Similarities Between The Lottery And The Most Dangerous Game

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” both tell stories using literary techniques of tone, symbolism, and irony that help to convey stories that leave the reader baffled by their ending. Although Hawthorne and Jackson utilize these literary techniques in a different way, both of the stories end with a sense of darkness.

Shirley Jackson is often regarded as one of the most brilliant authors of the twentieth century. Born in San Francisco in 1916, she spent the majority of her adolescence writing short stories and poetry (Allen). While she is known best for her supernatural stories, one of her most popular works is a short story called “The Lottery”. The lottery takes place in a small village in which once a year on June 24th, the town population is gathered. After the gathering, there is a drawing to see which family is chosen, after the family is chosen, another drawing takes place to see who is stoned to death. In the New Yorker's magazine book review hailed “The Lottery” as “one of the most haunting and shocking short stories of modern America and is one of the most frequently anthologized” (Jackson). This review stems heavily from Jackson’s brilliant use of irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing. However, perhaps what truly stands out is how Jackson is able to wrap all of those elements together as a way to show an overarching theme of the corruption that exists in human nature. While the real source of “The Lottery’s” inspiration is unclear, there has been heavy speculation that the roots lie heavily in the actions of the holocaust and the actions that took place during World War II. Regardless of the source material, a general consensus can be made that the plot of the lottery is a dark reflection of human actions.

Some of the audience might be left in a state of mind were they feel incomplete and think the story was poorly told in these fictions. Yet, others left to think about why this ritual even exists, and why Mrs Hutchinson was to be the one chosen. To answer the question about why this lottery even exist the character “old man warner” can explain. He explains that there is some kind of connection between the ritual and the corn in the village. He stated, “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon”. This tells us that this is some sort of fertility ritual, were if someone dies, it brings great fortune to the land. In order to receive life, they take a life.

THESIS: The themes of Shirley Jackson’s, “The Lottery” and D.H. Lawrence’s, “The Rocking-Horse Winner” demonstrate a very powerful and sinister aspect of fallen human nature. The characters in both of these stories are driven to what many would describe as insanity in the pursuit of a passion. Ultimately, these pursuits end in unimaginable tragedy and pain.

In the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game,” author Richard Connell expertly exploits foreshadowing and vivid imagery to emphasize danger and suspense. Many authors attempt to do this, but only a small few succeed. Everyone who has stayed up past their bedtime reading a book will tell you, they stayed awake because the book they were reading was filled with suspense. It is suspense that separates the great stories from the good stories. And “The Most Dangerous Game” is definately a great one. By using foreshadowing and utilizing his characters five senses, Connell keeps readers at the edge of their seats, eagerly waiting to find out what comes next.

In Richard Connell's short story, "The Most Dangerous Game';, the use of literary devices, found blended with other literary devices, gives the story an inner meaning. The blending of literary devices effectively expresses the intentions of Connell to present contrast between the antagonist and protagonist points of view. As a result, the reader can gain insight on the good and evil sides of the story to enhance the purpose of his interpretation. "The Most Dangerous Game'; by Richard Connell presents literary devices such as foreshadowing, setting, and irony which reveal the underlying meaning of the story.

In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Richard Connell correlates three common literary devices especially well: setting, suspense, and plot. Connell makes use of an appropriate setting, the literary element of suspense, and an interesting plot in order to strengthen the story’s recurring theme of reason versus instinct within humans, and to blur that line between reason and instinct.

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, and "The Story of the Hour" by Kate Chopin, both have resemblances and appears differently in relation to the elements of writing. Especially, when the authors use foreshadowing to control the demeanors of the stories and add irony to intentionally lie to the reader. Both stories have comparable qualities and stands out from respects to their parts of the story, especially the writers' usage of irony and mood.

Shirley Jackson is to be considered one of the best authors of the 1900’s. Her style of writing reeled in readers from all different ages. She can be creepy, hilarious, and inspiring to the eyes that see her words. In Shirley Jackson’s short story, The Lottery, she keeps the reader on the edge of their seat wanting to continue reading beyond the final word. She uses literary devices to shape her story to grab her readers attention all throughout the story. By using these literary devices, Shirley Jackson shows off her dark and twisted side as well as her fantastic writing style to emphasize why she is one of the writers of her generation.

In this semester, we’ve read “The Lottery” and “Harrison Bergeron” from the textbook. They are two short stories; “The Lottery” was written by Shirley Jackson, and “Harrison Bergeron” was written by Kurt Vonnegut. This essay is to compare the similarities and differences between them.

Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" both attempt to provide their readers with the cruel truth regarding how it is typically human to express interest in cold-blooded acts. These two short stories discuss about people who see nothing wrong with promoting criminal behavior, but who eventually come to acknowledge the horrible position that the victim is in by experiencing it from a first-person perspective. Sanger Rainsford, and, respectively, Tessie Hutchinson are the central characters in these two stories and they are unable to complexly understand the situation that a victim is in until they actually realize that they are the victims.

When objects are personified in stories, they are not only given human characteristics, but also given a commanding, more dynamic presence within the narrative. Ambience of the box propels all other components of the story further drawing the reader into the story. Throughout the short stories: The Lottery and The Dangerous Game inanimate objects played a large role in the arch of both the storyline and characters, through personification. Personification is an essential component in all three short stories because it fleshes out the story since the objects being brought to life allow for more meaningful, rich plotlines, characters, and themes. Personification is applied in The Lottery through the box and in The Dangerous Game through Ship-Trap

Suspense, horror, anticipation, a distinct absence of trust in the higher powers that be - these are all crucial characteristic of the exemplary horror story; a representative of the "dark side" of literature. "The Most Dangerous Game", a short story written by Richard Connell focusing in on the interactions between two avid hunters fighting for ultimate victory, and the extent of danger carried by the game, incorporating all of these characteristics to create a scene of depiction unparalleled in its vividness, its dire atmosphere, its anticipatory nature, and its beneficial, unconventional position of contradiction at points. As any horror story, or indeed, any work at all, should ideally hone in on involving the reader in on its messages and course of events, this particular Connell work serves as a prime demonstration of the nature of suspense and fright in the entirety of literature.

In the two short stories “Dead Men’s Path” by Chinua Achebe and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson they both shows you tradition is very important to the older generation. The authors portray a strong mental picture on how traditions affect different societies. Tradition Is always challenged in the minds of the new generation but somehow tradition always over power their judgement. In “Dead Men’s Path” Mr. Obi and his wife was planning and bring a new life to the village where Mr. Obi got his new job. Mr. Obi planned on opening new doors for his new school and have it presentable for the white Supervisor. Nancy planned on beautifying the place with her beautiful flower garden. The priest tried to alter their decision by explaining the importance of this path to the ancestors. Refusing to listen, Mr. Obi and his wife suffered serious consequences.

Since the release of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games many readers have spoken of the similarities within The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. The Lottery was published over fifty years before The Hunger Games which makes it plausible that it could have contributed to The Hunger Games. Despite Suzanne Collins denying this, there are many similarities between the two texts, with the most significant similarity the fact that both texts share almost the exact same setting for their events.