Similarities Between The Lottery And Harrison Bergeron

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Injustice and unlawful incidents happen each and every day all around the world, and civilization has grown so acclimated to them that a word isn’t peeped about it. Many are aware of serious issues happening on this globe, but don’t do a thing about it. This scenario persists in the short stories: “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. “The Lottery” tell a tale of a small farm town’s morbid tradition of selecting one unlucky resident to be stoned to death. “Harrison Bergeron” takes place in a dystopian version of America, where everyone is “equal” from the use of mandatory state-issued “handicaps”. Even though the two stories take place in different times, they both have characters that don’t bother to act against obvious injustice. Tessie from “The Lottery” and George from “Harrison Bergeron” both exemplify humanity’s inability to confront injustice. …show more content…

Every year, the small village comes together to participate in a lottery, where the winner gets stoned to death. However, Tessie arrives late to the event, and she starts laughing appearing nonchalant as if it was a regular day, despite the fact that she had a risk of dying. However, at the end of the lottery, her name got called out as the “winner”. When the townspeople started circling up on her with stones, she screamed, ‘It isn't fair, it isn't right,’”. In other words, when Tessie got called to be the winner she shifted her apparent viewpoint from “I don’t care” to “This isn’t fair”. She could have cared less if someone else was picked to die, but the only time she challenged the tradition was when she was picked. The hypocrisy and obliviousness is shared by many humans sadly. They believe that since something wouldn’t effect them, they shouldn’t care. However, the only time they challenge the event, is when they are the ones that are

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