Chiang Analysis

 Emma Straus  

21st Century Literature and Time  

The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate 

September 2022 

 

 

“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” is a commentary on fate, time, and the human experience. The story is filled with small vignettes in which the characters search for truths, fortune, and personal redemption. Each vignette offers a lesson. But with each, there is the fixed mystery of time that binds each character to their fate.  

The story seamlessly crafts wisdom regarding time and how it is spent, as well as what part each character plays in their own “tale”. Like the narrator pondered about how his and Raniya’s tales might intersect, only to realize, “...I remembered that my goal was to play a hidden role in my own tale.” (p.52) This portion of the story was striking. Today in media and stories that revolve around time travel, many characters travel to the past or future to change some life-altering thing. But as noted many times in this story, time is fixed, and wherever Allah or ‘fate’ places you, is where you will end up: “And that you cannot avoid the ordeals that are assigned to you. What Allah gives you, you must accept.” So, it is interesting that Fuwaad was seeking something of the past, but not in the typical way.  

Many of the characters sought advice from their older selves or even riches and fortune, but Fuwaad turns to his past to move on to his future. His present self seeks redemption from his wife, and at the moment where he reaches the crumbled mosque and is about to crumble himself, the story does something unique. Fuwaad attempts to gain redemption through an encounter with his wife but is crushed to realize he is too late. His redemption does not come as planned but it arrives just the same. He is told one final message from his wife before she died. Ultimately, she professes her love one final time and Fuwaad receives his redemption. If he were not there at that moment, despite having to relive the sorrow of the falling wall, he would not have been granted relief at last. The story addresses the objectivity of fate and free will without discounting either. Fuwaad knew that he could not change the events due to fate, but by free will he ended up there anyway. Furthermore, true to the story’s established themes, Fuwaad is not able to change his wife’s fate, but he is able to carry on into his future from what he learns. His young self was unable to be present in the situation, so his older self, having lived many years understanding his grief, stands in his place. 

The story operates under Fate, or the design of Allah. What needs to happen will happen in its own time. One may be able to visit their future but still must live out what time has in store. It is only through the knowledge of the past that one can gain knowledge of the future, and the emphasis on this motif sets it apart from many other ‘time travel’ stories.  

 

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