Fate- some believe in it, and others don’t. But not everything is so cut-and-dry, black and white- look closely, and you’ll see everything is really shades of grey. Fate can be held to blame for some things, but likewise, so can any given individual’s choices in a situation.  Decisions and actions can lead to a situation that you have no control over. Fate can create a situation you didn’t have any say in, but you can make a choice about how to deal with it, whether in a positive or negative manner. Primary character examples of this are George Milton in Of Mice and Men, and William Thatcher in A Knight’s Tale. Each of them was cast into an undesirable situation that they couldn’t control, but each of them made their own choices about what to do about it.

For example, when George learns that Curley’s wife has died- and at Lennie’s gargantuan hands, no less- he is cast into a situation that he couldn’t control at all. He knows what he has to do, and that he has a choice- help Lennie run from the law, or kill him for the greater good. He comes to the decision (perhaps not immediately, but at some point) that he must kill Lennie, and this event has potential unforeseen repercussions (George being tried for murder, etc.) This demonstrates the idea that fate leads to decisions, and that decisions define fate. When there are circumstances beyond your control, you must choose how you want to react to them, and every move you make affects something in some way. It is, in fact, much like Newton’s third law states- “For every action, there is a reaction.”

To demonstrate this point, we have A Knight’s Tale. William and his squires come across the writer Geoffrey Chaucer (fate, perhaps?), and after a quick series of events, Chaucer becomes William’s announcer, providing him with a false name and lineage in order to become a jouster. Seemingly innocuous, even beneficial, at first, no member of the team pays it any mind. But later on, it is discovered that William is not of noble lineage and is thus not fit to compete. Not only that, but he is disqualified, arrested, and thrown in the stocks, adding insult to injury. William’s visiting of his father served as a catalyst for that event, showing that his choice to adopt a pseudonym and his choice to see his father both led to his inevitable arrest. Even immediately prior to his disqualification, he had the choice of running away and losing his honor or doing the knightly thing and allowing himself to be taken into custody. This allows us to draw an interesting parallel between the two characters.

At (or rather, near) the end of their respective tales, William and George are placed into situations where they could potentially be arrested, and possibly even executed; William, for impersonating a knight (a punishable offense, as a jouster must be nobility), and George, for the murder of Lennie. Yet somehow, both characters are free by the end. Whereas William was pardoned and, indeed, knighted by Prince Edward, George simply convinced the others (without the use of any words at all) that it was in self-defense that he was forced to commit murder. The largest difference is that while A Knight’s Tale ended in an upbeat manner, with Sir William getting the girl and being knighted, Of Mice and Men ended with two deaths and George going off to get smashed at the bar with Slim. Actions and destiny had shaped both characters’ lives, and will continue to do so forevermore, until the end of their days.

So we see the original point reiterated, that choices and fate affect people’s lives equally. Whether the setting is in old England at a jousting tournament, or in the Great Depression in California, this holds true. When one event begins, it starts an avalanche of others, in these cases, leading to long and complex stories that captivate the imagination of whoever partakes in them. Similarly, one choice leads to another, in an endless cycle of actions and reactions that simply never stops. As long as you can realize that both circumstances beyond your control and the choices you make go along with one another almost seamlessly, you can- in a manner of speaking- go so far as to control fate.