The Language of Determinism
“Five minutes old, and already the themes of my life – chance and sex – announced themselves” (216). In our last seminar, we attempted to draw a clear line between fate and destiny, a divinely determined vs. mystical propulsion of the universe and its characters. Well, Cal doesn’t quite dive for the line, and instead uses “chance.” This could be fate or destiny, but is most closely related to a random arrangement of causes and events that have randomly culminated in Cal’s existence.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Lena, just to clarify–fate and destiny are pretty much the same, although they may be attributed to different sources, from god to genetics. So the point of contrast is between fate and chance. and as you say, Cal tends toward the idea of chance having come into play. There’s a scene in Melville’s Moby Dick that this reminds me of, where Ishmael proposes 3 interwoven elements: fate, chance, and circumstance. He reflects on this by saying we have some of each, with fate and circumstance creating certain patterns in our lives and then with chance coming in to disrupt it or alter those patterns. In other words, when that happens, there is a possibility of freedom from the “given” and we might head in another direction, rebuild an old one, or be stymied, etc.