Tradition lasts, it matters, and it hurts. In both stories it’s a basic necessity of life. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is a shocking short story that gradually rises in action. You feel calm one minute, then the next you feel shocked because what just happened is insane. Each year, the village holds a lottery. If you get the card with the black dot on it, you get stoned. The Hunger Games has a similar yearly sacrifice. One man and one woman get chosen from twelve districts. They fight to the death to bring honor to their district. The main points that are amplified in the text are bravery, sacrifice, and fear. Both The Hunger Games and “The Lottery” deal with tradition, but they do so in different ways. “The Lottery” uses …show more content…
It’s short and sweet, but doesn’t get in the way of the normal happenings of the day. Another way that the lottery follows through with tradition is by having a secluded ceremony. The town’s people get to watch the lottery, because they are participating in it. The lottery is not broadcasted across the other villages. Shirley states, “In some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June 2nd. But in this village, where there were only about 300 people, the whole lottery took less than two hours. So, it could start at ten o'clock in the morning and the villagers could still be home in time for noon dinner. This shows that the lottery is seen by the villagers and once the stoning is over, they are already moving on to something else. In The Hunger Games they call their sacrifices “tributes”. They dressed them up, fed them well, and tried to counsel them on how to be the best killer, survivor, and the next big thing for the media. This can be found in a scene where Kantiss and Petta get put on a train to travel to the capital. There were multiple platters of food, some including luscious desserts.