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Theme Of The Lottery And First They Came

Decent Essays
The two stories, “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, and “First They Came,” by Martin Niemoller, are very different. But both address the theme, standing up for what’s right may not always be the easiest path. The story, “The Lottery,” is a short story about a village with about 300 people in it. Every year, the village holds a lottery. This lottery ends in someone’s life being ended by family, friends, and the rest of the villagers. Their death is because of a simple black dot on a slip of paper. The story, “First They Came,” is a nonfiction poem about someone watching as groups of people get taken away, until finally, they came for him. These groups include Socialists, Trade Unionists, and Jews, and then there is the main character. In his own group, all on his own. Even though these are very different stories, they still do have some of the same themes. In the first place, “The Lottery” communicates the theme differently than “First They Came” does. For example, in “The Lottery,” a village participates in a brutal lottery which always ends with a villager’s death. As seen in the story, “’It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,’ Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.” This is evidence of how scary this lottery is. But also, that when she tried to stop them from killing her, nobody listened and did the wrong thing, killing her. One man, according to the story, “’Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery,’ Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd.
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