. I can see how it is possible to take a reading of Macbeth which is somewhat happy, but only because Macduff wins and his kingship will continue past the events of the play.
This is a possible wrench to be thrown into the works: there are endings which are happy because they involve the destruction of some threat, generally the villain. Often, this ending also contains the sacrifice of the hero towards the end of vanquishing the threat that has been the focus of the story up to that point. In that case, the ending does not constitute a continuation of any sort, but it is still happy. To this, I say that there must have been a larger group or community which was being threatened by the villain (or natural disaster, or what have you) to merit the hero's sacrifice. In this case, it is their continued existence - in a much better set of circumstances, without the antagonist - which elicits a happy response in the reader or viewer.
The implied continuation can be of just about anything - a relationship between two people or even a person and a pet, a person's life, a community's coherence, and so on and so forth. Sad endings are when these things end definitively. Sometimes, the beginnings and endings do not quite go as one would expect - in Casablanca, the relationship between Rick and Ilsa ends, but Rick and Captain Renault find themselves at the beginning of a "beautiful friendship."
Now that I've established that interpretation, let me immediately undercut it. There is a type of story, relatively rare but popular enough to merit inclusion in this discussion, in which there is a definitive ending which is happy. I first encountered it in the Hemingway short story, "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber." Therefore, I've always called this convention "The Short, Happy Life."
In it, a character is living, but the manner of their existence is somehow unsatisfactory. During the course of the story, they come to realize what is missing, begin fulling their lives, and then promptly die. A more popular example might be American Beauty, in which Lestern Burnham discovers the key to happiness and then is killed. I contend that the movie is saying that it is better that he had realized that and died than had he never realized it at all.
If you accept them as valid readings, these exceptional cases are the only ones which I think can really be considered "happy endings." Without them, the term is unintentionally ironic. Delightfully so, as a matter of fact.
In any case, the phrase "'Happy ending' is a contradiction in terms" is one of my favorite little aphorisms that I have managed to come up. I thought of it without having heard it from someone else, even though I have no doubt that other people came up with it on their own. In fact, I have good evidence that at least a few others did. An essay about originality this is not, but I should approach that at some point in the future.
In any case, what do I mean when I say that? 'Happy ending' is a commonplace phrase, which does not generally carry any hint of paradox to it. What I mean is that in order for the ending of a story to be happy, it must imply a continuation beyond the scope of the particular telling. For example, the fairy tale tag line "happily ever after" implies a happy ending because it says explicitly that the ending of the story is not the ending of the relationship between the two main characters. In fact, they manage the impossible feat of living happily ever after. How they managed that, no one can be sure.
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night or A Midsummer Night's Dream end happily because they both point towards the successful relationships of the protagonists, which it can be presumed last for some significant length of time after the action particular to the plays comes to a close. Similarly, it would be difficult to make an argument for the endings of Hamlet or Macbeth to be happy, because at the end, everyone dies. I can see how it is possible to take a reading of Macbeth which is somewhat happy, but only because Macduff wins and his kingship will continue past the events of the play.
This is a possible wrench to be thrown into the works: there are endings which are happy because they involve the destruction of some threat, generally the villain. Often, this ending also contains the sacrifice of the hero towards the end of vanquishing the threat that has been the focus of the story up to that point. In that case, the ending does not constitute a continuation of any sort, but it is still happy. To this, I say that there must have been a larger group or community which was being threatened by the villain (or natural disaster, or what have you) to merit the hero's sacrifice. In this case, it is their continued existence - in a much better set of circumstances, without the antagonist - which elicits a happy response in the reader or viewer.
The implied continuation can be of just about anything - a relationship between two people or even a person and a pet, a person's life, a community's coherence, and so on and so forth. Sad endings are when these things end definitively. Sometimes, the beginnings and endings do not quite go as one would expect - in Casablanca, the relationship between Rick and Ilsa ends, but Rick and Captain Renault find themselves at the beginning of a "beautiful friendship."
Now that I've established that interpretation, let me immediately undercut it. There is a type of story, relatively rare but popular enough to merit inclusion in this discussion, in which there is a definitive ending which is happy. I first encountered it in the Hemingway short story, "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber." Therefore, I've always called this convention "The Short, Happy Life."
In it, a character is living, but the manner of their existence is somehow unsatisfactory. During the course of the story, they come to realize what is missing, begin fulling their lives, and then promptly die. A more popular example might be American Beauty, in which Lestern Burnham discovers the key to happiness and then is killed. I contend that the movie is saying that it is better that he had realized that and died than had he never realized it at all.
If you accept them as valid readings, these exceptional cases are the only ones which I think can really be considered "happy endings." Without them, the term is unintentionally ironic. Delightfully so, as a matter of fact.
posted by Matthew at 2:07 AM
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