Dr. Sexson made it clear to us in class today that our perfect romances must have happy endings, and I was thinking about this. Why does everyone have to live happily ever after? I have had romances of my own that have ended in tradegy, but they were still romances, and the women in them still hold a place in my heart. But we do not read romance to experience the same tragedies that have taken place in our own lives. A story is a sacred thing when it takes away from us our suffering, our sorrow, and what better way to do that than the happy ending? We all know they are rare in life and Frye points out that they tend to come at the cost of other's suffering and death being forgotten. They are for the survivors. But when I read a story I am exempt from guilt of being happy for the survivors. I am free from the constraints of reality, and I want the story to create for me a reality with true love and virgins and happy endings. Even though I do love a good Cormac McCarthy book. In my naive reading of a perfect romance I am whisked away with them on their adventure, I weep with them when they are in pain and I blush when they are intimate. In this state I could not bear for the story to end tragically. It would shatter the perfect world around me that the story has created. The perfect ending in this naive state of blissful reading then gets the neurons firing in such a way that is not experienced in ordinary life. Medicine for the soul. On the other end of the scope is the story that does not grab my attention because it is not well written. When reading these stories, and on the rare occasions I finish them, I tend to feel let down that the lovers do not die some terrible, creative death. But in my naive state I can appreciate everyone living happily ever after.
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