Interconnectedness and Destiny Theme Analysis

The Sun Is Also a Star begins by explaining that according to famed scientist Carl Sagan, in order to make an apple pie from scratch, one must invent the entire universe and the entirety of human history—he defines "scratch" as the absence of everything. By beginning the novel in this way, Yoon asserts that everything, from humans to their history, is intrinsically connected. Per Sagan's example, the existence today of apple pies hinges on everything from the Big Bang to the emergence of farming and the ensuing discovery of butter. By beginning the novel this way, and by then building in structural elements that allow the reader insight into how different events and characters connect to each other, Yoon makes it very clear that everything in the world of her novel is connected to everything else. This interconnectedness is what can create chains of events that can, in retrospect, be read as the work of fate or destiny.

Daniel believes wholeheartedly that the world is connected by energy and love as represented by some sort of divine being, and he believes that everything is possibly predestined. Despite the fact that Natasha is a scientifically minded and nonreligious person, she does believe that everything in the universe is basically connected—though her reasoning and evidence differs significantly from Daniel's. In Natasha's understanding, the fact that the universe exists at all is the work of random events that just happened to coincide with each other in such a way that caused significant events in world history to happen. Essentially, though everything is connected, it's connected only by chance, not through the work of any guiding force.

To suggest that Daniel's worldview is somewhat more correct, Yoon often describes the same situation or occurrence from multiple points of view—first from a perspective where the occurrence appears random and happenstance, and then from the perspective of the other person in question in the given event. This is most notable in the case of Donald Christainsen, who appears to Natasha and Daniel to be nothing more than a distracted driver of a white BMW who almost hits a similarly distracted Natasha. However, when Yoon includes a chapter from Mr. Christainsen's perspective, the reader learns that he's not just distracted for no reason: he's drunk and overcome with grief for his daughter, who died two years ago in an accident involving a driver who was texting. In the case of Donald Christainsen, he also doesn't stop influencing Daniel and Natasha's lives after almost hitting Natasha. Later in the day he actually hits and injures the attorney Jeremy Fitzgerald, who is supposed to both advocate for Natasha's immigration issue and interview Daniel for admission to Yale. This shows clearly that even if Natasha and Daniel never learn the name or the story of the man in the white BMW, he still has the power to change their lives, for better or for worse. By providing this backstory, Yoon suggests that people's lives absolutely connected to each in myriad ways that may seem mysterious to an outside observer but, when considered in the context of the wider world, reveal a more obvious sense of cause and effect.

Even if Natasha's rational nature means that she disagrees with the existence of destiny for scientific reasons, the fact that most of the novel's characters, including her, experience the feeling that what's happening must be predestined suggests that destiny exists within the world of the novel, whether the characters believe in it or not. However, the novel ultimately suggests that scale is an important factor when looking at the role of destiny in one's life, particularly in regards to time: one of its final conclusions is that the ability to identify "destiny" often doesn't emerge until many years have passed and many events have taken place that lead to an ultimate conclusion. Though Daniel and Natasha conclude at the end of their day in New York City that they must not have been destined to be together, since Natasha's family ultimately leaves the country, their meeting ten years later on an airplane suggests that it wasn't that they weren't destined to be together whatsoever; they just weren't destined to be together until much later in their lives. This turn of events, especially when considered alongside the role that Donald Christainsen and others play in Natasha's day in New York, suggests that within the world of the novel, destiny absolutely exists. However, the ways in which destiny plays out over the course of hours, months, and years, depending on the events in question, suggests ultimately that seeing or believing in destiny is a matter of perception. Though destiny affects everyone, destiny exists differently for those who look for it—and those who look for it and truly believe are able to find a unique sense of comfort and acceptance.