The Lucky Ones

How does the story, Lucky, reflect one's fate as predetermined?

The Lucky Ones

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In the story, Lucky, Stephanie thinks of the attention she will get from the football players, with the same icy sense of destiny that she accepts everything else in her life” (6). Thus, from its beginning, the story establishes destiny as a powerful force in the characters’ lives, which colors everything that happens to the individual. By the end of “Lucky,” the narrator corroborates this view of destiny by employing prolepsis. The narrator speculates on what will happen to Stephanie in the future, suggesting she may be raped by the paramilitaries or try to escape life as a hostage, or “she could be lucky… sitting in a wood-paneled classroom in Europe or Australia” (22). By employing prolepsis, the narrator evokes a sense of destiny, for the reader knows that something will happen to Stephanie. However, the narrator does not give only one potential destiny for Stephanie, instead laying out multiple paths Stephanie’s life could take. In this way, “Lucky” both establishes and complicates a view of destiny as pre-determined and strictly ruling the life of any individual.

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The Lucky Ones