Similarities Between The Lottery And Harrison Bergeron

One similarity is in both texts the main person is fighting against the oppressive government. Another way that the two texts are similar is in both the government has put on unfair laws on its citizens. A quote from Harrison Bergeron that supports this is “The year 2081... nobody was smarter than anybody else nobody was better looking than anyone else nobody but it was stronger or quicker than anybody else.”

People with power in society often have the ability to influence the practice of certain traditions. These traditions can affect what a citizen is entitled to do. In today's day and age, life without basic freedoms and rights sounds unthinkable. However, in Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” and Kurt Vonnegut's “Harrison Bergeron” this is the reality. Old Man Warner and the Handicapper General show that people in positions of authority encourage outdated traditions that ultimately lead to innocent people getting hurt.

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s “Harrison Bergeron” both paint fairly morbid pictures of what extreme conformity can do in society. The two stories have vastly different settings and employ dissimilar approaches to the subject of conformity. Despite this, they both suggest that the need to conform, which is encouraged by American society, is dangerous and can lead to the loss of freedoms and loss of life. The two also insinuate that standing up to authority for purely selfish reasons is pointless.

The authors Shirley Jackson, and Nathaniel Hawthrone in "The Lottery" and "The Young Goodman Brown" both revel that different elements such as tone and setting

The similarity and connection existing between the two stories is the point of view in the two essays. The stories are both written in the first person perspective and that

Looking at both stories, the Lottery appears to be a means of how the town remain at a low population and that the Lottery was a way of controlling that population. The Rocking-Horse Winner on the other hand uses gambling as an alternative to making money and that money is earned by being lucky and that you had to have an imagination in order to possess this luck. The Lottery focused its story around an ancient black wooden box that held the Lottery choices within it and the Rocking-Horse Winner was focused upon an old style Rocking Horse that was often used by children long ago and something that is not used today that often. Both endings of each story were odd enough whereas in the Lottery, the death of another person came as a ritual that was expected to happen so very often and in the Rocking-Horse Winner, Master Paul, the woman’s son sought the approval of his Mother concerning his having luck. The boy died that night and the Mother had not acknowledged that she knew that her son was lucky even though she was eighty –odd thousand to the good. Very odd turn of events in both stories and both had unusual endings in which there seems to be that type of contrast. Not that they were similar in story form but that they both ended in sadness. Of the two stories, I would choose the Rocking-Horse Winner as the favorite of the two due to the fact that the Lottery goes against the belief that I

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence portray how people can act in atrocious ways when impacted by society. In both of these short stories there is an untimely death of one of the characters. The difference between the deaths is the emotional relation with the characters. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast these two pieces of literature through the similarities and differences in the settings, characters, theme, and plot.

The similarities of the book are very simple and easy to point out. In both works, they cover the same events in

One of the similarities that both passages portray consists of the style of writing, the way the author carries out the messages allow the audience to understand the

On final similarity between these two stories is their controversial reception. Many readers and critics alike were offended by "The Lottery." "Harrison Bergeron" was also very controversial. Many

The two stories are both centered on a particular person in the story. “The Lottery” was centered round Tessie Hutchinsen who happened to be the unlucky one to have picked the

To begin, the two stories parallel in the government ruling and corresponding atmosphere. Both stories have an authoritarian government in place with a strong set of rules regulated by methods of control and propaganda. Within ‘The Lottery’ for example, the governing body established an annual randomized public execution under the guise of it being a sacrifice for the crops. This is blindly accepted and followed by the towns people as they feel bound to the tradition. This is evident for example in the following exchange; Mr. Adams says, "…that over in the north village they're talking of giving up the lottery." Old Man Warner responds, "Pack of crazy fools. Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them…Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.'…There's always been a lottery.” (Jackson 4) Unlike the public control in ‘Harrison Bergeron’, this method of control is not reinforced by any governing body and is simply accepted as fact based on the words and experiences of past generations. Within ‘Harrison Bergeron’, the United States government executed three additional forms of constitution to enforce equality and the methods in which to enforce it. Handicaps and a strict structure keeps society bound to a false sense of equality to effectively suppress and regulate the people of the United States. This is accepted by all regardless of position in society as the system in itself does not allow the option of choice on the matter. It is made clear handicaps are effective tools to stop revolution, as in the following excerpt the narrator explains the attributed nature of Georges and Hazel’s lack of ability to ponder their son’s abduction; “it was [April] that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s son, Harrison, away… George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had

Henry ford, once wisely said,’’ History is more less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we made today’’. “The Lottery” and “Harrison Bergeron” are the best deprivation short stories. Harrison Bergeron” and “The Lottery” both reveal that it is human nature to blindly want a better situation without considering all the possible outcomes. Not just in these stories, but also in reality, people want to attain an equal society, although many people do not consider how everyone will become equal, in ‘’Harrison Bergeron’’ He is afraid of everything and try to enlighten to other member of society and In Shirley Jackson’s ‘’The Lottery’’ the story shows winning the lottery is bad, but in the lottery the lucky winner who draws the winning paper then gets the prize of being stoned death. Jackson uses Tessie Hutchinson’s character to condemn force. However, both stories are false equality and blind traditions but both societies while awareness is the difference between them.

Therefore, because of the lottery being such a respectable tradition, it is strictly enforced to keep it original and antique. For instance, when Mr. Summers addresses the crowd “All ready? Now I’ll read the names –heads of families first—and the men come up to take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hands without looking at it until everyone has had a turn, everything clear” (Jackson, 3)? This quote is a perfect example of the rules and regulations of the lottery, because even though the members of the village have heard this time and time again, Mr. Summers still repeats it. He repeats it because if he does not, the laws of the lottery will be broken which can bring about a bad harvest. Mr. Summers follows an elaborate system of rules for creating the slips of paper and making up the lists of families. When the lottery begins, he lays out a series of specific rules for the villagers, including who should draw slips of paper from the black box and when to open those papers. For generations and generations, these rules were always followed; to insure a good harvest, and follow tradition. The lottery’s unique rules lead up to the randomness of the murder at the end. Meanwhile in the short story Harrison Bergeron, the government admires an egalitarian point of view instead of traditional. The United States of America is run by the Handicapper General, Diana Moon Glampers. Due to the 211th 212th and 213th

The conflict of the lottery shows the selfish attitude of character, Tessie Hutchinson. Overall, the Tessie Hutchinson did not disagree with the rules or process of the lottery until her family name