# Most WTF Endings in Classic Books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 12, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972 "2019-07-12T15:23:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/1 "2019-07-12T15:23:26Z")
I’ve just finished reading _The Grapes of Wrath_, which I had picked up years ago on a flea market (one of the many “might-as-well-read-this books” that I buy second-hand) and ended up liking it quite a bit more than I expected. I didn’t _love_ it, found it a bit preachy and black-and-white, but still : a fine book and a very vivid picture of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression era. But that ending. WTF ? I think I get what **Steinbeck** was aiming for but it was still unexpected, borderline gratuituous and… well, really weird. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/2 "2019-07-12T15:48:13Z")
When I saw the thread title I thought, ooh, i’ll Be the first to mention The Grapes of Wrath! But of course it was the reason the OP was posting. But though the ending was widely derided at the time, I didn’t think it was all that WTF— it’s about life going on though tragedy, finding a way. Everybody should read GOW, but for those curious as to what the ending is: a young pregnant “Okie” woman in the 30’s has a stillborn baby due to malnutrition and poor prenatal care, so she uses her breastmilk to nurse a starving man. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/3 "2019-07-12T15:58:44Z")
I suppose I lack empathy for victims of bullying, but I didn’t think the ending of _Brave New World_ was necessary. Ahab’s end in _Moby Dick_ seemed a bit abrupt to me. I sort of prefer they way the Gregory Peck movie handled it. The abrupt left turn at the end of Upton Sinclair’s _The Jungle_ annoys me, but the public reaction amuses me. from [The Jungle - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle) > [@](#): > > Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. His primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States.[2] However, most readers were more concerned with several passages exposing health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry during the early 20th century, which greatly contributed to a public outcry which led to reforms including the Meat Inspection Act. Sinclair famously said of the public reaction, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/4 "2019-07-12T16:20:18Z")
> [@solost](#): > > …But though the ending was widely derided at the time, I didn’t think it was all that WTF— it’s about life going on though tragedy, finding a way. That’s pretty much how I read it, indeed. a young pregnant “Okie” woman in the 30’s has a stillborn baby due to malnutrition and poor prenatal care, **so she uses her breastmilk to nurse a starving man**. And these are the very last lines… The last paragraph is tonally completely different from the 400+ pages that preceded it in every respect and… just brutal in it’s out-of-the-blue weirdness. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/5 "2019-07-12T16:42:58Z")
_Outer Dark_ by Cormac McCarthy might be stretching the definition of “classic,” but it’s over 50 years old and his books are destined to be classics, so I’m going with it. The entire novel is already WTF, with the main plot of a brother and sister in Appalachia who have a baby together. The brother abandons the baby in the woods after birth, telling his sister it died in childbirth, and the sister eventually learns the truth and goes in search of it. After plenty of disturbing and WTF events, it ends with the baby being eaten alive by a trio of murderers, who are either real men, manifestations of biblical reapers, or a projection of the brother himself. This is followed by the brother talking to blind man, then watching the man walk into a swamp where he will surely die, and the brother thinking “someone should tell a blind man about a swamp before sending him that way.” ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/6 "2019-07-12T16:43:52Z")
Like each of his three novels, Franz Kafka’s “Das Schloss” (“The Castle”) is a fragment, and famously ends mid sentence: > [@Franz Kafka](#): > > Sie reichte K. die zitternde Hand und ließ ihn neben sich hinsetzen, mühselig sprach sie, man hatte Mühe, sie zu verstehen, aber was sie sagte… > > [my translation:] > > She offered K. her trembling hand and let him sit next to her, she spoke ardously, it was difficult to understand her, but what she said… We will never know what she said, as well as what became of K.'s troubles with the monstrous bureaucracy of the castle, but somehow this abrupt ending fits the nightmarish air of the novel, indicating a neverending horror by chance. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/7 "2019-07-12T17:12:51Z")
I found the ending to _Tess of the D’urbervilles_ disturbing. ---
**Author:** ![Rough\_Draft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@Rough\_Draft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rough_Draft)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/8 "2019-07-12T18:20:23Z")
I’d pick _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_. When Tom Sawyer shows up near the end and starts making ridiculous escape plans for Jim, the whole story shifts from an American tragedy to a bad comical farce. ---
**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/9 "2019-07-12T18:25:44Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > I suppose I lack empathy for victims of bullying, but I didn’t think the ending of _Brave New World_ was necessary. High school story regarding Brave New World. I had a class called Utopia, where we read books based on utopias or anti-utopias. We were up to Brave New World, which I had actually already read. One guy was sitting in the back of class goofing off a bit. The teacher asked him if he had finished the book. He said that he had. She asked how it ended. He said the main character had steel toed boots on and was acting like a compass. The teacher and myself were the only two who laughed at that, since nobody else had completed the book. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/10 "2019-07-12T18:49:26Z")
> [@Rough\_Draft](#): > > I’d pick _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_. When Tom Sawyer shows up near the end and starts making ridiculous escape plans for Jim, the whole story shifts from an American tragedy to a bad comical farce. This is the one I was going to mention. I’ve seen some scholars claim that the ending is just misunderstood. But I feel that Twain just had a bad day and botched it. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/11 "2019-07-12T19:02:22Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But I feel that Twain just had a bad day and botched it. I thought he just decided to wind things up quickly. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/12 "2019-07-12T19:46:40Z")
> [@Rough\_Draft](#): > > I’d pick _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_. When Tom Sawyer shows up near the end and starts making ridiculous escape plans for Jim, the whole story shifts from an American tragedy to a bad comical farce. Twain was parodying other novels of the time where the hero had a convoluted plan to achieve his goal. I believe the target of the satire was Sir Walter Scott, who is name-checked. The parody goes on too long, and since no one reads Scott these days, it’s not funny because you don’t know the source. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/13 "2019-07-12T20:08:36Z")
> [@Rough\_Draft](#): > > I’d pick _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_. When Tom Sawyer shows up near the end and starts making ridiculous escape plans for Jim, the whole story shifts from an American tragedy to a bad comical farce. Are you attempting to find a motive in this narrative, a moral in it, or a plot? You should be prosecuted, banished, or shot. :dubious: I read the ending to GOW the same as\*\* solost\*\*. Life sucks, it goes on anyway, and you do what you have to. Think of it as existentialist. The king of WTF ending was Charles Dickens. He wrote _Great Expectations_ as a serial, chapter by chapter. When he ended it with Pip and Estella **not** living happily ever after, reader were outraged, so he tacked on a new chapter with a happy ending. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/14 "2019-07-12T20:10:52Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Twain was parodying other novels of the time where the hero had a convoluted plan to achieve his goal. I believe the target of the satire was Sir Walter Scott, who is name-checked. > > The parody goes on too long, and since no one reads Scott these days, it’s not funny because you don’t know the source. I enjoyed\* Ivanhoe\*, book and film. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/15 "2019-07-12T20:30:33Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Twain was parodying other novels of the time where the hero had a convoluted plan to achieve his goal. I believe the target of the satire was Sir Walter Scott, who is name-checked. > > The parody goes on too long, and since no one reads Scott these days, it’s not funny because you don’t know the source. Just like Twain parodied other ‘literary’ forms earlier, with the depressive girl writing horrible poems about dead birds and people falling down wells. _They got him out, And emptied him. Alas, it was too late. His soul had gone for to sport aloft, In the realms of the good and great._ I think the idea of the ending is to show that Huck is now back in ‘sivilization’, not on the river. On the river he has learned that Jim has feelings, and Huck becomes more of a man. Once he returns to the small town, Tom, who is still a child, pulls him back into fantasy with no regard for Jim’s feelings. Tom withholds that Jim was set free, just for the sake of a fantasy. Then at the end of the novel, Huck rejects civilization and its imposed fantasies, to head out for the wilderness where he can be a man again. It’s still the weakest part of a great novel. My WTF ending to a good/great novel is _The African Queen_, which is thoroughly anti-climatic. After all that risk and effort, and falling in love, it just peters out. Then a ship shows up out of the blue and blows up the Germans. Uh, okay. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/16 "2019-07-12T20:39:08Z")
I always thought Tom Joad’s “Where there is injustice, I’ll be there,” speech was a lot weirder than the breastfeeding. It’s the great, epic story of the American dustbowl and economic migrants, and then right at the end he starts talking like he’s Batman. ---
**Author:** ![Alpha\_Twit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alpha_twit/32/265_2.png) [@Alpha\_Twit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alpha_Twit)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/17 "2019-07-12T20:40:30Z")
When I heard that Disney was making their version of [The Hunchback of Notre-Dame](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hunchback_of_Notre-Dame#Plot), I prayed that they wouldn’t change the ending to make it more kid friendly. Sadly, the ending from the book didn’t meet the standard of cute, happy endings. When Quasimodo sees the gypsies, he assumes they are there to hurt Esmeralda, so he drives them off. Likewise, he thinks the king’s men want to rescue her, and tries to help them find her. She is rescued by Frollo and Gringoire. But after yet another failed attempt to win her love, Frollo betrays Esmeralda by handing her to the troops and watches while she is being hanged. When Frollo laughs during Esmeralda’s hanging, Quasimodo pushes him from the height of Notre Dame to his death. Quasimodo goes to the cemetery, hugs Esmeralda’s body, and dies of starvation with her. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/18 "2019-07-12T21:20:06Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Just like Twain parodied other ‘literary’ forms earlier, with the depressive girl writing horrible poems about dead birds and people falling down wells. > > _They got him out, > And emptied him. Alas, it was too late. > His soul had gone for to sport aloft, > In the realms of the good and great._ The odd thing is a high school student reading that part of _Huckleberry Finn_ today would probably think the character was an early example of a goth teenage girl. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/19 "2019-07-12T21:21:18Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I always thought Tom Joad’s “Where there is injustice, I’ll be there,” speech was a lot weirder than the breastfeeding. It’s the great, epic story of the American dustbowl and economic migrants, and then right at the end he starts talking like he’s Batman. I don’t believe I’ve heard it described so well. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2019, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972/20 "2019-07-12T21:25:12Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > My WTF ending to a good/great novel is _The African Queen_, which is thoroughly anti-climatic. After all that risk and effort, and falling in love, it just peters out. Then a ship shows up out of the blue and blows up the Germans. Uh, okay. > Regards, > Shodan Rose realizes the class difference between herself and Charlie. It’s tragic. Is it a reflection on British society and class structure, or on Rose? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-wtf-endings-in-classic-books/836972.md?page=2)