Human Fate
We like to believe our lives are fully defined by our choices. There is an inherent belief that we determine our individual destinies, a wish that we are not subject to the whims of what some would call fate. Regardless of what the world we are born into is like, or the many decisions and actions that define our path, we are never truly in control of our future. We can never truly control where our life leads.
Our parents can set us up for success, or we might be gifted, or perhaps we are primed for failure, and yet each of us individually can end up in countless contrasting scenarios. The only thing we can control in life is our individual actions, and I believe the ability within us to fight for who we are is beautiful.
After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned- Dave Eggers
In this unique story by Dave Eggers, we follow a dog named Steven through his life. Steven recounts the joys of his everyday life, primarily in running. To him, he is a carefree creature, an observer of the outside world in both its beauty and otherwise.
He recounts how “I see in the windows. I see what happens. I see the calm held-together moments and also the treachery and I run and run. You tell me it matters, what they all say. I have listened and long ago I stopped.” (Eggers 1)
Throughout his days, he experiences life only through the vein of living it to its fullest. He does not concern himself with concepts of where he is headed, only with the fact that he feels “good. My eyes feel good like I will see everything before I have to. I see colors like you hear jet planes.” (Eggers 3)
However, in this life of joy, death comes for Steven all the same while he is doing what he loves most. When he tries to leap over the creek as he has countless times before, he instead slips and sinks beneath the waves below.
To his surprise, he lingers on after his passing. He goes days only with his thoughts to pass the time. In these moments he tells of how “I thought we were all the same but as I was inside my dead body and looking into the murky river bottom I knew that some are wanting to run and some are afraid to run and maybe they are broken and are angry for it.” (Eggers 6)
So many are so caught up trying to control their lives that they prevent themselves from truly living it. Whether you are barreling forwards headfirst like Steven, or meticulously planning everything out, the end comes all the same. In the meantime, what is important is that we forge a path we love in the short lives we are given.
Ghosts- Edwidge Danticat
In the world of Ghosts, there is no escape from the corrupt culture that has overtaken the city of Haiti. We follow a boy named Pascal as he tries to traverse this treacherous terrain. He comes from a family that is relatively well-off, compared to the slums that surround them.
He is brought up to achieve a higher standing in life, through the hard work of his parents. Pascal dreams of starting a radio station that would give the masses insight into the true lives of the gangsters of Haiti, in that “he wanted the rest of the country to know what made these men cry.” (Danticat 3)
He believed that if they could see them more personally, they could empathize more with these people, and begin to see the harsh world of Haiti that has hardened these individuals and forced them into criminals. When his show idea is stolen by the radio station he works at, it begins a domino effect in which Pascal falls into the same trap he wanted the masses to examine and understand in his proposed radio show.
He is soon framed for a gang attack, and subsequently taken into custody and abused by the corrupt police force. When he is there, he says “Between the smoke, the vomit, and the water, he felt as though he were drowning.” (Danticat 6)
Pascal is only able to achieve freedom and be cleared of these charges through a deal made between the police and the gang member who launched the very attack for which Pascal was framed.
In the end, he is perhaps even more trapped than he was when behind bars, as now he is in debt to the gangs of Haiti. His dreams of escaping this dark sector of humanity by shedding light on it only end in tragedy.
The gang leader sums up the situation best, as he says “Don’t worry,” he added to Pascal, but also, it seemed, to himself. “As long as I’m here, nothing will happen to us tonight.” (Danticat 10) In this city, it doesn’t matter how hard you work or chivalrous you aim to be. For many, the only chance at life is becoming involved in the very thing you hate.
Motherland- Judy Budnitz
The story to be found in Motherland is a testament to how the dangers of the world will find their way to you, no matter how sheltered you are from them. In a world embroiled in a fierce war, we find ourselves on a little island full of hardened denizens.
The main character, Joe, tells the story of how their island became inhabited by almost entirely mothers and daughters, as the men went off to war and “the women were left behind, with only the wind-warped trees, the bad-tempered dogs without tails, and each other for company.” (Budnitz 1)
Sometime after the first fathers left, a second wave of men came to the island and, in the words of Joe, “fell in love with the women…. They lay down together and became our fathers and mothers.” (Budnitz 2) They soon left as well, and all that was left was an island of traumatized women.
The young women born from these traumatized women are heavily sheltered and protected, kept separate from the sons they bore and the outside world in the hopes they might never go through what they were forced to endure. They live in an age of innocence, where they idolize their lost fathers and possess a warped, childlike view of the world that surrounds them.
This overt possessiveness the mothers exert on the children to protect them in the end only brings about great tragedy, in the wake of an injured man washing upon their shores. This man is found by the young girls and is not found out by the mothers due to the girls’ attempt at secrecy due to their mother’s strict nature.
Whilst hidden away, the man preys on their naivety and takes advantage of their misguided view of what love and fathers are to do which is only inferred through the eyes of Joe as “a dark tangle, rhythmic rocking, a flash of bare legs. Animal panting.” (Budnitz 25) Upon discovery of the man, the mothers in turn take care of his infestation but are left with another generation of expectant mothers marred by the horrors of the world.
Only Joe and her friend are left unscathed by this event, if only on a physical level, and soon set out with the sons on the island to build a vessel that they might leave and escape this little, sheltered island. Despite their attempts, the mothers could not control their daughter’s fate. In the end, all we can do is try and make the best of a world that can be both beautiful and unforgiving in nature.
