How Does Shakespeare Present The Theme Of Destinies?

In life, one of the things people tend to strive for is love and affection, however, all good things must come to an end, and with them peoples destinies are shaped. In the Book Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev as well as Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte both authors use failed love affairs to convey their characters destinies.
In Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte focuses on love as one of the main themes of the novel, and by doing so sets up the destinies of the characters affected by these affairs. The greatest example of this would be the failed love between Catherine and Heathcliff where he states, “Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you — haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers.”
(Bronte 144). Heathcliff had lost Catherine to Edgar and now at her daughter’s birth, he loses her. He is so desperate to keep her with him that is willing to accuse himself of murder in hopes of having her spirit haunt him. Through her death Heathcliff’s anger only grew over time and ultimately he decided to take revenge on the children, Hearton, Catherine, and Linton. He does this by being very controlling over Linton and Catherine by forcing them to get married in order for Heathcliff to gain control of Thrushcross Grange and further grow his looming power over the kids. This act shapes their destinies in that they are not able to choose their own futures and through Linton’s death, Heathcliff exacts his revenge. An opposing argument can be made that these love affairs are special cases and that the idea of shaping destinies cannot be applied out of the relationship of Catherine and Heathcliff, however, another love affair that follow this pattern would be the failed love between Hindley and his wife, Francis. Early on in the book we see that Francis dies soon after the birth of their child, Hearton, and due to the loss of his wife, Hindley is driven into depression and is described by Nelly as a man who “neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation. The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long”(Bronte 55). Hindley blamed his son for the death of his wife and gives him to Nelly in order to be raised, all the while sinking further and further into his depression. This act shapes not only his own destiny as a drunk and gambler but it also shapes his sons destiny as an uneducated bully with anger issues, which we see progress more as the story starts to come to an end.
In Fathers and Sons Turgenev uses failed love affairs as a way to shape his characters destinies in that as the characters go about the city.
The main group of Arkady, Nikolai, Pavel and Bazarov go about their city with the younger generation, Arkady and Bazarov, arguing their Nihilistic views with the men of the ‘older generation’ of Nikolai and Pavel. Throughout the novel, we see how love affects the main characters as the younger men fall for women of the town. Anna Sergeyevna, being one of the main figures that changes Bazarov’s views, is a woman who has the uncanny ability to win over the hearts of just about any man she meets. Despite this ability, she is mostly unaware of her skills and because of this usually breaks the hearts of those who fall for her. Bazarov is one of these people and unfortunately after getting signals that she is interested in him, Bazarov proclaims his love for her stating “you have forced that out of me” (Turgenev 156). Immedeately following this, she explains that these advances were not her intention and Bazarov is defeated. Being a Nihlist Bazarov believs that there is no such thing as love and through his interactions with Anna his views start to change up until she denies his love, wherein he concludes that love is worthless and time wasting and he spirals into a deep depression. Arkady, spending most of his time with his father and uncle, Nikolai and Pavel respectively, changes his view of Nihlism and is able to move on after being
rejected by Anna even to the extent where he gets married to her sister, Katya and does not go into a depression much like Bazarov does. One night, while preforming a routine autopsy Bazarov is too distracted by his grief and accidentally cuts himself with the scalpel and promptly contracts Typhus. As he approaches his death, he only becomes increasingly bitter and gets the attitude that if no one is going to miss him after his death, then he should not care about his life, ultimately giving up on life.
The authors of these two novels use themes to convey their story’s in a similar manner.
Although the storyline differs, through the use of failed love affairs both Turgenev and Bronte shape the destinies of their characters to come to a similar end. These similarities can be seen throughout both novels in examples such as how in Wuthering Heights Heathcliff uses the failed love affair between himself and Catherine as a way to exact his revenge on the children’s lives and shape their destinies as depressed kids with a harsh childhood and ultimately Heathcliff dies depressed and alone. Turgenev, on the other hand, differs a bit in the process but not in the outcome. Through the use of the failed love affair between Bazarov and Madame Odintsova, Bazarov becomes reclusive and treats his friend poorly as a result. This sadness that he keeps in eventually leads him to his own death in that one day, while preforming am autopsy he accidentally cuts himself, contracts Typhus, and later dies. This action can be compared to that of Heathcliff in that in their lowest point of grief they both die. Heathcliff reaches this point as he is about to hit young Cathy “when, of a sudden, his fingers relaxed, he shifted his grasp from her head, to her arm, and gazed intently in her face. Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a moment to collect himself, apparently,…with assumed calmness”(Bronte 272). Seing Catherine in Cathy’s eyes Heathcliff realizes the choices he has made and ultimately
gives up on life. Bazarov, in a similar manner, reaches this point as he the book concludes on his death “And yet there was a time when I, too, thought of all the things I would do, and never die, why should I”(Turgenev 353). Bazarov reflects that as he dies he knows that he will not be missed and leaves with the attitude that if no one will care after he is gone, why should he care about his life. Although both characters led different paths, through their failed love affairs, their destinies met the same fate of loneliness and death.
People strive to achieve love and affection in their everyday lives, however, when these love affairs fail, characters destinies are shaped as the affected characters choose to act on their feelings. In Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, both authors use failed love affairs as a way to shape and convey their characters destinies.