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These stories are alike and different in many ways. In “The Lottery” the men of the families pick a card/piece of paper out of a jar. In “The Hunger games” a certain individual is appointed to choose two names out of a jar. In “The Lottery” they drew papers for a religious purpose. They wanted to get the bad people out of their community. In “The Hunger Games” they did it to prove a point. The president wants to show everyone who is in charge. In “The Lottery” whoever gets chosen automatically gets killed. In “The Hunger Games” if someone gets chosen they get a chance to fight or someone can volunteer in their place. In both stories, the tributes/victim is chosen at random. The community has no idea who will be picked until it happens. In both
War as seen through the eyes of Ambrose Bierce in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge depicts it as truly gritty. The author successfully sends a message of how death is a part of war, and it is not as noble or glorious as one would think it is. Due to popular media, we have this attitude that the protagonist is going to go down in a blaze of glory, and while it may be true for some, it is not like that for everyone. War is rough, dark, and gritty but no one ever wants to talk about those parts of war because it would ruin the fantasy of it.
People within communities have a large responsibility to one another. Sometimes, however, that responsibility and respect seem to fade, as in “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson, and “The Masque of the Red Death”, Edgar Allan Poe. Both of these stories describe settings in which communities fell apart either briefly or all together.
Several generations have gone through some type of an unfair law that they had to obey, for example, in past generations African Americans were enslaved, but more presently the lack of rights the LGBT members have with marriage. This can relate to the stories “Antigone” and “The Lottery” because the characters in each story went through unfair tragedies. The laws in each of these stories are different, but actually very similar as shown by the end result.
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, and the movie "The Village" directed by M. Night Shyamalan, deal with the same theme; the danger related with following traditions and rituals blindly. In both cases, the townspeople are deceived into believing the established systems and values, the elders are not questionned and many ploys are used to keep the followers in line.
A common phrase used in courts is that someone is “innocent until proven guilty.” Through the plot’s of “The Lottery” and The Crucible, this idea of people being innocent until guilty is shown, however, the part of this phrase about proving that guilt is conveniently left out. Of course, both stories took place in a time in which the villagers felt no need for there to be any kind of trial or reasoning for someone’s death. Rather, the persecutions that occured in these stories took place to ensure that barbaric tendencies did not spread among the people within their villages. This idea of keeping people from being barbaric or evil enforces the idea that perhaps people truly think that the people who choose the marked paper are really deserving
“The Lottery” is a short story about an event that takes place every year in a small village of New England. When the author speaks of “the lottery” he is referencing the lottery of death; this is when the stoning of a village member must give up his or her life. The villagers gather at a designated area and perform a customary ritual which has been practiced for many years. The Lottery is a short story about a tradition that the villagers are fully loyal to and represents a behavior or idea that has been passed down from generation to generation, accepting and following a rule no matter how cruel or illogical it is. Friends and family become insignificant the moment it is time to stone the unlucky victim.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are two very meaningful and fascinating stories. These stories share similarities in symbols and themes but they do not share the same plot which makes it different from one another. Furthermore, “The lottery” was held in New England village where 300 people were living in that village. This event took place every once a year. Besides, the story begins where on one beautiful morning, everyone in that village gathered to celebrate the lottery. The surroundings were such that children were gathering stones while adults were chatting with each other. It was compulsory for every head of family or house to draw a slip of paper out of the box. In addition to that, the family that draws the slip in the black do will have to re draw in order to see who will win the lottery. Therefore, the winner of the lottery will be stoned to death. This is very shocking because in today’s lottery events, the winner will be awarded cash.
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 chilling tale of a harsh ritualistic gathering conducted by people of a small village. The word lottery would typically remind someone of a drawing to win a cash prize. A better comparison to the story would be the lottery used to select troops for the Vietnam War; a lottery of death. Another would be the human sacrifices the Aztecs willingly made long ago.
The theme in “The Lottery” is violence and cruelty. Violence and cruelty is a major theme because there is a lot of violence and cruelty in the world. The Lottery has been read as addressing such issues as the public's fascination with salacious and scandalizing journalism, McCarthyism, and the complicity of the general public in the victimization of minority groups, epitomized by the Holocaust of World War II. The Holocaust was very cruel and violent cause other people didn’t like certain people so they just kill them and their children and still now we have violence and cruelty with wars and people that hate each other.
Throughout time humans have struggled with the unknown, with the fear that once life is over nothing remains, that the only thing awaiting them is oblivion. To combat these fears we create various religions, belief systems, and faiths to reassure ourselves that we are not shouting into the void, that something will come out of our existence. Prime examples of these belief systems are Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism which emphasize a spiritual world. In dystopian novels, characters are often placed in situations without faith or religion such as The Giver by Lois Lowry, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the removal of faith forces characters to rely solely on themselves and helps depict the hopelessness in their world. The erasure of faith leads one to believe that it is a selling point of our society and should be kept intact, which is why Octavia Butler’s use of religion is odd in the genre. In Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower the narrator Lauren Oya Olamina creates a new religion called Earthseed and aims to offer her society hope for the future while they suffer the corruption and disintegration of the only world they know. Parable of the Sower states the function of religion, and specifically Earthseed, is to unite people in a single hope as the world goes to hell.
In the stories of “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, both authors deliver the dangers of blindly following tradition that can lead to death, fear and no advancement in society. In “The Lottery” their tradition is to kill a person that is randomly chosen by using a lottery. To compare, in “The Hunger Games” children are also picked out of a lottery from each district and if they are chosen, they need to fight against each other to death. Both stories share a tradition of cruel and murderous behavior but they have a slight difference in tradition.
Tradition plays a huge role in all three of the stories we have read so far. Each of the stories can also be related to good and evil in one way or another. An evil act takes place in all three of the stories, which includes death and suffering. A Rose For Emily begins differently than The Lottery and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. However, all of the stories end up closing in a similar way. This shows that although the stories may start out differently, they can all end with the same final thoughts and that is death. In The Lottery and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, they both begin with a nice, happy setting. Since the beginning of the stories started out that
“First, individual rights cannot be sacrificed for the sake of the general good.” (Liberalism and Its Critics). The Hunger Games, directed by Gary Ross, is about a society where children are randomly chosen every year to fight to the death as punishment for a past rebellion. “The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson, is about a society where a villager is annually chosen at random to be stoned to death by the rest of the village as a sacrifice to ensure a good harvest. While these stories are similar, they also differ in various ways. The Hunger Games and “The Lottery” have contrasting protagonists and tradition, but they have a similar selection process.
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and “The Possibility of Evil” share very similar themes and they both exhibit her writing style. The are many lessons you can take away from “The Lottery” , the central theme can be identified as: When seeing the larger picture it is easy to be oblivious to the evil surrounding you. This means that when the villagers are focusing on the larger picture, which is the lottery, they can not comprehend the great act of evil the are committing the complete the task. Like “The Lottery“, “The Possibility of Evil” can be open to many themes but the central theme can be identified as: Everyone is at risk for evil. This can be interpreted as whether it is chosen or not all people are at risk to commit evil doings.These