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The Lottery 'And The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas'

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The fictional stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K LeGuin are about one person sacrificing their life for the sake of others. “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” both reflect punishment in a conflicting way, through their setting, society, and morals. First of all, in“The Lottery” it consist of a small farming community where they work together in a warm and joyful setting. The author, Shirley Jackson gives the example by saying, “was clear and sunny, with fresh warmth of a full-summer day”(Jackson,1). This story provides a sense of a smaller, closer community, that has poverty issues which the town has a way of resolving. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” …show more content…

Both societies do not argue for justice, however they both accept the consequences of the sacrifices and move on. In “The Lottery” when Tessie is chosen to be the one who is stoned, all of a sudden she wanted to change the rules. Old Man Warner says they are a “pack of crazy fools” for thinking about giving up the sacrifice.(Jackson,4) Even her own son was given a few pebbles to stone his mother. It shows no matter who was chosen to be stoned, it was a tradition to keep it. If someone was stoned it meant that a good crop would come that season. In “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” no one challenges the fact that the young child is being sacrificed for their own wellbeing. Their society is better by a whole, because the young child stands for all the poverty, sin, and unhappiness. The community stands together on doing nothing for the child “They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do.”(LeGuin,4) The only thing the society ever does is walk away. They feel it’s better to walk away from what’s happen than to help contribute to the child’s

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Imagine a society where killing somebody for the sake of a tradition is acceptable. In the short story “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson describes an ordinary village with normal people, but as the story progress the details of their yearly practice known as “the lottery” unravels to be more disturbing. The author subverts the readers’ expiations by persuading the reader into assuming “the lottery” is a ordinary tradition until unusual details and the behavior of the characters come into place. In her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson seemingly uses ordinary details about the setting and the townspeople to characterize her theme that although society claims to be civilized, and may appear so, it is inherently barbaric.

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The purpose of the lottery is to continue the old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order for a harvest. The scapegoat is chosen at random and then stoned to death by his/her companions. Although “The Lottery” reflects an event from the past, Jackson shows that many of the actions of the town resemble the tribulations that ensue in today’s society. To begin with, like the villagers in the story, our society also partakes in valuing tradition.

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The Lottery itself represents a primal example of loss of innocence; portrayed through the young boys who gather at the town square to collect rocks for the horrors soon to follow. An illustration of how traditions can lose their true meanings and come to represent violence and warfare. Furthermore, “The Lottery” also represents the decaying characteristics of traditions, as symbolized by the town’s black box, in this case where every year, someone’s name is drawn out of the black box and they are stoned to death, by other members who may or may not end up to be family. Nonetheless, it ends up to be the villagers who

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Human nature can be characterized as being positive, capable of altruism and goodness which sets humankind apart from savage animals; however, human nature possesses a dark side, namely cruelty, and it is capable of barbarism like any beast. In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, cruelty is part of human nature, and the participants of the lottery demonstrate human cruelty through violence towards one another; markedly, by exhibiting desensitization to violence and the acceptance of violence resulting in internal dysfunction which is perpetuated yearly. Participants of the lottery belong to a close-knit community, and every year the community hosts an enigmatic lottery draw. The conclusion of the lottery draw is only mysterious until the outcome

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“The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a lottery that takes place in a small village. The story starts off with the whole town gathering in the town square, where Mr. Summers holds the lottery. Once everyone gathers, every family draws a slip of paper out of an old black box, and the family with the black mark on their paper gets picked. After that, each family member older than 3 years of age re-draws a slip of paper again and this time, the person with the black mark on their paper gets picked as the “lucky winner” of the lottery. In this short story, after the Hutchinson family gets drawn, Tessie Hutchinson is declared “winner” of the lottery, with her reward is being stoned to death.

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