Writers shape the endings of their stories in different ways

Writers shape the endings of their stories in different ways. Compare how the writers of "The End of Something" and one other story from the selection shape the endings of their stories

I have chosen to compare “The End of Something” to “Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit”. “Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit” is about a girl who gets victimised by other girls of her age. When one of the other girls, Paula Brown, slips over and stains her snowsuit with oil, she immediately blames it on the narrator. The other girls join in with her and blame the narrator, who is then put under pressure to by Paula Brown a new snowsuit. When she goes home and tells her family what happened, specifically her Uncle Frank who she looks up to as a role model, they do not believe her, and she realises that life is not as good as she dreams it to be; reality is not as good as they seem in dreams. When her Uncle Frank does not believe her story she feels alone in the world, her childish dreams have been destroyed and she has been dragged into the real world.

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In “The End of Something”, a couple called Nick and Marjorie break up, because Nick decides that their relationship is not fun anymore and he is bored of it. Before Nick tells Marjorie this, she attempts to make the atmosphere quite romantic; this is helped by the moon and the fact that they are visiting the place where they have many memories: Horton’s Bay. However, this atmosphere is spoiled by Nick’s untalkative mood; he obviously wants to get around to what he has to say but waiting for the right moment or may just be nervous about telling Marjorie. In the end, he tells Marjorie, who gets upset and says “I’m going to take the boat. You can walk back around the point.” Perhaps here Marjorie hopes for Nick to change his mind and ask for her not to go, but instead he offers to push the boat out for her. When Marjorie is gone, Nick lies down for a long time on his own, until his friend Bill comes along and starts asking him questions about what happened. Nick asks to be left alone for a while, but Bill just moves a few metres away.

In both of these stories, the ending is quite a negative one. In “Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit”, the narrator realises that life can be unfair and is no longer living in her childish dream world. In “The End of Something”, a relationship comes to an end, leaving Marjorie upset but it seems that Nick is also upset. In both stories we feel sympathy for the characters involved. For the narrator in “Superman and Paula Brown’s New Snowsuit” we feel sympathy because she is being hit by this world of reality with war and unfairness rather than the dream world that she lived in before. In “The End of Something” we feel sympathy for Marjorie, because her relationship with Nick has been ended after she seemed to be making an effort towards it. However, we also feel sympathy for Nick because he seems upset, and maybe it was not his decision to end the relationship; it may have been Bill who persuaded him to end it. We cannot know for certain whether it was Nick’s decision or not because the story ends without explaining this.

Both of the short stories involve something coming to an end; in one, a life of childish dreaming into the harsh reality of the world; in the other, the end of a relationship into a state where both partners seem unhappy.