Comparing Love In The Lottery And To His Coy Mistress

False Love in The Lottery and To His Coy Mistress

What is love? The age-old question arises once more. In truth, a universal definition has not been agreed upon, but generally one can define love as “an indication of adoration” or an “an ineffable feeling of intense attraction shared in interpersonal and sexual relationships.” Love can be directed towards kin, a lover, oneself, nature, or humanity- but regardless that love in an emotional sense is eternal. Some fall into love, and some claim they fall out. Love should be endless, lasting, and pure, but half of the time that love ends up being a sham. There is solid record of this false love- love that is meant to look pure- in the famous writings The Lottery and To His Coy Mistress.

In this story, a town holds an annual “lottery” where the townsfolk’s love for tradition outweighs the love for their own family. Every person, whether it be child or elder, draws slips from an old box; whoever picks the marked slip gets brutally stoned to death by their own family and friends, then forgotten about. The whole notion is absolutely peculiar. These people conduct the lottery every year, perform the stoning on their own loved ones, then allow themselves to go home and eat noon dinner. It’s completely emotionless and nonchalant. When Tessie arrived late to the lottery, she simply said, “[Nearly] forgot what day it was” to a friend, and they both “laughed softly.” In a situation where ones husband or child could die within the next hour, it doesn’t seem sane that two women can joke about the situation. To these townspeople, the lottery is just another thing to do, something to get out of the way. Shortly after Tessie’s late arrival, Mr. Summers tranquilly says “guess we better get started, get this over with, so’s we can go back to work.” Again, the tone of everyone is so

But when Mr. Hutchinson’s name was called in the lottery, his wife Tessie was willing to sacrifice their daughter’s life for hers. How can she love her daughter yet be able to let her die? The lottery creates a strain between family and tradition, and the love for tradition wins. What’s even sadder is that the children take part in the yearly occasion. Before the actual lottery takes place, “some of the other boys… selected the smoothest and roundest stones…and made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.” The lottery becomes a sort-of game to the children, where they are seeing who gathers the most stones. The parents have passed on to their children the idea that the lottery isn’t that serious. If parents supposedly love their children, they should try to instill positive messages, not destructive things like this. It’s almost like telling your child that it’s okay for you to join in on killing another human being. That is not loving your child; it’s hurting