Fate is a theme that occurs in many plays and has different roles in each play. In Greek plays, fate was decided by the Gods and men could not change it. In some plays, fate is controlled by men. In The Barber of Seville, fate is controlled by men, as Count Almaviva and Figaro do their best to get Rosine to marry the Count.

As the play starts out, Rosine seems to be destined to marry Bartholo. However, Count Almaviva is determined to marry Rosine. After seeing her in Spain, Almaviva followed Rosine to Seville because his “happiness lies in Rosine’s affection” (39). Almaviva meets his friend Figaro on the street of Seville. Figaro is Bartholo’s barber so he has access to Bartholo’s home, where Rosine resides. Figaro creates a plan to smuggle the Count into the house disguised as a drunken soldier so that he can talk to Rosine.  When the Count is in the house, he hands Rosine a not instructing her to get into an argument with Bartholo. At a later time, the Count comes back disguised as a music teacher and Rosine argues with Bartholo. The Count bribes the real music teacher to play along with his scheme because the real music teacher arrived to give music lessons to Rosine at the same time as the Count. The music teacher later reveals to Bartholo that he was bribed so Bartholo tells Rosine a vicious lie about the Count. Rosine gets upset at the Count but when the Count sees her at a later time still disguised and reveals who he is, Rosine falls back in love with him. After much protest from Bartholo, he lets Rosine marry the Count.

It is evident throughout this play that men control fate. Figaro helped the Count in his pursuit of Rosine. There were several instances were it seemed that the Count’s plan would fail, yet the Count did not give up and kept making new plans to change Rosine’s fate.

People in ancient Greece heavily believed in fate. They believed that a person had their destiny laid out before they were born and nothing would change it. Sophocles, a playwright, used the theme of fate in his plays. One play in which fate is evident is Antigone, in which Creon suffers a terrible tragedy that he tried to avoid.

In the play Antigone, Creon orders that Antigone’s brother Polyneices’ dead body be left on the battle field and not buried. Antigone pleads with Creon to bury him and when Creon refuses, Antigone decides to bury Polyneices her self. When Creon learns of this, he sends Antigone to be buried alive and gets into a fight with his son.

After Creon orders the punishment on Antigone, Teiresias, a prophet, gives Creon a dire warning. Teiresias tells Creon that if he does not bury Polyneices and forgive Antigone then Creon “will not see the sun race through its cycle many times before you lose a child of your own loins, a corpse in payment for these corpses.” Creon quickly realizes that he has to listen to the God’s so he decides to bury Polyneices and forgive Antigone but he finds out it is too late; Antigone had killed herself and when Creon’s son saw her dead body, he killed himself as well. Later Creon’s wife killed herself because of the death of her son and cursed Creon right before she died.

Fate is clearly seen in this tragedy. Once Creon decided on a punishment, the Gods decided on a punishment for Creon. Even though Creon tried to fix his mistake, the God’s still followed through with their plan for Creon. Sophocles wanted to teach people that it is impossible to escape fate. Sophocles wanted people to have a catharsis of fear after reading his plays, something they definitely had after reading about the tragedies caused by fate.

One goal that many authors share is to keep their readers engaged in their writing. A strategy that authors use to keep readers engaged is to invoke remembrance from the reader. Authors have different ways of doing this. Jonathan Safran Foer and Jhumpa Lahiri invoke remembrance from their readers by writing about events that many readers have experienced.

In his novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer writes about a boy named Oskar who was deeply affected by the events of September 11, 2001. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Oskar had “an extremely difficult time doing certain things like… getting into elevators” (Foer, 36). Many people share Oskar’s fear. After the terrorist attacks, people were scared to fly in airplanes and go in the subway. When those people read about Oskar’s fear, they remember their own reactions to the terrorist attacks and how they affected them. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close made readers remember the horrific events of September 11 and what happened after.

In her novel The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri writes about an Indian family that has moved to the United States and how it adapts to the new culture. At one point in the novel, Lahiri writes about a vacation that Gogol goes on with his girlfriend. During this vacation, Gogol “sits with Maxine’s famly on a thin strip of beach… applying sunblock at intervals to his arms, reading” (Lahiri, 153). Many people go on vacation with their family to relax. Reading about Gogol’s vacation evokes memories many people have of their own vacations. Reading The Namesake evokes memories people have of living their life in America.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Namesake both deal with events that many people have experienced. In Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the event is September 11, 2001 while in Namesake the event is growing up and living life. Reading about these events evokes memories that the reader has had related to these events.