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The Lottery And The Swimmer Similarities

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The Lottery and The Swimmer, both short stories having different plots and main ideas. Both stories however, share similar themes. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson begins peacefully, establishing a calm feeling. As does The Swimmer by John Cheever. The Swimmer begins peaceful and gives an energetic feeling from the main character, Neddy Merrill. Both stories share similar themes but also have many differences that make the stories unique and leave the reader in a depressed state of mind. Its a Sunday afternoon in the middle of summer. Neddy and Lucinda Merrill and Helen and Donald Westerhazy sit around a pool. They complain about their hangovers from the previous night of drinking. Neddy feeling young, happy, and energetic decides that he will swim home on this beautiful day. He feels like an explorer swimming across all the pools in his county. He begins to think about all the pools and all his friends that lie ahead. An innocent beginning and very similar when compared to The Lottery. It is a sunny, summer day on the morning of June 27th. Blooming flowers and green grass conjures a beautiful serene setting. Children are around playing and gathering rocks seemingly for no particular reason. In a village, the people gather in the town square at ten o’clock for an event. This event is very traditional. In other towns the lottery must be conducted over two days because there are so many people, but in this village there are only three hundred people. Due to the small amount
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A compare and contrast fiction essay on two short stories, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking Horse Winner” By D.H. Lawrence. The Lottery is a short story of a yearly ritual in which a small town casually draws one person’s name that will sacrifice their life by being stoned to death to ensure bountiful harvest. The Rocking Horse Winner is a fictional story about a woman who is obsessed with money, she shows no love or attention to her family, she thinks her husband is unlucky and her son Paul only wants to be loved by his mother, he hopes to change his mother’s mind in order to gain her love by becoming lucky.

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The Lottery and Harrison Bergeron, both share common themes and differences in their stories. One would be that both societies claim theses “traditions give them unity and equality”. Another theme commonly shared is both stories show how people can be blind to tradition. Although these stories are similar they have their differences one being Harrison Bergeron tried dyeing like a martyr while Ms. Hutchinson died trying to save her own life. In both of theses stories society believes that their barbaric traditions bring them equality and unity.

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222 Words | 1 Pages

The Lottery is a short story about a town of people that will crowd and all the men will get a slip of paper all the paper is blank… besides one and that one has a black dot, so a lucky person will get it and if they have a kid older than 16 they have play this game, anyway the winner will get a “prize”. The Lottery story and The Lottery movie have many things that were different. The Lottery story is different from The Lottery movie by where it is located and where the event took place, such as in the story they were sacrificing someone in a large field while in the movie they were stopped by the building. If they didn’t have the building in the way she could have lived longer while if they did she would have died sooner.

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1167 Words | 5 Pages

[ADD TITLE] [ADD QUOTE & EXPLAIN IT]. The Lottery, written by Shirley Jackson in 1948, is a contemporary teaching that is often referred to as a horror story whereas Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s story, Harrison Bergeron written in 1961, is seen as an eccentric satirical dystopian fiction. In The Lottery, the story takes place in a small rural town in which the person who draws the slip with a black dot on it, is to be stoned to death by the rest of the town members. On the other hand, Harrison Bergeron takes place in the year 2081 where everyone must be handicapped to maintain equality. Although Jackson’s The Lottery and Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron are based in two different time periods and settings, both convey similar criticisms that apply to our own lives.

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539 Words | 3 Pages

"Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the the villagers moved in on her," It isn 't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying,"Come one, come on." Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with mrs. Graves beside him. "It isn 't fair, it isn 't right,"Mrs.

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1191 Words | 5 Pages

The short story “The Lottery” is written by Shirley Jackson. This story takes place in a small village where everybody knows each other. In this story all the villagers gather around town for their annual lottery. Everyone in the village is compelled to follow this tradition even if the outcome ends up with someone dying. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses conflict, theme, and irony to develop this suspenseful short story.

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782 Words | 4 Pages

The stories The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Rocking-Horse Winner by D.H. Lawrence share similarities in their stories. The difference is based on the three major areas in examining any story which are the character, plot, and setting. In general, the atmosphere is configured so that readers are attracted to fiction. A brief prose tale that can be read in one sitting, usually plot function as the driving force. The writer allows the reader to have a complete view of the story, based on the configuration.

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691 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout centuries, traditions and rituals have had the ability to control one’s behavior. In Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery”, she tells the reader of a small village. On the surface, this community may seem relatively normal. However, despite the picturesque appeal, this falsely serene village has a distinct deceitful flaw. On June 27th, every year, a lottery takes place.

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504 Words | 3 Pages

But the town shown in this story is small, so it takes at least two hours. (In this town) the lottery starts somewhere

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1033 Words | 5 Pages

“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a very suspenseful, yet very shocking short story. This story is set in a small village, on a hot summers day in June. Flowers are blooming, and the towns people are gathering for the lottery, which is a tradition the town does every year. As the reader reads the first paragraph they think this is a happy story. The title also says, “The Lottery” which is a word often used for winning something or receiving a prize.

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1220 Words | 5 Pages

The gathering and guarding of the pile of stones suggests that the children were preparing for the lottery’s conclusion, and even anticipate participating in it as if it is a game of dodgeball. The eventual outcome and demise of a community member at the end of the lottery event does not faze the youths demonstrating a numbness towards

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492 Words | 2 Pages

The Symbolism of The Lottery One big symbol that the short story is discreet about is the black box that is repeated throughout the short story symbolizes fear to adults which could affect even the most innocent. The black box appears to be the only paraphernalia that is still being used in the tradition of having a lottery. Mr. Summers is the one who is running the lottery at the time. Mr. Summers is seen as a nice man, however, when he is introduced, he is seen with the black box. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story that uses the black box as a symbol to convey an underlying message that when the power of a tradition is given to a person, it could lead a crumbling society.

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205 Words | 1 Pages

The Lottery In this short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson we can see the theme of the duality of human nature. Tessie Hutchinson thinks the lottery is unfair. She claims that they didn't get through time. But everybody had the same chance and time.

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650 Words | 3 Pages

“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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978 Words | 4 Pages

Everyone has a different set of criteria when they decide whether a piece of writing is good or not. I have my own criteria as well. Although there are so many elements that influence an impression of a piece of writing, I narrowed it down to three; Is it open to various interpretations? Is it easy to understand? Is it realistic?

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