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While Desdemona represents the impact of fate on someone’s life, Cal’s grandfather Lefty introduces the idea of free will. While Desdemona must take responsibility for the family’s traditional occupation of silk making and ensure the continuation of the family by finding a wife for Lefty, Lefty has the relative freedom to explore reinvention, which he does through listening to American jazz music, visiting the nearby city, and wearing American suits. Even before immigrating to America, Lefty’s parents hoped for him to attend university, advancing in society from the life of a village silk merchant. These factors position Lefty to become a self-made man in the fashion of the American dream, which depends on the belief that how hard someone works creates their success. We also see Lefty behave without concern for Desdemona’s fatalistic ideas in his love of gambling. Although not quite the same as free will, a belief in the possibility of luck and chance presupposes a universe in which randomness is possible and not everything is determined. Lefty’s ultimate gamble, of course, comes in the form of his genetics. He does not share Desdemona’s concern about birth defects because he doesn’t worry about fate or destiny.He has the core belief that he has the ability to fix any problem through hard work and commitment.

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