In "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" we witness the childhood and early life of the main character Stephen. We watch him grow through his life and make some interestings decisions. We see Stephen grow as a character and how he gradually gains his own thoughts and ideas by the end of the book. Throughout the novel we see a Stephen that is consumed by society and what others believe. Stephen even uses different lanuages and quotes from other people to show how he hasn't established his own voice and beliefs in himself. He goes through his life going through periods of extremes, the sex and religion, while in the end he figures out that being all of something makes you a drone, while having your own ideas and opinions makes you who you are. I believe the ending of the book is sort of an explanitation of James Joyce making his decision to leave Ireland. Stephen has always felt a sort of isolation from society and even now after he has developed his own theory aesthetics, and is increasingly peocupied with art and beauty. Though he has gained some freindship he stills feels isolated. He has come to see Ireland as a trap, like the island in Dedalus is stuck on, and he realizes he must escape the restraints of his nation, religion, and family.

Playboy of the Western World was a very interesting literary piece. It sarcastically discussed the role of religion in 19th century Ireland. With the country in both political and economic turmoil Playboy of the Western World Satirically pointed out to the public how their society was structured. The norm in those days was poor Catholics work the land in the south while the rich land owning protestants lived in the North in Cities. With the distribution of wealth heavily favoring the Protestants they were able to do whatever they pleased. The character Christy portrays the protestants because he believed that no matter what he did he could get away with it. He attempts to kill his father twice, he steals the girls awayfrom their men, and gets what he wants. However in the end Synge "fixed" this society by bringing Christy back down to earth and making him return home with his father. The role of religion in Playboy is very interesting. Though a protestant Synge mocks religion in general through irony. He uses religous ideals and mocks how society has twisted them and caused them to mean something different.

One of society’s major questions has been one fates existence, what it is and how it might affect our lives. People ask all the time, well do you believe in fate, and I wonder well if I do then the decision I will make was destiny and it will lead me down a path and then another predetermined decision will come along leading me down another and on and on until eventually you run out of path, or you believe that life is constantly full of random happenings and undetermined occurrences. That life just flows along and your decisions not fate will decide what happens in your life. So really the question is Do you believe that things are fated no matter what, or do you believe your actions can change the course of your life? Personally I believe that my life is run by fate really because I believe that God built me a, hopefully long, path to walk and that when I do reach those decisions He will help me make the ones that He wants me to make. However that is my opinion and everyone has different opinions.

So was it fate that William Shakespeare wrote The Tempest and all of his other wildly successful plays or do you believe that Shakespeare became so successful because he happened to perfectly chain enough decisions together that he was able to change himself into an incredibly successful play writer. Since I’m biased toward fate I believe Shakespeare sole purpose from the day that he was born was to write these phenomenal plays. My big question also comes up quite a bit in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Like was it fate that brought ships close enough to Prospero’s island to be captured by his magical powers or was it a life altering decision for Gonzalo to allow Prospero to take his books with him before they threw him and his daughter to the sea. Was it fate that caused Prospero’s own brother to overthrow him or had his life’s decisions cause him to overthrow brother. This is just one of those questions that it depends on the person who is answering.

Another great example is Oedipus Rex. The Greek play is based on a prediction of fate that either came true because it was destiny or the series of events that took place provided the primary conditions for it to take place. What would of happened if Oedipus hadn’t been sent to die would he still of killed his father or maybe because of the change in events he wouldn’t of killed his father married his mother and angered the gods.

So do you believe in a predetermined path already set for you, or possibly an unknown route that you get to decide along the way what you get to do?

The idea of fate played a large role in Shakespeare’s play King Lear. Ultimately the decisions that Lear made led to his loss of power, his loss of sanity, and ultimately to his downfall. As the play carried on and Lear continually gave more and more of his power up and progressively grew less sane, it became evident to the reader that through his own actions Lear brought his fate upon himself. In normal royal families in this period of time, power is passed through death yet Lear gave his power up while he was still living ultimately suggesting that this decision would directly correlate with his final destruction and because of this decision his entire family is killed in the end. Fate is an interesting topic because of this very fact. The idea that one decision can lead to either prosperity or death is kind of mind boggling. Not that there is nothing in between but every day you trust yourself and fate that you made the right decision and will prosper. Lear unfortunately rolled the dice and lost with the one major decision that he made in the play.