Compare And Contrast The Lottery And The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

There are things in this story that are very similar, but also very different. Like the

change in setting throughout the story. What are your ideas of sacrifice? Time? Animals? Death? There are many different ideas of sacrifice, but why in this way? Both of the stories make you feel very different ways throughout the story. In both of the stories “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” there are many examples of different topics that you can relate, but also differentiate in many ways.

To start, my first topic is change in setting. The setting in “The Lottery” begins clear, sunny, and full of cheer. The story quotes “The morning of june 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of full summer day; the flowers were

blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.” Everything was perfect and happy, but then the setting becomes darker when the people of the village all meet together for “The Lottery”. Usually when you think of a lottery you think of happiness and money, but not this one. When Mrs. Hutchinson’s son “wins” the lottery she demands a re-draw because it was not fair. Her name then gets pulled from the old black box. “It isn’t fair it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, then they were upon her.” Next for “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” it is a similar setting in the beginning. The kids were playing and laughing as the town gathered for a festival. Everyone was happy, singing, dancing, but then the story spirals downward when reality hits. “They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the words of cheer much anymore.” The people of Omelas were filled with a rollercoaster of emotions. Both of the stories show signs of both a bright, happy setting, but also a dark setting that begins to spiral downwards.
Next topic is idea of sacrifice. In “The Lottery” the people are randomly drawn out of an old black box. If you are drawn out of the box you are considered “the winner” and you have rocks thrown at you from the whole village. Although some people did not agree with this tradition, they were still forced to do it. Some people did not agree with the lottery while some just agreed that it is just tradition. The lottery happen once every year. While in contrast in “The People Who Walk Away From Omelas” if the people did not agree with the sacrifice they would leave the whole town. Also in contrast they locked a little kid in a dark cellar without food or water and no window. They claimed the sacrifice was to sacrifice one kid so the rest of the town could be peaceful. The child is born with a birth defect so he is sacrificed. When people would go check on the child he was miserable. He cried out “Please let me out I will be good!” To compare the stories in a way of sacrifice is that in both stories one person is sacrificed for everyone in the town. But also this is a town tradition.
Finally, the last topic to compare and contrast is mood.

To contrast the stories, while i was reading “The Lottery”, I felt happy in the beginning while the setting was bright and it seemed like a perfect summer day. It was sunny, bright, and warm. Then when the people got together for the lottery you could feel the mood start to darken when they were talking about the old, black box when they said “Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.” This quote started to make me suspicious about the lottery. This lead me to become confused, but as the story began to unfold, I started to feel anger when I found out what the lottery really was. In contrast to “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” I felt hope in the beginning for the village, but when I found out they locked a innocent kid in a cellar without food and water I started to feel sorrow. It made me sad to think they chose an innocent kid to torture for the rest do the village. The story quotes “To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.” This means that they are willing to give up the happiness and life of one kid for the happiness of many people. This is the part that made me feel bad for the kid, but also confused on what

the point of killing an innocent kid is. Both of these stories made started happy and made you think that everyone was innocent in the story, but in the middle the happiness started to turn into sorrow, then in the end I felt anger.
In conclusion, these stories interesting stories that sent you through a rollercoaster of emotions between happy, sad, anger and confusion. The stories both started out on a warm summer day that made the cities flawless, everyone was happy, but as the stories progressed the setting began to seem darker. When the way of sacrifice was happening you began to feel sorrow for the people that lead to confusion and also anger. Finally, these stories had many similarities and differences.