To what extent do at least two works you have studied show that an individual is in control of his or her destiny?

Since the dawn of time, man (and woman) has wanted to have freedom to make his own choices and lead his (or her) own life. This is true in “God of small Things” by Aravinda Roy and A view from The bridge by Miller. Arthur Miller was married to Marilyn Monroe, but Roy wasn’t because she’s a woman, and back in the old days women couldn’t marry women. In this essay i will show that both books show individuals in control of their destiny. Or not.

“A View From The Bridge” is a novel written in 1955 and set in Brooklyn, New York. In it Eddie falls in love with his niece, Catherine, and that leads to problems when Rodolfo and the immigrants come. Back then people didn’t like immigrants, so it’s a bit like today because Donald Trump doesn’t like immigrants either, though he is more bothered about Mexican Muslims than Italians. But this play is after World War II when America was the land of freedom and opportunity and Italy was so poor that Marco says ‘you can’t eat the sunshine’. In the end, Eddie rats on the immigrants and then he tries to blame Marco for taking his name. He dies, which shows that you can’t control your own destiny because I don’t he wanted to die at that time.

On the other hand, TGOST is told to us in a mixed up way so that we know the ending at the beginning. So we know that Sophie Mol is going to die at the beginning, so she has no control over her destiny, and the other characters especially the untouchables like Velutha don’t have control. This is because of the Love Laws. That decide who can marry whom. These Love Laws are a symbol of the remains of the caste system in India at the time, and how people aren’t equal and therefore only the rich people get to be in charge of their own destiny.

Unlike the Indians, the people who were interested in destiny were the Ancient Greeks. The Bridge wasn’t set in Greece but New York, however, Arthur Miller used some of the ideas of the Greeks in his play. Like, even though there is a stage and set, he has Alfieri who is a bit like a Greek Chorus who tells the story before it happens. And he says he couldn’t do anything to stop Eddie dying. It wasn’t his fault. Just Eddie’s. But this shows the fate is predetermined. A bit like Velutha’s fate as soon as he fell in love with Ammu, which is why on the bus she cries and says ‘I’ve killed him’. This shows that characters aren’t in control of their destinies, though I do think Alfieri is not telling the truth because he did give Eddie the idea about the Immigration Bureau.

To conclude, these two poems show that characters are in control of their own destinies. Or sometimes not, because their are bigger forces like Gods and social structures. I liked the play, but thought the bigger book was hard to read and I didn’t like hearing about the Orangedrink Lemondrink man. I preferred AVFTB because of Alfieri and the Greeks.