In this paper we will examine and compare the way conflict arises in Alexander Pushkin’s “The Queen of Spades” and in.“Oedipus The King.” by Sophocles. By understanding and comparing these two great works of fiction, we hope to come to an understanding of how fate and freewill intersect, and that maybe they are the same thing. As a way to support this thesis, we will try and answerer the following questions:
1. Do the protagonists make their own trouble, or has some supernatural force set them up?
2. Is society at fault, or is it an internal force, even an unconscious one, that leads him or her into trouble?
3. Do external events, such as chance or fate, determine one's life, or can one willfully choose and determine one's own destiny.
