“….and they
lived happily ever after.”
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| http://amzn.to/2vwPvg5 |
Can a fairy
tale end in any other way? Can the beautiful girl ever be eaten by the wolf,
remain under the power of the wicked sorcerer, or end her life in abject
poverty without the love and support of the handsome prince? If there is such a
tale, I’ve never read it.
Happily ever after is a principle enshrined in literature for
generations. It was something on which a reader could count. In the end, the
hero would always come out on top. The interest in happy endings carried over
into film. No matter how dark the circumstances, the guy in the white hat would
triumph, and the villain – dressed in black – would be vanquished.
Of course,
not every story or play or book ended in the way we might want. Romeo and
Juliet, and its modern incarnation, West Side Story, come to mind as
a plays in which the heroes died. But, by and large, the reader or the viewer
could plan on a happy ending.
At some point
this all changed. Today, one never knows what evil awaits the hero, nor if the
hero will be able to overcome it. It has been asserted that if writers want to
be taken seriously, today, they must actually avoid happily ever after
endings to their books.
I wonder if
the modern disdain for happy endings comes from the pervasive cynicism that we
see among the baby boomer generation. Boomers were born between nineteen
forty-five and nineteen sixty-five and, in part because of their numbers, they
have had a dramatic impact on American society.
As a baby
boomer, myself, I might well ask why we are more cynical than were those who
came before us.
Perhaps it is
because, during our lifetimes, we have seen political figures shot in the
streets (the Kennedys, Wallace, and Reagan). We have watched as our government
prosecuted two wars – in Viet Nam and Iraq – which ultimately seemed to make no
real sense. A sitting president tried to break into his opponent’s headquarters
and then resigned from office. We have seen corrupt politicians, immoral public
figures, and rampant corporate greed. We have witnessed mass murders.
All of these
have been brought into our homes in full color by the news media who seem to
believe that the right to show and tell everything is the same as an obligation
to show and tell everything.
Life is not
happy, many boomers have concluded. We don’t believe in fairy tales anymore and
we’ve lost our confidence in happily ever after. Happy endings are so
unrealistic as not to be believable.
Still, I like
happy endings. When I read a novel, I am entering into another person’s world,
perhaps at a different time in history, in a place I’ve never been. The hero
may be doing things I’ve never done. I get to know the characters. I come to
care about them. I do not want anything bad to happen to my hero.
If I want to
feel depressed, I can tune in to CNN. The news this week focuses on chemical
attacks in Syria. Hundreds of noncombatants have been killed. I can feel sad
for people who I do not know and have never met.
When I open a
novel, though, I am not reading the Times. I am reading neither an
autobiography, nor an historical account. I do not want the author of my novel
to draw me into the story, only to leave me feeling depressed, or sad, or
angry. I may be reading the novel, in fact, to escape from the world around me.
I want a happy ending.
Perhaps more
important than a happy ending, however, is a satisfactory ending.
Alan Watt, in
his book, The 90 Day Novel, writes that the hero of a story is
attempting to get something that he wants – the girl, a new job, a blue ribbon.
He also writes that the hero has a need, which is bigger than what he wants,
and the hero believes that what he wants will satisfy the need. The boy who
chases the girl may really need love, and he believes that she will love him.
The one who looks for a new job may really need recognition and thinks that it
will come with the position. Winning the blue ribbon may be an attempt to obtain
the acceptance that the hero believes will follow an outstanding performance.
It seems to
me that the hero must get what he wants if the story is to have a happy ending.
In some
stories, the hero does not get what he wants – no happy ending – but he does
find a way to satisfy his need. This is a recipe for a satisfactory ending.
In the motion
picture, The Titanic, Rose is a young lady sailing to America where she
will marry. Her family is forcing her into the marriage, and she does not care
for her fiancé. Jack is a poor boy sailing to America to make a better life for
himself. They fall in love and want to marry.
Had the story
ended with their arrival in New York and their marriage, it would have had a
happy ending. We would have assumed that they lived happily ever after.
However, the
Titanic strikes an iceberg and the ship sinks. Jack dies in the icy water of
the north Atlantic, while Rose is rescued. She eludes the family members and
her fiancé who search for her among the survivors. She gives a false name to
immigration officials. She begins a new life. She does the things that she and
Jack had talked of doing. She marries, she has children and grandchildren.
Although she always cherishes her memory of Jack, she has a good life.
What Rose
needed was freedom – freedom from her parents, freedom from her fiancé, freedom
to build her life as she wants it to be. During the voyage, marriage to Jack
seemed like the path to satisfy her need. While she was not able to follow that
particular path, she did find her freedom.
The ending
was not happy, but it was satisfactory.
In one sense,
a satisfactory ending is better than a happy one, because getting what one
wants may provide only short-term happiness – marriage to Jack may not have
been as wonderful as Rose imagined it would be. Getting what one needs provides
continuing satisfaction – Rose was free for the rest of her life.
A story may have a happy ending. It may
have a satisfactory ending. The very best stories have both.
David Burnett lives near Charleston, South Carolina, where he walks on the beach almost every day and photographs the ocean, the sea birds, and the marshes that he loves. Three of his four books are set in Charleston, and he has always enjoyed the Carolina beaches.
David enjoys photography and has photographed subjects as varied as prehistoric ruins on the islands of Scotland, star trails, sea gulls, and a Native American powwow. He and his wife have traveled widely in the United States and the United Kingdom. During trips to Scotland, they visited Crathes Castle, the ancestral home of the Burnett family near Aberdeen, and Kismul Castle on the Isle of Barra, the home of his McNeil ancestors.
He reports that he went to school for much longer than he wants to admit, and he has graduate degrees in psychology and education. He and his wife have two children and a blue-eyed cat named Bonnie.
Author links:
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