Discrimination In Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'

Zachary Horn

Period 6

10/19/14

We, as human beings, must be willing to accept/tolerate people who are different from ourselves. But there are also limits to what we must tolerate. When we look at the human race as a whole, there have been a lot of cases of people being mistreated for who they are. Human beings have basic rights, and they were being violated. In 1949, the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights was written, with hopes of it laying out those basic rights that all people deserve. In the Collections 1 stories, there is everything from discrimination to mistreatment of someone for little to no viable reason at all.

In The Lottery, the village’s residents are forced to participate in a drawing, similar to the lottery held here in

Oregon, only much smaller. There is an exception, though, as the winner of this lottery doesn’t receive prizes or winning money. The winner receives death. Death by stoning. Not only is an execution without means or reason is morbid and morally unacceptable, it is often cruel and painful as well.
What does this being a thing say about humanity? Well there are a few factors involved here.. Our morals, at least in the society that I live in, would point to this being wrong. But then again, what if it is their culture? What if it is something that should be tolerated. We might not truly be able to understand the intricacies of their way of life. If we have learned anything from dealing with others over time, it is that everyone is different. There are gaps that need to be bridged in order to function, both literally and metaphorically.
We might not accept this lottery, but maybe we have to tolerate it. How far does it go until we feel entitled to intervene with another group’s way of life? That depends on the severity of the situation and our ability to understand or live with it.. Personally, I wouldn’t be able to live with something like this.

That brings me into Without Title. The narrator is a person (presumably a girl), whose father is of Native American descent. It discusses how her father’s culture was taken from him, and how she compares his life now with the life he had, or would have had. One example is how when he leaves the house, he leaves tracks in the driveway from his car, comparable to a horse leaving tracks in the mud. Was it the right thing to remove Native American people from their lands and forcefully relocate them, essentially ruining their culture? No, it wasn’t. In my opinion, we were the invaders to them. We were fighting for freedom and democracy while gunning down the people who were already there. Now those people are living a new lifestyle, and have been deprived the lives they could have had or wanted to have growing up.

In “What Of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?”, there

In the end these texts all have ideas that show tolerance, and can be compared to the rights laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights act. It outlines every critical idea that I’ve discussed.