Free Will In The Sisters Brother Eli And Charlie Sisters
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The idea of fate and free will is a complicated concept, and the many aspects of how free an individual remains unclear. In The Sisters Brother Eli and Charlie Sisters grew up in the same violent environment, but are comparably different. The main difference between them is, which unlike Charlie, Eli utilizes his free will, has a sense of morality, and he wants more out of his life.
Intro sentence
Eli exhibits more human qualities than his brother, and he realizes that there is more to life than what they are experiencing now. Throughout the novel Eli has obvious doubts about the way he is living his life. Charlie does not have one thought about changing his life; he is content with being a low life, satisfied with murder and prostitutes.…show more content… Eli seeks a change in his life and voices this opinion multiple times when asked, “Haven’t you ever thought to stop?” he replies, “I have wanted to”(139). This shows that he knows that he has choices, unlike Charlie who has succumbed to his fate of being a criminal. Eli decides that he no longer wants to pursue his life this way and, he finally escapes it after killing the commodore. He makes it clear that he made the right decision when he “could hear Charlie in the next room, washing himself in the bathtub. He was saying nothing and would say nothing, I knew, but the sound the water made was like a voice, the way it hurried and splashed, chattering, then falling quiet but for the rare drip, as if in humble contemplation. It seemed to me I could gauge from these sounds the sorrow or gladness of their creator; I listened intensely and decided that my brother and I were, for the present at least, removed from all earthly dangers and horrors” (325). The theme of fate and free will is incorporated as Eli has successfully changed his fate and no longer needs to live as a murderer. This resolves the internal conflict that Eli was feeling throughout the novel and his moral challenges. This also resolves the external conflict; he is free from the burden of being a criminal and has freed both himself and Charlie to live life the way they choose. He personifies the water and develops some imagery by giving character to it as if it were talking to