Comparing The Lottery And What, Of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?

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“We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves (Barbara Jordan pg 1).” In this unit, acceptance plays a huge role in several different ways in the documents we read. In seminal documents like “Texas V. Johnson Majority Opinion”, the court accepts the fact that Gregory Lee Johnson should not be sentenced for desecrating the flag, even though they believe it is wrong. “The Lottery” and “What, of This Goldfish, Would You Wish?” have a different way of showing acceptance through the characters of their stories. These three passages explore the diverse differences between people and show that we sometimes just have to accept things even though we may not like them. In 1984 at the Republican National Convention, …show more content…

At first, Yoni is at Sergei’s house to interview him for a documentary, but when Yoni enters he becomes intrigued by Sergei’s goldfish. This is when Sergei hits Yoni across the head with an object and kills him. We later find out he did this because his fish is magical and Sergei thought Yoni wanted to take the goldfish away from him. Sergei has one wish left that the goldfish can grant him, but Sergei does not want to use it on the boy because he does not want to lose the goldfish. Sergei says “ I’ve been saving it, saving it for something (line 132).” This quote shows that Sergei does not want to use his last wish because if he does he will lose the fish. Sergei does can not accept losing the fish because he is all Sergei has. However, Sergei finally accepts the fact that the fish does not care about him when “the fish swishes his tail back and forth in the water, the way he does, Sergei knows he’s truly excited. The goldfish can already taste freedom (lines 159-161).” Sergei then uses his last wish to revive Yoni. It was hard for Sergei to let go of the fish, but he is able to accept the fish’s

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