One Hundred Years of Solitude

Since the beginning of time, man has clung to the notion that
there exists some external force that determines his destiny. In
Grecian times, the epic poet Hesoid wrote of a triumvirate of
mythological Fates that supposedly gave "to men at birth evil and
good to have". In other words, these three granted man his destiny.
Clotho "spun the thread of life", Lacheis distributed the lots, and
Atropos with his "abhorred shears" would "cut the thread at
death"(Hamilton-43). All efforts to avoid the Fates were in vain. In
every case their sentence would eventually be delivered. And it
appears that once the Fates' ballot had been cast, the characters in
Greek myths had no chance for redemption. One must wonder if man, like
the Greeks portrayed, has any real choice in determining how he lives.
That issue of choice arises when comparing Gabriel Marquez's One
Hundred Years of Solitude and Yasunari Kawabata's Thousand Cranes. The
men in Yasunari Kawabata's Thousand Cranes ...