preview

Comparing and Contrasting The Rocking Horse-Winner by Hawthorne and The Lottery by Jackson

Decent Essays

An Explication of Passages in “The Rocking Horse Winner”
By D.L. Hawthorne

{It came whispering from the springs of the still-swaying rocking horse, and even the horse, bending his wooden, champing head, heard it. The big doll, sitting so pink and smirking in her new pram, could hear it quite plainly, and seemed to be smirking all the more self-consciously because of it. The foolish puppy, too, that took the place of the teddy-bear, he was looking so extraordinarily foolish for no other reason but that he heard the secret whisper all over the house: “There must be more money!” Yet no body ever said it out aloud. The whisper was everywhere, and therefore no one spoke it. Just as no one ever says: “We are breathing!” in spite of the …show more content…

The dark and cynical writing that’s presented in both stories gives consequences of what is morally right even though it is clearly shows the cost of being selfish and wrong but it still have a price even if it means cheating someone out of their future.
A noteworthy details Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” which was published on June 26, 1948. Her tone in this writing was cynical, and extreme delusion in her ideology of population control. For example, “The people had done it so many time that they only half listened to the directions; most of them were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around”. However, if this were really a lottery gathering everyone wouldn’t be nervous or angry and scared. There would be festive theme with families celebrating the winner. Instead, there were terror, horror, and panic among the recipients that were gathered. The significance in D.H. Lawrence’s The Rocking-Horse Winner was published on September 11, 1885 in Harper’s Bazaar. His tone in writing was extremely deranged in a passive way. For case in point, “The foolish puppy, too, that took the place of the teddy-bear, he was looking so extraordinarily foolish for no other reason but that he heard the secret whisper all over the house: “There must be more money!” Yet no body ever said it out aloud. The whisper was everywhere, and therefore no one spoke it”. All in all, if this were a true family

Get Access