Happy Endings Summary & Analysis

John and Mary meet. In scenario A, they fall in the love and marry, and end up with a “happy ending” consisting of a house with rising real estate value, children, a “stimulating and challenging” sex life, and “stimulating and challenging” occupations and hobbies.

In scenario B, Mary is in love with John, but John is not in love with Mary. John and Mary engage in a sexual relationship, but while Mary hopes for more, John is merely using her for his own pleasure. John visits Mary twice a week, and she cooks him dinner, tidies up after him, and has sex with him with the hope that he will come to love her in return.

Mary is upset with the state of their relationship, prone to crying and worrying. Mary’s friends insist that John is no good for her, but Mary insists that, despite his rough exterior, John is capable of becoming a good person and worthwhile partner.

Through her friends, Mary learns that John has been seeing another woman, Madge. Mary is most affronted that John has been taking the other woman out to dinner, as he has never taken her out to dinner and instead constantly relies on her to cook for him. Despondent, Mary plans to commit suicide. While she hopes that John might find her, rush her to the hospital, and confess his love, this does not happen, and Mary dies.

After Mary’s suicide, John marries Madge, the other woman he was seeing. The story then states that everything “continues as in A,” implying that they go on to a happy ending of their own.

In scenario C, Mary is in love with an adventurous young man names James, who is attractive and aloof, with an impressive record collection. While Mary is interested in a relationship with him, James is often away on his motorcycle having adventures, and so Mary engages in a sexual relationship with John, a much older married man.

Although John is married, engages in a relationship with Mary in order to mitigate his midlife crisis and feel young again. While he emphasizes how important Mary is to him, he reiterates that he cannot leave his wife, as he is committed to her. While Mary enjoys having sex with John, she remains uninterested in him romantically.

James returns from one of his adventures and proceeds to get high and have sex with Mary. When John walks in on them, he is overcome with rage and despair, and kills them both before committing suicide. His wife, Madge, subsequently marries a man named Fred and proceeds on to the happy ending described in scenario A.

In scenario D, Fred and Madge are happily married, but must deal with a tidal wave swamping the town in which they live and nearly killing them. At the conclusion of the scenario, Fred and Madge have survived the calamity and continue on to scenario A.

In scenario E, Fred and Madge suffer illnesses such as heart disease or cancer, and the story details the ways in which they deal with this until they die. The narrator implies that it doesn’t matter which one of them is sick, and that the plot details are easily interchangeable. The remaining spouse continues to spend their time as in scenario A.

In scenario F, the narrator encourages the reader to attempt to add additional plot details such as making John and Mary revolutionaries and spies, but implies that despite this intervention the plot will ultimately end up the same.

The narrator emphasizes that no matter what complications are added to the plot, the ending is always the same, namely, death. Any story that does not end in death is dishonest about the true ending.

The narrator indicates that, because they are interchangeable and stereotypical, plots are ultimately the least interesting aspect of a story, particularly since they always end the same. Instead, they argue that what makes a story unique and meaningful is not the “what” but rather the “How and Why.”