Mystic River: Question 5

          The question of fate or free will often comes up as a source of dispute in modern day society. In the Greek society, they believed it was impossible to escape a man's true destiny. Dave is a character that was meant to die an unfortunate death. It was fate that he was the one taken away by the men in the beginning of the film. He was abused for four days straight and although he tried to run from his issues, they continued to reoccur throughout his entire life. Dave struggled to deal with the physical and emotional abuse of his childhood.Those four nights were constantly in the back of his mind. He tried to make up for what happened to him by killing a pedophile who was in the midst of abusing a child. The pedophile reminded him of those who attacked him in his youth and he wanted to save  future victims. His good intentions went unnoticed and he was mistaken for the cold-blooded murderer of his childhood friend's daughter. His life was meant to be interrupted. This could be seen in the very first scene of the movie when he was not able to finish carving his name into the concrete. This small detail would be seen as a sign of fate by the Greeks. By the end of the film, both Jimmy and Sean were forced to deal with the fact that Dave was an innocent man and died for no just reason. Dave could not escape his untimely death.

          Greek playwrights were all firm believers in the idea of fate. The quote below is from the Greek dramatist Aeschylus. He used metaphors to plant the idea of fate into the minds of people.