Happy-ending interpretive

[Chilly]

So I was trying to name some interpretive novels with happy endings but I actually couldn't think of any that I had read (which isn't very many actually), which got me thinking. They're less common than depressing interpretive, and many of the classics have happy endings but aren't really interpretive. What are some very interpretive novels that have truly happy endings?

[Wilde woman]

What do you mean by "interpretive novel"? I've never heard that term before.

[Chilly]

I meant interpretive literature, I just used it as an adjective to describe the novels that would fit under its category.

Interpretive Literature: Literature that is written not only to entertain (although it hopes to do that as well) but to enlighten the mind. It's goal is to make the reader gain some new insight, understanding or revelation about the world. It's a novel that we have to think deeply about to understand, reading it a few times, discussing it, and still being able to pick up little details later on. It's based around theme and characters, but has a ton of symbolism, irony, tone and plot as well. It's not escapist (literature where one ''escapes from reality" by reading it). Escapist is written so the reader is entertained and the author gets money, it has the same over-used themes that the reader is familiar with and doesn't have to think about since it's already confirmed as true and known. Escapist usually have flat, stock characters that are essentially perfect and always win the battles they try to fight (as in the plot-line, which is often the same idea repeated from book to book).

Now escapist literature always has a happy ending, and Interpretive literature often doesn't but I believe it doesn't have to. A book can fit the above description and not have a sad ending, but it just doesn't seem to be the case.




To give some examples: (Warning=Major Major Major Plot spoilers

1984: Big Brother wins, Winston Smith has been brain-washed, there is no hope in fighting against the government at all.

A Farewell to Arms: Wife dies, child dies.

Lord of the Flies: They're saved, but they lost control of humanity, and to their shame-killed one of their own

Frankenstein: A lifetime of terror for the protagonist

Great Gatsby: Gatsby, Daisy dead.

Hamlet, MacBeth, and others from Shakespeare, plus countless others from other authors.

[Drkshadow03]

Escapist is written so the reader is entertained and the author gets money, it has the same over-used themes that the reader is familiar with and doesn't have to think about since it's already confirmed as true and known. Escapist usually have flat, stock characters that are essentially perfect and always win the battles they try to fight (as in the plot-line, which is often the same idea repeated from book to book).

Now escapist literature always has a happy ending, and Interpretive literature often doesn't but I believe it doesn't have to. A book can fit the above description and not have a sad ending, but it just doesn't seem to be the case.


Wow, those are some loaded, extremely unsupportable assumptions. I notice you didn't give any examples of what you consider to be escapist literature.

[OrphanPip]

Well since you brought up Shakespeare, the comedies tend to have happy endings.

[SwedishDemocrac]

Nice Work has a happy ending...but you're right, I'm having trouble thinking of novels with "happy" endings rather than hopeful endings.

[Chilly]

Wow, those are some loaded, extremely unsupportable assumptions. I notice you didn't give any examples of what you consider to be escapist literature.

The Da Vinci Code
The Twilight series
Jurassic Park
The Bourne Supremacy
Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell
There are many many escapist novels, even older novels like Kidnapped for example.

This isn't my opinion and these aren't my assumptions, I didn't invent these terms. You're overreacting when you say loaded and unsupported because although there are many exceptions, most literature can fit under these two terms (alright, the part where I say that Interpretive fiction isn't written primarily for money isn't supportable at all, but the rest is). So it's not as if I'm making all these claims, not at all, I'm basically repeating them from very trustworthy sources.

And about Shakespeare, do all of his comedies fit under the definition of Interpretive? Where would you place A Midsummer Night's Dream? sometimes a work might fall between or be debatable (but that doesn't mean these terms don't apply at all).

[OrphanPip]

And about Shakespeare, do all of his comedies fit under the definition of Interpretive? Where would you place A Midsummer Night's Dream? sometimes a work might fall between or be debatable (but that doesn't mean these terms don't apply at all).

The amount of scholarly criticism written on comedy as a genre, one of the major classical genres of theater, would seem to say otherwise.

I also think you're notion of "interpretive literature" is ill-defined. It just strikes me as a rather lame attempt at defining "good literature" in opposition to what you think are qualities of "bad literature." It doesn't necessarily take less talent, artistry, or skill to write something which is merely for the entertainment of individuals. Nor is it impossible for something to be thematically rich while still being mostly about entertainment.

Likewise, writing within the specific conventions of a form does not render something inherently inferior to other writing.

Edit: In other words, the emphasis on something being interpretive or escapist is merely distraction.


Nice Work has a happy ending...but you're right, I'm having trouble thinking of novels with "happy" endings rather than hopeful endings.

Uh, nearly anything by Austen or Dickens.

[Drkshadow03]

The Da Vinci Code
The Twilight series
Jurassic Park
The Bourne Supremacy
Sharpe's Tiger by Bernard Cornwell
There are many many escapist novels, even older novels like Kidnapped for example.

This isn't my opinion and these aren't my assumptions, I didn't invent these terms. You're overreacting when you say loaded and unsupported because although there are many exceptions, most literature can fit under these two terms (alright, the part where I say that Interpretive fiction isn't written primarily for money isn't supportable at all, but the rest is). So it's not as if I'm making all these claims, not at all, I'm basically repeating them from very trustworthy sources.

And about Shakespeare, do all of his comedies fit under the definition of Interpretive? Where would you place A Midsummer Night's Dream? sometimes a work might fall between or be debatable (but that doesn't mean these terms don't apply at all).

Care to share your sources?

It's interesting that now you're writing, "although there are many exceptions" when before you said, "escapist literature always has a happy ending" (emphasis mine). Most literature doesn't fall comfortably in these two categories at all. This sounds like one of those simple dichotomies they teach undergrads in their first year of English.

Let's choose one of your examples: Jurassic Park. All our main characters end up detained in prison and the book implies the murderous dinosaurs are still alive, and he just watched most of the characters die. How exactly is that a happy ending? How exactly is the theme of genetics and its possible consequences an overused theme when Jurassic Park was written?

The fact is that saying there is Literature Type A and Literature Type B just doesn't fit into the complex world of literature and variety of stories that are available. Not to mention I know a lot of writers. Most of them want to make money, want to write stories that entertain, and want to write stories that have something to say about the world we live in. I've never met a writer who didn't want all three of those things.


The amount of scholarly criticism written on comedy as a genre, one of the major classical genres of theater, would seem to say otherwise.

I also think you're notion of "interpretive literature" is ill-defined. It just strikes me as a rather lame attempt at defining "good literature" in opposition to what you think are qualities of "bad literature." It doesn't necessarily take less talent, artistry, or skill to write something which is merely for the entertainment of individuals. Nor is it impossible for something to be thematically rich while still being mostly about entertainment.

Likewise, writing within the specific conventions of a form does not render something inherently inferior to other writing.



Exactly to all your points! Even if we took works that would clearly fall under the "good" literature category, those works play around with many of the same tropes and themes too, otherwise they wouldn't be able to play in that self-referential game with each other that JBI likes to talk about. Why else would we have terms like Novel of Manners or Bildungsroman? These terms will immediately inform you about certain elements/archetypes/and even cliches that will be present in these novels. Why else could we categorize novels by period? This isn't just an arbitrary, "Oh, it was written around the same time." But in many cases, they will share similar characters (like a sick or mentally-ill character or ennui-suffering character in many Decadent-modernist novels), or the miser-figure in comedies, and sometimes even basic plot lines (once you smooth away all the other stuff).