Matthew Vrba Ms. Hoti English III Honors 28 April 2023 Group vs. Individual 90% of the population report having experienced peer pressure from a young age. This issue causes many individuals to make choices that they end up regretting further down their life, and that is why it is important for one to stay true to themself and stand up to make sure their voice is heard if they disagree with the group. The book, Lord of the Flies, and the short story, “The Lottery,” go into the effects of group thought on individuals. Both stories tackle this idea through events in the story that end up leading to dreadful endings. Golding and Jackson use character's conversations to express that following a group or tradition blindly and not using reason, can …show more content…
Near the middle of the story, when everyone is picking their slips of paper for the lottery, one of the villagers brings up that another town is stopping the lottery tradition. The people near him are taken aback and lash out with comments. One comment stands out in particular though: “There’s always been a lottery.” (Jackson). The comment from the villager emphasizes an important detail, that since the tradition has been in place for so long nobody thinks anything of it. The thought is that the ritual would bring a large harvest and people focus on that aspect rather than the morality of the tradition. In the case of this year’s lottery, a woman who was a mom and a wife was killed by the village. This will lead to the children growing up without a loving mother and a man living the rest of his life in sorrow. Soon after, once the townspeople have chosen their slips of paper to reveal who will be sacrificed, the host of the lottery tells everyone to open their papers. As Mrs. Hutchinson opens her paper and sees the black dot she knows her fate is sealed: “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.” (Jackson). This quote shows how Mrs. Hutchinson realizes the evilness of the lottery but sadly it is only now that she tries to argue that the lottery is a corrupt tradition. People view her pleas as her trying to make a last ditch effort to survive instead of actually listening to her. This shows how since she waited until she was already in a vulnerable position to express her concern, it was already too late and there was nothing she could do because the townspeople didn’t doubt the tradition. The author uses these quotes to emphasize the impact of nobody standing up against the lottery. How it built a community of people who it almost brought comfort to even though when looking at it from an outside