Summary
The narrator announces that John and Mary meet, and asks the reader what will happen next.
She directs them toward version A, which she labels as a happy ending. In version A, John and Mary fall in love, work fulfilling jobs, and buy a house. They have two children, take enjoyable vacations, and retire, each with their own interesting hobbies. Eventually, John and Mary die.
In version B, Mary loves John but John does not love Mary. Instead, he uses her for pleasures like sex, food, and company. Mary feels compelled to please John, and she cooks for him whenever he comes to her apartment. He is a selfish lover, but Mary cannot help wanting to be with him.
Everyone in Mary's life tells her that John is not good for her, but she believes deep down that she can change him and that he is a better person than he seems. Her friends tell her that they have seen John at a restaurant with another woman named Madge. Heartbroken, Mary attempts to overdose on sleeping pills. She secretly hopes John will appear at the last minute and save her, but he does not, and Mary dies.
John eventually marries Madge and lives the same life described in version A, with Madge instead of Mary.
In version C, John is married to Madge but is having an affair with the much younger Mary. Mary pities John because of his age, but does not love him. She loves James, a twenty-two-year-old man who is not ready to commit. James spends his time riding around on his motorcycle.
One day, James brings marijuana to Mary's and they get high and have sex. John finds them together, and is so overcome with despair that he purchases a handgun and kills James, Mary, and himself. Madge mourns John and eventually marries a man named Fred, and Madge and Fred continue to live out the life described in version A.
Analysis
The beginning half of "Happy Endings" is characterized by three different versions of two characters' lives, with the characters themselves shifting in personality, age, and temperament among each of the stories.
Readers will immediately notice the uniqueness of such a structure for a short story: rather than simply relaying a single narrative about characters John and Mary, the author instead presents the characters' and their stories as changeable and arbitrary. In so doing, the author immediately draws readers' attention to the artifice of fiction-writing and the relationship between writers and readers.
The pick-your-own structure of the story ultimately dramatizes how writers create and alter characters to better communicate with readers, and how the concept of "character" in fiction writing is fundamentally unstable because characters are not real people. In this way, the story introduces itself not as a story with a singular narrative but as a commentary on the nature of storytelling more generally.
The author also presents a cynical interpretation of its titular "happy endings." Version A of John and Mary's lives is notably mundane, punctuated only by happiness, comfort, and fulfillment. This "happy ending," the story suggests, does not make for interesting reading or writing.
Instead, she presents alternatives like versions B and C, where John and Mary both experience unrequited love for one another. In both B and C, this unrequited love or emotional disparity between the characters fosters conflict and drama, two elements of fiction that many would argue are absolutely necessary for producing a story of quality. These versions are notably longer and more complex, thereby suggesting that "happy endings" like version A – two people who fall in love and grow old together – are not as compelling as stories fraught with sadness, anger, confusion, and hardship.
