Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
This one comes courtesy of old Alfonsa. She gives John an analogy from her father when speaking about fate, where a coiner turns a metal slug into a die in one of two ways, and all else follows from that initial act. She sees it as foolish, but feels attached to its arbitrary depiction of fate:
"If it were fate that ruled our houses," she says, "it could perhaps be flattered or reasoned with. But the coiner cannot. Peering with his poor eyes through dingy glasses at the blind tablets of metal before him." (3397)
Though she may believe in fate, she doesn't take it as the law of the land. As she says to John by way of dismissing his circumstantial excuses, she has "no sympathy with people to whom things happen. It may be that their luck is bad, but is that to count in their favor?" (3426). The coinmaker is like all of us, she says, so narrowly focused on our own work that we are "determined that not even chaos be outside of own making" (3437). We see only what's in front of us and give labels to chance events so that we can control them, perhaps.
So is fate of our own making, or of someone else's? Are we ruled by the coinmaker, or are we each the coinmaker that stamps the fate of others? The novel doesn't necessarily offer clear-cut answers. Shmoop amongst yourselves.