Happily Every After?

One of my favorite books is William Goldman's THE PRINCESS BRIDE.  It's a twist on swachbuckers and fairy tales, and I believe Goldman also wrote the screenplay.  He doesn't believe in happy endings, even in fantasy.  So as the heroes and the princess ride off, he says what happens after happily ever after: Buttercup's horse throws a shoe, Inigo's wounds start bleeding again and the evil prince never gets punished. 

Now, does that mean every story should end with everyone miserable or dead?  Think of Hamlet.  Unless you're a big fan of Fortinbras, there 's no way you can say that it ended well.  Half the people died by accident, although many say Polonius deserved it.  Nevertheless Hamlet, Othello, MacBeth and Romeo and Juliet are considered Shakespeare's greatest plays.  Not a lot of cheery faces in those.

Do we need a happy ending?  Maybe not always.  Sometimes survival in the face of tragedy, like Scarlett O'Hara, is more powerful and oddly satisfying.  As a reader, I think that having a resolution to the main story is more important.  Endings should fit the tone of the book and bring the plot to completion, even if it is bodies all over the stage.  Happy?  It would be nice, but it's not always the way things turn out.  In life, there's little logic to what happens.  In fiction there must be.  So I'll pass on the starry-eyed couple who think marriage is the end of their troubles.   Just give me an ending that makes sense.

Although I do always want to smack Othello upside the head and tell him, "Why don't you just ask her why the handkerchief is there?  I'll bet it just got mixed up in the palace laundry."

Sharan, grinchy from the heat.

Comments

[Susan Shea]

Sharan, I so agree with you about Othello. In fact, I can barely sit still through the play or the opera without squirming because that idiot is so easily manipulated and it's all so unnecessary! Patricia Highsmith wrote wonderful ,twisty crime fiction, but was rather dark of personality, and her endings disturbed many readers, I heard. As you say, real life is a mixed bag where happiness is concerned.

[Ann]

I like the "survival in the face of tragedy" comment, Sharan. And I had to laugh about The Princess Bride. I saw the movie ages ago, but never read the book. Did the movie end with the same "afterword?"

[sharan newman]

You know, I don't remember, but I think so. An interesting topic that made me think about happy vs satisfying.

[Michael A. Black]

Goldman also wrote the screenplay for Harper, the Paul Newman movie based on Ross MacDonald's The Moving target. He put in one of the greatest freeze-frame endings I've ever seen.

[sharan newman]

I didn't know that. I haven't seen Harper in years. I'll have to rewatch it. Thanks!

[Mike]

I also love the book The Princess Bride. I like that the ending didn't follow the typical fairy tale because that's not how life works sometimes. You can look at movies like No Country for Old Men and people are upset because it didn't have a Hollywood ending. That's just not how life works sometimes.

[sharan newman]

On Goldman - he also wrote Robin and Marian. The movie was Audrey Hepburn and Sean Connery and had the same realistic ending along with being the most accurate depictions of the way medieval people thought.