Karen Blixen, who had a fondness for giving her characters a grand send-off and wrote at great length about death, had a theory on what makes for a good story, and by extension, one assumes, a good life - or rather a good death.
She believed that Fate is not a constant, written at birth, but claimed. One can claim Fate by living life as a grand gesture and being true to one's nature. Her example was that of the lion, which certainly is true to no nature but its own and is one of the grandest creatures – existing constantly in the struggle between life and death.
I suspect our occasional penchant for maiming and killing our characters stem from something similar. We get to write the last line of a life as a grand gesture. We control Fate – if only by proxy.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2007-10-12 10:12 pm (UTC)She believed that Fate is not a constant, written at birth, but claimed. One can claim Fate by living life as a grand gesture and being true to one's nature. Her example was that of the lion, which certainly is true to no nature but its own and is one of the grandest creatures – existing constantly in the struggle between life and death.
I suspect our occasional penchant for maiming and killing our characters stem from something similar. We get to write the last line of a life as a grand gesture. We control Fate – if only by proxy.