[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. These criticisms include extreme conformity, lack of historical knowledge, and obedience to authority, all of which could ultimately lead to our demise. Lottery - a process or thing whose success or outcome is governed by chance. In The Lottery, the lottery is setup so that everyone has a fair and equal chance of becoming the victim, not even the children are safe. Tessie, a popular housewife of the town, ran a little late to the gathering and cracked a joke …show more content…
In Harrison Bergeron, the year is 2081 and everyone is ‘equal’ on literally all levels which is due to the over exaggerated amount of amendments that have been added over time. For example,“They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.” (1306) Everyone was conformed to be dampened down to a low level of ‘average’ so everything could be fair and just. This all due to the handicaps worn on everyone who is above this ‘low average’. This is a critique by Vonnegut that in a world that is so drastically different, we can still see ourselves possibly heading into this