Tuesday, February 8, 2011

If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad?

We've been talking about how Huck Finn should end in class lately. Max was talking about a "Hollywood Ending" (I more equate it to a Disney ending but its cool Max) to Huck Finn and everyone more or less rolled there eyes because no story as complicated as Huck's could possibly end happily. But in the immortal words of Miss Sheryl Crow-

What would be so wrong with Huck buying Jim then freeing him, letting Jim go back and be with his family and adopt Huck and have them all live happily ever after?

When things end well in books, people write off the book as the writer giving up. Like at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, many people believed that when J.K. Rowling ended the book with Harry and Ginny getting married and having kids named after their fallen friends, she was coping out of writing a real ending. But why does everything have to be sad? Why does every great piece of literature have to end bittersweetly? Why can't it be a big chocolate sundae with whipped cream? Why does it have to be baking chocolate?

I am a sap for happy endings, and I always think there should be more of them. Peony should have been able to marry David and lived happily ever after, instead of her having to go to an abby and be away from the man she loved. Tita in Like Water for Chocolate should have been able to marry Pedro and they could have had babies who were also incredibly sensitive to chopping onions and had crazy magical tears. Anna from My Sister's Keeper should have been able to live with her Kate after Kate's leukemia was cured. The world is sad enough, can't we allow ourselves to escape into a book that is complex but doesn't remind us of the sadness in the world we're trying to escape from?
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1 comment:

  1. EmmaFebruary 9, 2011 at 5:42 PM

    Chloe-
    I too am a fan of happy endings. I am always disappointed or depressed when a main character dies in the end of a movie or a book. I think the problem with having a picture perfect ending at the end of Huck Finn, though, would be historical accuracy. In 19th century America, it would have been nearly impossible for a white boy and a black man to live happily and safely along side each other, even in the North. And, even if they "beat the odds" and Twain had them ending up perfectly together, it would have ruined some of his credibility in the book. We want to think that this book is as realistic as possible, so that we can believe in some of the positive messages it sends, but if we find out this book is all "fantasy" in the end, we might be more reluctant to consider the story factual.

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