Exploring Chance in Pushkin's Queen of Spades In the Bible it says that God gave man "free will". Unfortunately for man, the Bible does not explain exactly what "free will" is. Some speculate that there is a force called Chance. These people believe that through a series of coincidences, luck, and their own choices, they can control their future. Others believe in a force known as Destiny. With this line of thinking, everything has a purpose and those goals will be achieved sooner or later. This gives the believer a sense of inevitability and tends to be more relaxed due to the philosophy of least resistance. Least resistance is the idea “it's going to happen anyway, so there's no point in pushing back.” In Pushkin's "Queen of Spades", chance and fate seem to be endlessly intertwined to the point that there seems to be a third force that somehow dictates their actions. In some cases, the characters' lives seem to follow a pre-established path (Fate). In other cases, it seems that if this had not happened at this time, this person's life would not have been affected in this way (Case). Are Fate and Chance separate forces, or puppets on the strings of another power? Chances are, they're the same thing. The show opens with a man, Tomsky, who ?coincidentally? tell the story of your grandmother and how she? fatally? discovered the secret of wealth. First, looking at the situation from the perspective of chance, if this had not happened, many people's lives would have been changed. Countess Anna Fedrova, Countess A-----, is the one who sets the order of random events in motion. What if she hadn't been born, what if she had been "damaged"? somehow earlier in life, if she hadn't married the man she married, and many more "what ifs" and "if onlys" could have prevented the series of events from occurring. But, "by chance", all these things happened. "By chance" Tomsky was listening to a man interested in knowing the secret of the three trump cards. Again, if his life hadn't turned out the way it was, maybe he wouldn't have been with Tomsky in the first place. "By any chance?", it was. The model of? By chance? it is set at the beginning of the story. The whole story was written "by accident", which makes for an interesting parallel to real life. If Pushkin had not been born, we would not have the story, and so on. Or I was... middle of paper... exploring the theme of chance, one realizes that chance is simply a game of perspectives. Random for one was planned by another. Was it all put together as a plan to drive Hermann crazy one day? At that moment it seemed to him that the Queen of Spades smiled ironically and winked at him. He was struck by its remarkable resemblance.? The old countess!? he exclaimed in terror.??(Pushkin, pp. 23)Or did it happen like this by chance??Hermann has gone mad and is now locked up in room number 17 of the Oboukoff hospital. He never answers any questions, but constantly murmurs with unusual rapidity:? Three, seven, ace! Three, seven, queen!?(Pushkin, pp. 23)As only God knows why everything was created, only Pushkin knows why these events happened the way they did. It all depends on how you look at it. In hindsight, what was once thought to be destiny is simply the pattern of possibilities strung together. Works Cited Pushkin, Alexander. ?Queen of Spades?. Great Russian tales. Ed. Paolo Negril. Mineola, New York: Dover, 2003. 1-23.