Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” have long been considered some of the greatest short stories of the twentieth century. They have been compared and contrasted for many years because of the presence of a common major theme: happiness in a community because of a single scapegoat, whether it is the same person or a different one from time to time. Although we can look at the main idea in the story and simply say that both Jackson and Le Guin are feeding us the same primary message, the authors’ approach to the scapegoat thought, the reactions of the fictional populations, and the conclusion that we should identify in each story are quite distinct. These are the aspects I will analyse.
To begin with, we must immediately realize that these are indeed two different stories. However similar the main ideas are, we have to take other pieces into account. After a quick reading of both stories, one notion comes to mind immediately: how do the people react to these atrocities, or do they even react as a whole? I speak, of course, of the feeling of guilt, or to some extent, responsibility. It is not hard to notice that in the case of the people of the unnamed village that practices the lottery, guilt is very rare, but not entirely nonexistent. One of the instances that we realize that some of the citizens in the village might have second thoughts about the lottery is a few hours before the draw, when Mr. Adams tells Old Man Warner “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery” (Jackson 3). However, we are immediately slapped in the face by the elderly man, who ensures us that the lottery is the only civil way to proceed since it has always been ...
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...y to make us think about our daily activities, whether we enjoy some things at the expense of others. We do not need to go further than our clothes that could be made in countries where the workers are paid 50 cents an hour to produce clothing sold at 80 dollars, or cities in Africa that are destroyed and the population exploited to extract diamonds or gold that our fellow citizens joyfully attach around their necks and wrists. We cannot leave, though; we cannot escape it like the people of Omelas. It is the same situation everywhere in the world.
Works Cited
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” The New Yorker 26 June 1948.
Le Guin, Ursula. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” The Wind’s Twelve Quarters: Short Stories. 1st ed. Somewhere: Harper & Row, 1975.
Vladimir Lenin Quotes. 30 April 2010.
Though there are some noticeable differences between Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, however the similarities in the two stories are clear. The themes of both short stories are centered on tradition and the sacrifice of one individual for the good all. In the “The Lottery” someone is stoned to death in order for the village to be prosper. While in the “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” the cities happiness solely depends on the suffering of a child whom has done nothing wrong. The point that both authors are trying to convey to the audience is; at what point do we as a society begin to question a way of doing things, question a tradition that has no real truth or reason behind
Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is a short story about the annual gathering of the villagers to conduct an ancient ritual. The ritual ends in the stoning of one of the residents of this small village. This murder functions under the guise of a sacrament that, at one time, served the purpose of ensuring a bountiful harvest. This original meaning, however, is lost over the years and generations of villagers. The loss of meaning has changed the nature and overall purpose of the lottery. This ritual is no longer a humble sacrifice that serves the purpose of securing the harvest but instead is a ceremony of violence and murder only existing for the pleasure found in this violence.
Why would a civilized and peaceful town would ever suggest the horrifying acts of violence can take place anywhere at anytime and the most ordinary people can commit them. Jackson's fiction is noted for exploring incongruities in everyday life, and “The Lottery”, perhaps her most exemplary work in this respect, examines humanity's capacity for evil within a contemporary, familiar, American setting. Noting that the story’s characters, physical environment, and even its climactic action lacks significant individuating detail, most critics view “The Lottery.” As a modern-day parable or fable, which obliquely addresses a variety of themes, including the dark side of human nature, the danger of ritualized behavior, and the potential for cruelty when the individual submits to the mass will. Shirley Jackson also addresses cruelty by the citizen’s refusal to stand up and oppose “The Lottery.” Violence and cruelty is a major theme in “The Lottery.”
Reflect briefly on whether you believe Omelas is an apt metaphor for our society or for the contemporary world
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." The Harper Anthology of Fiction. Ed. Sylvan Barnet. New York: HarperCollins, 989.
...s a bigger and harder step not very many citizens of the world today are willing to do. Loosing the happiness that one gets in exchange from injustice in the world is an action that is unthinkable to humankind. The right ethical decision has to be made to entirely resolve the issue, but making that right ethical decision is impossible with the other factors of life such as personal happiness. In “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” the reader is taught the importance of making the right ethical decision and can relate these morals in their own community. One cannot just choose to ignore, one cannot just choose to observe and still do nothing, and one cannot just simply walk away. The reader is taught the momentous moral of not being a bystander, the importance of moral responsibility, and the great significance in learning to overcome the ethical issues in society.
In “The Lottery”, Jackson wrote about a special tradition of a small village. June 27th was warm and sunny, and it gave the impression like nothing could possibly go wrong. Everyone knows the lottery as an exciting thing, and everybody wants to win, but this lottery is unlike any other. This lottery was actually the tradition of stoning of an innocent villager; that year it was Tessie Hutchinson. Though the horrific ending was not expected, throughout the story Jackson gave subtle hints that this was not an average lottery. Jackson foreshadowed the death of Tessie Hutchinson with stones, the black box, and the three legged stool; she showed that unquestioning support of tradition can be fatal.
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet E. Gardner. Boston: New York: Bedford/St Martin’s, 2013. 242-249. Print.
In any society, some people must be more unhappy than others. This fact cannot be avoided. When someone drives through a McDonald's, they are happy to have the convenience of fast food, while the employees must suffer to some degree. And, the McDonald's employees may be happy to have a job, which is related to the misery of those who want jobs. These differences in levels of happiness occur in varying degrees. However, the difference in the level of happiness between people can be lessened through a number of actions by society in general. The town of Omelas is an extreme situation, in which the people are completely happy, and the child is completely miserable. The real world cannot produce such a situation because no one is completely happy. To be in a state of constant bliss goes against human nature. This fact, that complete happiness is unattainable, acts as a support for my decision to free the child. In the same light, complete misery is both unattainable and undesirable, and should be
Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” Literature: A Portable Anthology. Gardner, Janet E.; Lawn, Beverly; Ridl, Jack; Schakel, Pepter. 3rd Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012. 242-249. Print.
Do I follow the crowd or do I do my own thing? In both (the lottery by Shirley Jackson and First they came by Martin Niemoller) they both have peer pressure in the poem first they came no one spoke up for him in the story the lottery no one spoke up for the women who was about to get rocks thrown to her. In the story the lottery it is a story about how they had this Tradition that every summer that 1 person was killed. It took place between the post office and the bank around 10:00 in some towns they were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 26th.
In the story “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson, the author uses certain details, that in the end, add to the horror. One detail Jackson includes is the actions of the kids in the beginning. “Bobby and Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix… eventually made a great pile of stones in the corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.” depicts Jackson (1). This can be seen as adding to the terror of the end of the story because the kids seem to be treating the events to come as a game, even though the “game” may consist of them stoning their own parents or friends. Another detail in the story that leads to an even more frightening ending can be found within this quote, “Alright folks” Mr. Summers says “Let’s finish quickly”
In both Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Ursula LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” the idea of sacrifice is described in order to show how suffering and sacrifice is necessary for the happiness of others and to enlighten readers to the reality of the world. In the descriptions of the society, the extent and purpose of the sacrifice, and the deeper result of the sacrifice, the two societies have similarities, yet they have differences that enlighten the reader to a deeper understanding of the concept of sacrifice as it relates to happiness and society in general.
“The Lottery” seems as though it is an innocent short story; however the plot runs much deeper and is more complex than one might think. Shirley Jackson wrote this story about a ordinary event that turned out to be a ritualistic sacrifice of a human life in an attempt to prove that inhumanity, and pointless violence desensitizes people to the point where they do not care about the loss of human
The article Arbitrary Condemnation and Sanctioned Violence in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” by Patrick J. Shields does well to tie Jackson’s story of fiction to our own reality. His main goal within this article is to guide readers to see the connections that Jackson’s short story has with our culture and society today and throughout history. Bringing in suggestions about issues we are presented today in the sense of capital punishment, scapegoating, ritual cleansing, arbitrary condemnation, sanctioned violence, and variables such as gender, region, and class structure.