Significance of the three stories

 I believe that Chiang intentionally displayed three of the short stories into The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate and each story had an individual lesson to share.

First of all, the “The Tale of the Fortunate Rope-Maker” plays an important role in introducing the audience to the concept of the Gate of Years. Chiang realizes that the idea of these “gates” are very confusing and similar to the way he added an abundance of detail into describing the Gate of Seconds, he is very careful to teach his audience exactly what the gate is through this story. Hassan obviously is the ideal situation of what can come out of the Gate of Years, and his success was important for Fuwaad to hear. However, his story does bring up a few questions that the audience can puzzle over. The idea that the older Hassan was instructing the younger Hassan is very interesting because it begs the question that once the younger Hassan grows up, won’t a younger Hassan then come to him? And won’t the cycle repeat over and over? This cycle asserts a lesson that Chiang is trying to teach-- that the past is equal to the present. Furthermore, it allows for the idea of religion to be developed because when the older Hassan advises the younger Hassan to find the chest of treasures, and when asked how he knew it was there, the older Hassan answers: “it was the will of Allah” (Chiang 24). This also displays the belief in pre-determined fate.

The second story,“The Tale of the Weaver Who Stole from Himself”, was also important for Fuwaad to hear, except for the opposite reason. The story is about a man who goes ahead in time and steals from himself, and he ends up living the rest of his life in misery. This outcome is also crucial for Fuwaad to listen to because it shows what happens when you interfere with the past or future. It is reasonable to assume that without hearing this story, when traveling back in time, Fuwaad could have tried to prevent his wife from ever entering the mosque that collapsed, or interfere in another way that would have altered the rest of his life, possibly in a negative way.

Finally, the third story, “The Tale of the Wife and Her Lover”, is possibly the most necessary story that Fuwaad heard. It was very important for Fuwaad to see how Raniya interfered in the life of her husband without his knowing, and this is what gave him the idea to do something similar for his wife. Him trying to find Najya, getting lost on the journey, and arriving after the collapse of the mosque was how he ultimately got the message from Maimuna, which was in turn how he was finally was able to get some closure and move on from the tragedy of losing his wife.

Chiang very intentionally wrote these stories into The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate because without them, Fuwaad would not have acted in the way he did. He encompassses the belief that nothing is coincidental, which is a significant theme throughout the story.

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