ABSTRACT
Liktenis (destiny) provides a good illustration of the two-tiered and polysemous nature of certain core concepts. In part, liktenis is used as an admission of explanatory failure. For example, some narrators use the concept as a final summing up of their narrative, a kind of verbal marker indicating that they have nothing more to say. This form of narrative closure
may indicate a failure to find meaning. Liktenis in such cases is used interchangeably with life events and circumstances which have broken down structure and expected meanings. I have in mind phrases such as That’s been my destiny’ or ‘That’s what our destiny has been like’. Such phrases are interchanged or are sometimes interlinked with phrases like ‘That’s what my life has been’ or ‘Now my life is over’. As a stylistic strategy liktenis works well in this context, gathering into itself the tone of the earlier narrative and acting as a verbal full stop. As an explanatory device it is less successful, since it is used to indicate failure to retrieve meaning from the past. In Latvian narratives the use of liktenis sometimes signals a failure to achieve explanation and is a kind of sad summing up of a life. It is a shared conceptual strategy which has its roots in the violent events which have dislocated lives.
