Thousand Pieces of Gold - Essay Example

She made desperate efforts to escape, finally succeeded and hid in a bat cave from where she was caught. At that juncture Ding said to her, “Don’t you understand, you cannot escape your fate? (77) And finally she was sold a bar owner in America, got a new name Polly and finally the neighbor who won her in a card game, married her and Polly spent the rest of her life taking care of him and her community. A direct response to the question: “Do you think Ding was right . . . “(my thesis).

No, Ding is absolutely wrong. A series of incidents of suffering in the life of an individual should not be quoted to condemn fate, which normally works to a pre-determined design, but can be challenged successfully by the will power of an individual. Fate (destiny) has two types of movements. Forward movement and lateral movement. Forward movement is that movement over which an individual does not own control. For example, petrol/gas in a motor vehicle is an example of forward movement. This is the source-energy without which the vehicle cannot move an inch, howsoever latest and costly the model is.

The chauffeur driving the vehicle is the example of the lateral movement. He controls the movements of the vehicle with self-effort; he can take it in the direction and the speed that he wants. When negligent, accidents may happen. In the present case, that Lalu was born as the daughter of a rich farmer, that her father suffered heavy business losses, that she was sold for two bags of rice to bandits, that she was sold to a Madam and was sexually exploited, were instances of forward movements.

That she made efforts to escape, that she learnt the working knowledge of English, that she decided to marry the man who freed her from the bondage of slavery and ultimately she chose to take care of her man and the community to which she belonged were the examples of lateral movement of the fate. Her fighting qualities and will power were components of her fate of lateral movement. In this part of her life she became the creator of her fate, not the victim. The working of the fate in one’s life is a complicated process difficult to understand by the power of reasoning alone, but an individual need to exert to the utmost by the exercise of the will power to emerge as the ultimate victor and seek freedom from the clutches of fate.

If perfect happiness does not fall to one’s lot, one needs to learn to live life with the available happiness. Lalu changed her life with her own strength and intelligence and through her fighting qualities of head and heart. 3) 2 examples from the novel itself that support the thesis. Example 1 Through the trials and tribulations of the young but spirited girl Lalu, McCunn highlights the importance of freedom in the life of an individual. Lalu goes through the ordeal of trades of her body from bandits, houses of sexual pleasure and finally to the bar owner in the Gold Mountains, and she understands her worth and the importance of her body from the point of view of the secular world, and that of her spirit by self-assessment.

She has the good estimate of the disposition of wicked society towards a helpless women caught in the wrong place. Lalu laments, “So long as the woman satisfies that muscle below their belt, they don’t care about anything else”(95)Her reply to the remark from the comrade from the auction house