Compare And Contrast The Lottery And The Crucible

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is an iconic piece of literature that was published in the 1950’s. When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, the United States was in the middle of the McCarthyism era where innocent people were being accused of treason without the proper evidence (“Joseph R. McCarthy”). As a result, Arthur Miller became involved and wrote a play to show his beliefs in response to the accusations and haywire going on. Miller used individual characters and portrayed them as a part of his protest. The Crucible was published as a play and made a film. The two are similar, but differences do occur. The play represents these characters with more historical accuracy and believability than the film because individually, the characters

“The feelings of uneasiness caused by executions being performed in an arbitrary manner reverberates on several levels. First, we see the characters within the story itself begin to question the necessity of the ritual” (Shields 412-413). There has to be a point where someone could have spoken to reveal the inhumanity of this pugnacious tradition that has plagued the community for more than seventy-seven years. Then again, no, there are no words said about the inhumanity of the violence, until Tessie Hutchinsons’ family gets chosen. She defends her family stating, “You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!”(Jackson). She then is attacked by her fellow friends, "Be a good sport, Tessie." Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us took the same chance." Mrs. Hutchinson at this point is being very hypocritical; the lottery was fair for all the citizens, so why doesn’t she just go along with the tradition? Would her outbursts have been the same if Mrs. Hutchinsons’ family wasn’t chosen? The final words of Mrs. Hutchinson were "It isn't fair, it isn't right.”

In 1952 a play was written by Arthur Miller, about events that happened in Salem in 1692. The play was about affairs, accusations, and innocent people being accused of witches. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail and Mary Warren are introduced as two separate people. Although people might see Abigail and Mary Warren as two separate people and nothing alike, they are more alike than meet's the eye. Abigail and Mary Warren have three things in common; they are both are deceitful, they both dishonest, and they are both apprehensive.

“The Lottery” is more ambiguous with its setting, as the exact location and year where the story takes place are omitted. The rather simple character names, and the lack of any overt accents when the characters speak make it easy to imagine the story happening almost any time and place in America. In a small nondescript village, the inhabitants practice a lottery ritual where the “winner” is stoned to death in the end. No one in town questions the absurdity of murdering one of their own. They even go as far as to include children in the stoning, showing just how far their adherence

Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is a short story about the annual gathering of the villagers to conduct an ancient ritual. The ritual ends in the stoning of one of the residents of this small village. This murder functions under the guise of a sacrament that, at one time, served the purpose of ensuring a bountiful harvest. This original meaning, however, is lost over the years and generations of villagers. The loss of meaning has changed the nature and overall purpose of the lottery. This ritual is no longer a humble sacrifice that serves the purpose of securing the harvest but instead is a ceremony of violence and murder only existing for the pleasure found in this violence.

In Shirley Jackson’s "The Lottery," what appears to be an ordinary day in a small town takes an evil turn when a woman is stoned to death after "winning" the town lottery. The lottery in this story reflects an old tradition of sacrificing a scapegoat in order to encourage the growth of crops. But this story is not about the past, for through the actions of the town, Jackson shows us many of the social ills that exist in our own lives.

On the other hand, the villagers stoning the winner of the lottery was used as a symbol of punishment. It is one of the most established and common execution methods. However, in The Lottery, the stones represent victory of the lottery. Shirley Jackson stated that, “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones” (Jackson 291). Stoning is symbolic in “The Lottery” because, “For stoning to be effective it requires a crowd to act together. This reinforces the point that the antagonist of this story it is not a single person but society” (Gahr). For instance, this means that the immorality of the village is so severe that the antagonist is not just one person but society itself. How do you think the villagers feel when their children were caught up in this senseless tradition by collecting stones? It is obvious that the villagers were following tradition that was done every year. “What about allowing a child to be a child?” For example; playing with toy cars and trucks, coloring books and Barbie’s, or getting push by their parents on a swing at a park. Children should not be allowed to partake in an event so gruesome and violent or seen raising anything to aggressively hurt an adult.

Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” is about a bizarre ritual performed in a town in which the townspeople proceed to follow every year. In a black, worn box they place all the names of the community. Once all the names are placed inside, Mr. Summers draws a name. After the name is chosen, this member will be stoned to death by the others in the community. Tessie Hutchinson in the story tries to reject the repetitive tradition of the lottery.

In the everyday live one repeatedly meets people who turn out to have a two-faced personality. In both The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, and The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, we get to know characters with split character traits. While The Crucible is a play and The Scarlet Letter a novel, both works have several points in common even though in the stories they tell they are so very different. Both of these literary works are set in the early days of the Massachusetts colony around the mid 1700’s. In this time period many citizens of both Salem in The Crucible and Boston in The Scarlet Letter were highly religious. So if anything happened that was not able to be solved with a believable explanation, the citizens believed

Shirley Jackson exploits a true form of human nature in this story. The lottery, a deadly tradition, is a draw for death. The selfish need to survive is shown by all the townspeople, who stone the chosen one to death, be it their friend or family, with only the thought that they themselves survived. Every lottery, the people look at the black box, and desperately hope that they aren’t chosen. It is a gruesome reminder of what they have witnessed and taken part of; the murders of innocent

As the plot of the stories unfolds, the greater influence of violent tensions become evident. In The Lottery, people follow the tradition despite its cruelty and absurdity. Although the ritual of the lottery is brutal, the dwellers of the village do not seem to see how barbaric it is because “there’s always been a lottery” (Jackson, 1982, p. 118). Nevertheless, the tensions grow when the lottery begin and every citizen is awaiting for its end. The climatic moment of the story grows when the reader discovers that Tess

In the short story “the Lottery” by Shirley Jackson has a very unique twist and different traditions. This story is about how the whole community is coming together for a gathering every once a year. It is not any happy gathering that people might think it would be. The lottery is a tradition that the community has picked up after years back and still follows this tradition. They forgot most of the whole rituals but they don’t forget the important part which is the part of stoning the person to death. The lottery is a cruel thing they do every year and they don’t plan of stopping. This involves the whole community to join in a circle in the middle of town.

Once upon a time there was a little village. In this village three hundred people happily farmed and played and went about their business. The children went to school while the men cut wood or farmed, and the women cooked and cleaned. Every summer in June each of villagers took part in the traditional lottery drawing and one villager was picked for the prize – a stoning. In 1948, Shirley Jackson published this short story known as “The Lottery,” in The New York Times. The story’s plot shocked readers all over America as they learned of the horror happening in such a quaint town. Jackson purposely set this tragic event in this innocent setting to emphasize humanity’s cruelty. Using her appalling short story, The Lottery,

The Crucible and Death of a Salesman are both written by Arthur Miller in the the 1950’s. During the the 1950’s the Cold War was going on and had impacted American society. Because of the Cold War, the Red Scare began in America which was a widespread fear of communists. This lead to McCarthyism, or the process of making accusations of treason and subversion without evidence to back it up, which caused many people to be accused a communist unfairly. These events during this time period influenced literature and media heavily and is definitely present in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Death of a Salesman. Also, many elements of these two pieces of literature are similar due to the time period in which they were written. The common theme of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman and The Crucible is deception, more specifically he is trying to spread a message that deception causes problems, which is still important and relevant today. Arthur Miller portrays this through the characters of Willy Loman and John Proctor, and more explicitly through their deaths.

The spectacle referenced in the title of the short story "The Lottery" refers to an unquestioned ritual that takes place in a small farming town in New England each year which requires all members of the community to draw sheets of paper to determine a winner. Unfortunately, the person who is deemed the winner of the lottery must be stoned to death due to a misguided and ancient belief that this will encourage a plentiful harvest. The story commences on a morning in late June with the local residents of this village exhibiting a nervous, yet excited mood. Children gather stones as the adult townsfolk assemble for their annual event. Old Man