Essay Comparing The Rocking Horse Winner And The Lottery

In life we will be faced with things that are wrong but continue to go on whether out of tradition or just plain cowardness of anyone willing to speak up and make a change. We may also face hardships within our lives in one way or another that present us with a challenge, the question is will we be willing to try and make things better or will we be willing to stand by and make no change for the better. If not for those in the past willing to stand up and make a change to confront things that are wrong in the world it would be a totally different place than it is today. “The lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H Lawrence show luck is not always devoid of tragedy and those who are lucky are not always winners. The actions in both these stories taken by the main cast of characters both end in tragic ironies each differing in tone. Both stories have similar settings

One story gave off the impression that something good was going to take place in the beginning and the other that things were not going so great for its main characters. In “The Lottery” the towns people were so steeped in the tradition of going through the process each year that many would not speak out against it. “The lottery was conducted-as were square dances, the teenage club, the Halloween program- by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities.” (Jackson,1948). Many of the towns people seemed eager to get the process over with, you could tell by some of the dialogue between a few of the characters. Leading me to believe that many did not like the lottery, but just would not speak out against its tradition. The authors portrayed luck differently between the two stories but they both ended