In "Happy Endings" Margaret Atwood uses punctuation in
some unusual ways throughout her story about exploring the "What" ("just one thing after
another, a what and a what and a what") of story plot writing. Some of her long
connections of clauses, which are joined by commas, may not be precisely written
according to prescriptive Standard English punctuation requirements, as is the case in
this sample:
readability="16">
He comes to her apartment twice a week and she
cooks him dinner, you'll notice that he doesn't even consider her worth the price of a
dinner out, and after he's eaten dinner he **** her and after that he falls asleep,
while she does the dishes so he won't think she's untidy, having all those dirty dishes
lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so she'll look good when he wakes up, but when
he wakes up he doesn't even notice, he puts on his socks and his shorts and his pants
and his shirt and his tie and his shoes, the reverse order from the one in which he took
them off.
This passage, which
is constructed as one sentence, would, according to standard prescriptive requirements,
most probably be punctuated as follows:
He comes to her
apartment twice a week [comma needed to separate different subjects: he /
she] and she cooks him dinner, [comma would be replaced by
an opening emdash ( -- ) to indicate an explanatory clause] you'll notice
that he doesn't even consider her worth the price of a dinner out,
[closing emdash] and after he's eaten dinner he **** her
and after that he falls asleep, while she does the dishes so he won't think she's
untidy, [comma fills in for an omitted preposition "from" and necessitates
the closing comma after the word "around"] having all those dirty dishes
lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so she'll look good when he wakes up, but when
he wakes up he doesn't even notice, [comma replaced by semicolon to join
closely related thoughts that could be separated by a period] he puts on
his socks and his shorts and his pants and his shirt and his tie and his shoes,
[this comma correctly prescriptively separates a
which-clause with an omitted
which] the reverse order from the one in which he
took them off.
Many of her sentences are generally short
and to the point (e.g., "John and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have
worthwhile and remunerative jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. They buy a
charming house. Real estate values go up."). When Atwood does indulge in a long
sentences, they are generally compounds connected by conjunctions, like and
and but, or they are subordinated complex sentences with
dependent clauses that may be wh-clauses (e.g.,
"who has a motorcycle"; "when they have
time").
Atwood chooses, as some writers do, to use
which--which is prescriptively recognized as a nonrestrictive
relative pronoun--in restrictive sentences (e.g., "jobs which they find"; "a charming
house which they bought"; prescriptively, these would be written with
that). The conclusion of the story displays elaborate mechanical
manipulation of words and spaces.
readability="6">
The only authentic ending is
the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and
Mary die.
No comments:
Post a Comment