The story of "the Blizzard" is a very romantic one, and fits well with the romance literature of the time. For this reason I would say that the force behind the entire story is fate, this in keeping with the romantic literature of the era. At the begining of the story Pushkin even tells us that the girl Marya Gavrilovna has a mind for romance and with her lover "Vowed eternal love, bemoaned their lot and made all kinds of plans"(83). And her story is a very romantic one, that being the story of two people on love seperated by class, and later war, in the end only to have on of the lovers die tragicaly. "The Blizzard" is not a partialy realist story like "The Shot" but is instead pure romance and so is a fatilist story.