The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Response To Change

Human Adaption to Change

Innovation, advancement and development are all factors of change. Visualize a world where everyone is the same, all mentally at the same stage of life never being able to move on. Change is what helps us as humans develop to the next stages in our lives by creating events that cause us to react and then learn from our reactions. Change affects millions of people around the world each day. For humans change can be grueling to adapt to, although in a few rare cases it seems to come naturally. The resistance to accept change is at the human core. In both short stories “A Rose for Emily” and “The lottery” the characters refuse to accept change as a result they are stuck in the past unable to make advancements and

developments in their lives.

“A Rose for Emily” follows the character Emily Grierson; the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks which then comes together at the denouncement. Emily is stuck living in the past within the isolated reality that she herself has created. During the beginning, the local authorities proceed to Emily's house to discuss with her the property taxes she hasn't been paying, Emily refuses to pay insisting that the mayor has relieved her from paying taxes again like he had several years before. She was unaware that the mayor, Colonel Sartoris was deceased. Her father was her sole parent and was exceptionally strict not allowing her to date or find companionship. When he dies Emily denies his death and refuses to accept that her father has passed on. She claims “that her father is not dead”(faulkner3). She cannot cope with the fact that the man who meant the world to her is gone. She is afraid to imagine a world without her father, of how she will adapt to the new change in her life. After his death Emily refuses to surrender the body and holds on to it for the sole reason that she doesn't want to believe her father is dead, that maybe if she kept his body he would still be with her, although in the end she is forced to give up the body for a proper burial. At this time the reader is not aware that the author is foreshadowing the death of Homer Barron. When Homer Barron, the man Emily falls in love with, displays that he has no intention of being anything other than friends, she takes drastic measures and kills him. She cannot handle being abandoned by him and does not want this aspect of her life to change. Usually when one commits murder they do it for the purpose of getting rid of someone. When Emily killed Homer, she killed him because she wanted to ensure that he would stay with her forever. She holds on to his body just like she did with her father because she refuses to let them leave her life; she feels if she hold on to them they will still be with her; that she won’t be alone. Unlike others Emily is unable to move on after experiencing death. She doesn't find someone new or attempt to forget the past instead she stays in this alternate time period where she is content, where she doesn't pay taxes and where homer and her are married and he has no intentions of leaving her.

“The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson is a Sociological horror story.

The story takes place on June 27 in a unpretentious town the day the annual lottery takes place. During the beginning Jackson describes this day as being a momentous day for the town. Children are outside playing and collecting rocks, men talk about plants and rain while women share gossip. Jackson eludes that this is a tradition that's been performed for several years. Towards the end a women named Tessie “wins” the lottery although she doesn't win a prize. The town and her own family stone her to death. The characters in this story complete this tradition because it's what has been passed on generation to generation. Jackson shows the characters conflict to accept change when she expresses “over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery. Old Man Warner says, ‘Pack of crazy fools listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live hat way for a while. There's always been a lottery.’”(Jackson4). With the information provided we can establish the reluctance of the characters to accept change to their tradition. They believe that somehow this tradition keeps them civil, little do they know it holding them back. That being the case they can't move forward and do other productive activities that would befit their lives unlike the lottery which has no benefit other than to kill one innocent person every year. During the story Jackson describes an ancient lottery box which is falling apart yet, the town refuses to buy a new one, because they feel that this box has been there since the beginning and it would be wrong to dispose of it. This box symbolizes the tradition that they don't want to give up. Moving on from a tradition is always difficult because it what you have been raised to believe in. In summary, the people of the Lottery are afraid to give up their tradition

because they fear the changes that will occur after.
Change is necessary at every stage of life; as a baby you develop to a child, as a child you develop to an adolescent, and then adulthood. At every age you need change to proceed to the next stage. In “A Rose For Emily” Emily need to accept her father's death and then accept Homer rejection, then she would’ve been able to move one and be truly happy. In “The Lottery” the townspeople need to move on from their tradition that had no purpose other than brutally murdering one of their own. Both stories “A Rose For Emily” and “The lottery” are both different yet, they both deliver the message that if change is not accepted, it will hold you back from reaching the next stage in life.