Because We Can, We Do Whatever We Want by Jordan

Because We Can, We Do Whatever We Want by Jordan - July 2013 Scholarship Essay

Evgeny Shatko's  short but meaningful Wheel of Fortune contains many of the magical elements that ensure it a fairy tale, but differs from mainstream stories regarding attention to characters' (and thus audiences') learning everlasting lessons that enable them to interact more successfully in society.  This different method of storytelling makes it the most interesting book I've read for school.  There's a protagonist (who in all honesty is a bit of a simpleton), magical beings (the old man guarding the wheels), a short journey the protagonist undergoes, and the main cause of the problem in this fairy tale-magical objects (the wheels of destiny).  Where this fairy tale begins to differ is in the irony of the story.
            It's very ironic that ultimately, nothing really happened.  Usually in fairy tales the main character makes a mistake and has a severe punishment to ensure a lesson learned, or the main character goes on a life changing quest.  However, this was simply a story with no everlasting effects on the main character.  The irony of a man living his life, trying to change it magically, only to have everything set back to normal actually ties wonderfully into Shatko's point of the fairy tale.  Shatko's point that no matter what we do in life to try to change our destinies, there is a force (in this case the magical old man who fixes the situation) that controls us and, that ultimately what we do won't matter.  Yes, there's the possibility that  the protagonist learned from his magical encounter, but the story never really says.  Essentially, a man had a magical experience that nothing was gained or lost from the situation, and basically all of his actions were for naught.  He was simply a man (common like an Ivan the simpleton type character) presented with the opportunity to change his life.  He does, but he does so foolishly.  Instead of paying for his mistakes with bloodthirsty violence as the older Russian fairy tales usually entailed, the protagonist is saved by the very magical situation he tried to gain from, but with the unique addition of no lesson learned. This pointlessness accentuates the irony.  Overall, Shatko created an entertaining story in which irony helps highlight how little we control our own wheels of destiny which ultimately, differs from the mainstream lesson focused stories (such as Asop's Fables, or Grimm's Fairytales).