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The Lottery And Barn Burning Analysis

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The View of Perception There are many unmistakable parallels between the two-short story’s “The Lottery” and “Barn Burning.” “The Lottery” is written by Shirley Jackson and takes place in a small town in America. The lottery is an annual ritual where all the families get together, the man of each family takes a paper with the possibility of that being marked which then means someone in the family will die. That is to say, a villager winning the lottery results in the other villagers stoning he or she to death. William Faulkner wrote the short story “Barn Burning.” Not to mention, the story starts off in a courtroom because Abner Snopes burned down the property of Mr. Harris. Mr. Harris is landowner, who is left with a burned barn and no legal option. Snopes is advised to leave the country because the court can’t find enough evidence to sentence him. His son Sarty Snopes chooses to warn the owner. “Barn Burning” offers a helpful picture of how Faulkner sees the economics of the postbellum South, where the poor whites remain the underclass rivals of black sharecroppers (Pierce). …show more content…

They also show the negative and, typically unexpected, effects of perception. The fact that society and family plays the key factor in both short stories shows us how both can help you understand the things that society has defined as wrong. Which goes to show that following a ritual can be a bad thing, to the villagers in “The Lottery” it is normal to sacrifice a person and in “Barn Burning,” Abner think’s it’s okay burn down barns, but we do not see it that way because of that key factor. Consequently, everything we see and choose or judge is completely up to our perception. These shared themes all go to prove that when something is both morally and ethically wrong, it will most likely

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