Summary Of The Devil And Miss Prym

In various stories, the authors often use literary devices to express feeling and thought and to distinguish their stories from others. At times, similar patterns can be found once critically examined instead of simply being read. In two stories, The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the main idea is the sacrifice of one person in a village and how other villagers are affected by it. In The Devil and Miss Prym, barmaid Chantal Prym meets “stranger” Carlos when he visits the village searching for answers. In “The Lottery”, the villagers have an annual drawing to rid of one of their own as tradition. While comparing and contrasting both stories, one can begin to see apparent types of conflict,

Then there is the actually lottery, were the drawings of a ticket by a villager. Just like a lottery this person is responsible to receive there “winnings”. After everyone, raffles out there sheet of paper, there is a ritual performed were families gather. Then the family members have to draw their numbers. Finally, Tess Hutchinson receives the winnings; a piece of paper with a black dot present. We soon realize that in fact, this is no winning at all; the black dot is a sign of death. To be stoned by the villagers of the town to keep ritual alive. End of story!

Both authors describe the devil similarly. When first encountered, they portray him described as a mostly normal person, with only a subtle clue to his

When a loving, caring, family oriented, women come in conflict with the horrible, despicable, inhumane lottery in a situation in which the town goes together, the results may be a terrible end in a young life. In “The Lottery” written by, Shirley Jackson, the main character Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson’s and the town folk are the main characters of this story. In “The Lottery” Shirley Jackson uses the use of characterization to portray the main ideas of the story. Shirley Jackson also uses the use of plot structure and the point of view in which the story is being told. The Lottery is a way to make a sacrifice for a good harvest in the upcoming season.

Although both stories end with the death of a character, the conflicts are mostly different and do not take similar paths. In “The Lottery” it is hard to truly know the conflict throughout the story. The conflict of the individual vs. society is only apparent at the end. The conflict arises when Bill (Tessie's husband) picks out a piece of paper from the lottery box, and his piece of paper has a black dot in the middle of his slip of paper. Tessie sees his paper and starts yelling at people, particularly Mr. Summers, the man who conducts the lottery. She was yelling at him because she had thought that he didn’t give her husband enough time to pick out a slip of paper. So, in the end the town stones Tessie to death, which makes the conflict clear that it is man (woman) vs. society.

The Lottery is another story of a seemingly perfect town that sacrifices one for the sake of many, but in this instance, the sacrifice is in vain because it is just a superstitious tradition. The citizens of this town were blinded by tradition and rituals of the town even though many have forgotten why they do the lottery. Jackson shows this when she wrote, “The lottery was conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program--by Mr. Summers. who had time and energy to devote to civic activities” (The Lottery 1). It likens these common and cheerful events such as dances and Halloween programs to the sacrificing of an innocent person to better their year. The village seemed so calm and peaceful, but they were still inclined to sin and did not feel much guilt when stoning. The Lotter depicts a dystopian society because a person is being immorally killed every year and no one is stopping it. The event has become dull and repetitive but is still being followed by the families in The Lottery. This theme is very common in dystopian societies and is shown in the evilness of the Lottery.

Society today sees the lottery as an easy way to win a ginormous amount of cash just by buying a little slip of paper with a combination of numbers. The irony that Shirley Jackson uses in her short story, The Lottery, is used to the extreme by not only the title being ironic, but also within the story. The lottery is seen as a way to gain cash, but the ironic part of the title is that the reader sees it and thinks that the story will be about someone winning a big prize, yet the winner is sentenced to being stoned to death. Within the story, Shirley Jackson writes about how one member of the community ultimately chooses who wins the lottery. Another ironic thing about someone chooses the winner is that one of the communities sons picked his own father to win the lottery. Linda Wagner-Martin analyzes The Lottery and its irony by writing, “Bringing in the small children as she does, from early in the story (they are gathering stones, piling them up where they will be handy, and participating in the ritual as if it were a kind of play), creates a poignance not only for the death of Tessie the mother, but for the sympathy the crowd gives to the youngest Hutchinson, little Dave. Having the child draw his own slip of paper from the box reinforces the normality of the occasion, and thereby adds to Jackson's irony. It is family members, women and children, and fellow residents who are being killed through this orderly, ritualized process. As Jackson herself once wrote, "I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village, to shock the story's

The short stories “The Devil and Tom Walker” and “The Devil and Daniel Webster” were written at very different times but can be seen as similar stories. The depictions of the devil, the role of religion, and the resolution of each story were very different.

A Faustian legend is a story in which a character trades something of great personal value to the devil in order to receive personal gain. Since this type of literature originated in the Fourth Century it has spread throughout the world. Two relatively recent versions of this legend are “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving and “The Devil and Daniel Webster” by Vincent Benét. These stories show many similarities as well as a few differences. While both Benét and Irving present similar themes in setting of the tales and motivation in the Faustian character, they do differ in the nature of that character and their visual presentation of the Devil.

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

According to Helen E. Nebeker, most acknowledge the energy of The Lottery, admitting that the psychological stun of the ritual murder in a modern, rural small-town cannot be easily overlooked. Virgil Scott, for instance, says, “the story leaves me uneasy because of the author's use of incidental symbolism: the black box, the forgotten tuneless chant, the ritual salute to assure the entire recreation of the procedure of the lottery forget to serve the story as they may have.” At that point, they indicate fundamental weakness by acknowledging that Jackson has preferred to give no answer to her story, but it leaves the meaning to our imagination, allowing a good deal of flexibility in our interpretation, while yet demanding that everything in the story has been obtained to assure us how we are to 'take' the ending events in the story. Maybe the critical conflict depicted above comes from failure to see that The Lottery really intertwines two stories and subjects into a fictional vehicle. The obvious, easily discovered story shows up in the facts, wherein members of a small town meet to decide who will be the next victim of the annual savagery. The symbolic hints which develop into a second, sub rosa story becomes apparent as early as the fourth word of the story when the date of June 27th alerts us to the season of the summertime with all its connotation of ancient ritual. From the symbolic development of the black box, the story shifts quickly to climax.

Many of the small, undetected details throughout “ The Lottery” seem to foreshadow a disturbing ending to the story. In the beginning of the story children gather around and form piles of stones in the time square. This comes off as very child-like and innocent and does not lead the reader to feel any way suspicious about these children’s purpose for piling the stones. The real purpose of the stones is obviously is revealed toward the end of the story. Tessie seems to show up late to the lottery, which kind of shines a light on her, and makes her stand out from the crowd. Mr. Summers makes a comment on how they were going to have to start the lottery without

The conflict of the story is when Tessie disagrees with the tradition of the lottery. Things begin to change when the Mr. Summers chose the paper that said Tessie. Tessie’s husband took the paper out of Mr. Summers hand and saw that it was marked with a black dot. He soon realizes that the Mr. Summers had chosen the victim already. The result was that the Tessie was stoned to death.

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 both stories the main types of conflict are between people versus society. Some would argue this is the worst type of conflict because it is a single person against a democratic government or societal group where everyone is opposed to your point of view. Even if the wrong decisions are being made, little or nothing can be done since everyone voted upon it. In The Devil and Miss Prym, Chantal is opposed to killing anyone for money. She saw these actions inhuman, especially when killing an old lady who did not deserve to die in that way. Chantal goes against Viscos and uses fear as a way to stop them from executing the murder. She states that getting the money after the murder wasn’t going to be as easy as it seemed, and that authorities will get involved once they go and cash in the gold bricks. Meaning they would get caught sooner or later for committing a murder and the consequences were going to be much severe than expected. Little by little, the views of the town people started to change and one by one everyone started to leave back home. (Coelho, 190-197). Coelho also demonstrates person versus society when Chantal is held responsible for