The Hunger For Survival When threatened, human kind seem to lose the sense of empathy, and become a selfish, violent creature who is ready to do everything in order to fulfill the hunger for survival. The Hunger Games, “The Lottery”, and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, are similar stories which share the idea about the hunger for survival. All three texts emphasize people’s powerful instinct of survival, from Katniss fighting to death in The Hunger Games, to the citizens of Omelas torturing the innocent child in “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, to the families who killed Mrs. Hutchinson with stones in “The Lottery”. In these texts the authors show that people are selfish, violent and inhumane when threatened. The Hunger Games …show more content…
All villagers gathered together in the square murder the one randomly chosen neighbor with almost no hesitation. Villagers selfishly believe that by sacrificing one person they will have a rich harvest for that year. The violence of this tradition consists of killing the chosen person by throwing stones at her or him. Shirley Jackson effectively highlighted characters’ selfish, violent and inhumane acts when threatened. Each character feels the fear of being chosen. That is clear from Mrs. Hutchinson’s act. “‘There’s Don and Eva,’ Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. ‘Make them take their chance!”’ (par. 49). By this extremely shellfish and inhumane act, Mrs. Hutchinson illustrates her fear of being chosen as she is eager to sacrifice a member of her own household to lower her chances of being selected. Another effective example of hunger for survival is all villagers’ reaction to this tradition. Even knowing that the victim can be their closest person, the villagers continue the tradition with the aim of saving their own selves. When chosen, “Tessie Hutchinson […] held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her.”‘ It isn’t fair,”’ she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head” (par. 77). Scared to lose their own life and rich harvest, ladies, kids, husbands violently and selfishly hit Mrs. Hutchinson to the death with big, heavy, sharp …show more content…
LeGuin is based on an inhumane, vicious habit. Alike to the stories above, In order to protect themselves, the citizens of Omelas selfishly chose to sacrifice and torture an innocent child. “In a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas […] a child is sitting […] it is feebleminded. Perhaps, it was born defective, or perhaps, it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect” (LeGuin 8). All the citizens know about the existence of this child, about its suffer and agony but yet they inhumanly, selfishly agree it to be there. They all understand that their happy, healthy life, beautiful city, “the tenderness of their friendship, […] the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weather of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery” (LeGuin 9). The horror of losing everything they have, and their egoistic hunger of survival is the reason that they violently, selfishly, and inhumanly take the innocent child’s