What characterizes the concept of fate? How do liturgical, literary and artistic creations deal with its presence? Alongside technological, scientific and artistic developments come different perceptions of mankind's own raison-d'être and the status of his existence. The thought of a master puppeteer controlling each and every fibre of human life, has entranced man since the incipience of civilization. We have never looked back as our fascination and intoxication continues to amplify with the ebbing tune of fate's every chord. The potent motor that churns, producing our thoughts and reasons for making the decisions that bring us through to our final destination, is the basis of our fates. Literature and art spanning centuries; from Shakespeare's renowned tragedies King Lear, and Macbeth, to Ivan Turgenev's masterpiece Fathers and Sons, to the contemporary lyrical compositions of The Dave Mathews Band, are redolent of man's vision of life's purpose, shifting, while still echoing the tenets of fatalism's doctrine.
             The belief and fear in the presence of witches, ghosts, hexes, and other elements of the supernatural is rife during Elizabethan England. The putative notion of a perceptible relationship between the macrocosm of the divine and the microcosm of man was gaining widespread acceptance. William Shakespeare mirrors the credence of the English public in the concept providence, while still delivering a distinctive comment on the unassailable forces of divine intervention throughout his distinguished canon of dramas. In particular Shakespeare's tragedies King Lear, and Macbeth make a statement on the forces behind the actions of man. Throughout these tragedies, the concept of a thoroughly unjust brand of "divine justice" is raised.
             King Lear, a brutally sadistic play raises question over the presence of justice in this life. Initially the various characters projec...