Choice of Destiny in Literature Essay

Destiny, also known to be fate is the unseen power thought to control future happenings. Our choices define our destiny. Jean Nidetch says that it is choice, not chance, that determines your destiny. At any and all given times one has the power to make various decisions over there life. Opportunities may be placed in one's life but what they decide to do with those given opportunities ultimately determines their future. With each choice of action, one takes there is an equal reaction known as the consequence, and they may be good or bad depending on the preference made.

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We are in full control of our choices, and hence we hold our future in our own hands. The difficult decisions we make help us to grow as beings and enable us to learn and determine what course of action to engage in our lives. Destiny is not predetermined for us. Our future is not set in stone that everything will happen to us according to a particular plan written down.

Therefore if one's destiny is not something that is written and cannot be undone then for sure a person can change their destiny. For one to do this, they need to have specific knowledge of life and its realities. Many people today may be deceived that nothing good will come out of their life an existence. They believe in this because of current situations in their lives that seem to be unchanging for an extended period but will all are given the gift of volition. We have free will which entitles us to choose what we want to happen to us. We can change almost any situation we are going through in our lives as per the decisions we choose to make.

'The power to believe in yourself is the power that can change destiny,' is a well-known line from the anime series Naruto. It holds much truth to it as it the belief that one can be whoever he or she wants to be in life that gives one the zeal and needed the self-confidence to strive to achieve set goals and objectives in their lives.

Traditionally, females are regarded as fragile, submissive and expressive communal beings. They are destined to be inferior and inaudible to men in a patriarchal society. This long-established situation for the female gender has caused them shame. Today, this shame has turned into anguish and led them to question traditions. They are mocking their silence and illuminating their painful yet rebellious experience using storytelling, encouraging their fellow women and trusting for their descendants have a better future. The female Chinese-American writer, Amy Tan, expresses the writer's faith in women's better opportunities when they can articulate their needs and strengthen their self-determination.

Women's fate and faith are shown through different Chinese immigrant mothers' life stories that are exposed to their American-born daughters who face a predicament in life. The mothers' stories aim to endow their daughters and help them find answers. Storytelling is an important means for the Chinese immigrant mothers to converse, with their daughters, familiarizing the children to go back to their indigenous roots, to better knowledge about themselves hence ensuring them their right to choose for their own happiness. Amy Tan in her book shows that even though women are destined to be born at a disadvantage, their struggle for change and chance will enable them to have faith in themselves. Women's fate and faith are likely to go hand in hand like two sides of the same coin, as do sorrow and joy in a persons life.

Our lives are filled with choices as well as plans made for us either determined for us by either society or tradition. Some of these set decisions may prove difficult in handling or even changing, and thus one has to live by the set decisions impact on them. Amy's heroes are those who successfully overcome their fate and while at it do not forget their cultural heritage. Whether these are the source of their strength or weakness, they are integrated into American majority.

Tan creates faultless women. Those with a strong determination to succeed. These women no longer assert their destiny under the customary stereotypes of gender roles. Instead, they accepted their fate as defined by themselves and based on a strong faith in their potential to articulate their need for self-esteem.

Since one has the right to free will, they may choose to go against the set decisions given to them by the society or even their parents. This may cause conflict between one's family and people within the society and sometimes may lead to unfortunate consequences such as ex-communication from the person's community and abandonment by the family. The person may also face stigmatization by his or her peers and among the fellow folk.

In, some scenarios, some people who have gone against all the odds to follow their path in life, despite the expectations required for them to meet, have risen above and beaten the odds. They end up doing unexpected things and being great. Parents may always want to mold their children in a particular way, but as the children grow up, they may see the need to follow a different path and do things their way.

Fathers push their children into becoming engineers or lawyers as they are or as they assume all those who have made it in life are but not every child will have the same thought. Some may end up becoming what is expected of them just to please their parent, but a choice is always an option up to them since it is there life to live it as they see fit. Parental pressure may burn out the children especially those pursuing sports careers.

Mothers and daughters struggle with communicating with one another due to the difference in opinions over life goals and identity. Mothers tend to pressure their daughters into becoming who they never could become but aspired to be. In the book 'Two Kinds,' the hopes and aspirations that Jing-mei's mother had for Jing-mei were her hopes and aspirations. She was living her life through Jing-mei.

In Amy Tan's 'Two Kinds,' Jing Mei's mother tells her that there are two kinds of daughters(Bloom 1), obedient daughters and those who follow their minds. Jing-Mei chooses to be the daughter who followed her mind despite her mother's overbearing trait. She chooses to define her destiny.

Jing-mei doesn't play the piano again until her mother passes away since it acts as a reminder of her failings. "The end of the story is also exciting as Tan appears to be exploring the theme of acceptance. By having Jing-mei play the piano in her parent's house, Tan may be suggesting that despite what had happened when she was a young girl Jing-mei no longer has any ill will towards her mother. The two pieces she plays at the end also act as symbolism. The first piece the 'Pleading Child' in many ways mirrors how Jing-mei felt as a child". Pressurized by her mother to be something she wasn't. While the second piece 'Perfectly Contented'(Schilb et.al, 381) suggests exactly that. That Jing-mei is content in her life. She may have had a child she did not anticipate but appears to have accepted the event. Jing-mei knew who she was and her mother wanted the best for her even though she was on a separate journey. She was always going to disappoint her mother regardless of what she did when she was a child.

As in Amy Tan's book, we all have choices that determined where will be in the future, how we will live and the attitude we will have towards life, people and approaches to different life situations. We define our destiny. The choice no matter what society expects of us or our parent's hope of us is placed in our own hands. As Paul Tillich said, 'In every act of moral self-affirmation man contributes to the fulfillment of his destiny.' The desired destiny can only be as a result of the right choices. As expressed in William Golding's (Danni, 8), 'Lord of the flies" where several boys are on a desert island and in the beginning all is well but as obstacles ensue(Branson and Peter Buckroyd, 6) each of them makes a decision on how to continue their life. Everything that occurs to them and in their life is as a result of their choices.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold, ed. Amy Tan. Infobase Publishing, 2014.

Schilb, Ed John, and John Clifford. "Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and." (2015).

Danni, M. A. "William Golding and Lord of the Flies." English Language Teaching 3.1 (2015): 7-10.

Branson, Jane, and Peter Buckroyd. Lord of the Flies, William Golding: Workbook. Oxford University Press, 2017.