Stephen Martinez
Prof. Amber Wolak
English 1B
13 March, 2014
Prompt #7
Many works of literature have been known to have their words wrap around a certain subject such as gender, politics, and experiences. But some works go into a more personal level such as religion. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Salman Rushdie’s “Imagine There’s No Heaven”, they talk about the strength in the relationship between individuality and religion. These two authors have written their stories based on how an individual’s life, choices, and beliefs can or can be altered by the religion that surrounds them. As one reads these stories, they might be able to notice that they have a lot in common but there are many difference on what the stories are actually about. These two authors have expressed the relationship between individuals and religion through the similarities, differences, and resolutions.
Like many works of literature, there can be traces of similar attributes that can be compared to other peoples work. In “The Lottery” and in “Imagine There’s No Heaven”, they both have spoken about a similarity of the relationship between individuals and religion. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson talks about a small little, peaceful community that goes along their day and living their lives like normal people. But it isn’t normal. They have a certain “religion” where every year, they go through what is called “the lottery”. They have everyone pick a slip a paper out of a black box and whoever gets the slip of paper with the black spot gets stoned to death or “sacrificed” for the Gods to give them a good harvest for the upcoming year. In “Imagine There’s No Heaven”, a man writes a letter to the six-billionth person who will be born about how the w...
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... in life. Express your freedom.
In conclusion, these two short stories written by Shirley Jackson and Salman Rushdie have expressed the idea of what rebellion and conformity has affected the relationship between religion and individuals through the characters who expressed their feelings towards things that did not seem to fit in their societies. Through the similarities, differences, and resolutions that these two stories both share, the real message that can only be summarized in one way: do not be afraid to express your true feelings and don’t let things like religion take over your entire life. Things like spiritual guidance can really take a toll on an individual’s behavior and few of their own lives as we saw in Jackson’s “The Lottery”. Through these stories we now know that the relationship between religion and individuals can be very strong in some cases.
Attention Getter: Shirley Jacksons, The Lottery, without a doubt expresses her thoughts regarding traditional rituals throughout her story. It opens the eyes of us readers to suitably organize and question some of the today's traditions as malicious and it allows foretelling the conclusion of these odd traditions. The Lottery is a short story that records the annual sacrifice ceremony of an unreal small town. It is a comprehensive story of the selection of the person to be sacrificed, a procedure known to the villagers as the lottery. This selection is enormously rich in symbolism.
Freedom is one of the many great qualities of life, but when it is taken away, life could turn out to be anything but great. Freedom to think, repent, and refuse should be incorporated in ones daily routine, but under an authoritarian dystopian society, these freedoms are only dreamt of. When society draws such attitudes and lifestyles upon its citizens, one adapts and accepts these requests, but not without a compromise. In Shirley Jackson’s masterpiece ‘The Lottery’ and Kurt Vonnegut’s exceptional story ‘Harrison Bergeron’, human life is so often sacrificed and withdrawn that is becomes a norm in society. Forcing people to agree with someone else’s ideology of harmony and success cannot be achieved without discarding the non-believers. Both dystopian societies possess excessive force on their civilians, with harsh consequences resulting in death. Traditional values and dictatorship laws forcefully overcome the mass population’s beliefs, resulting in obedience and respect to the laws of society. By comparing and contrasting the short story ‘The Lottery’ and ‘Harrison Bergeron’, it can be derived that these societies have strict rules and regulations, citizens of the society have become so adapted that they are afraid of change, and there is a severe lack of freedom.
We can transform our life by altering our thinking process, and the stories by Shirley Jackson and Chris Abani emphasize on changing the thought. Shirley Jackson’s story, “The Lottery”, conveys a great ironic tradition of a certain American community at some time in history, probably not that old. Similarly, “The Lottery” by Chris Abani also explores a similar tragic story about a loss of a life, and presents the life and survival as a lottery, which is never certain. In these regards, both these stories express a common theme of a traditional belief and a tragic end of a life but in a very contrasting fashion and settings.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Bridges: Literature Across Cultures. Gilbert H. Muller, John A. Williams. McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994. p 849-854.
Religion in May 1966. It was reprinted with comments and a rejoined in The Religious Situation.
“Imagine there’s No Heaven” is a letter written by Salman Rushdie who is a British Indian novelist and essayist. He is an atheist and is known for his unflinching criticism of religion. Rushdie contributed this letter to a UN-sponsored anthology, addressed to the six-billionth human child who was expected to be born that year. He attempts to discuss and answer two fundamental questions of life. “How did we get here? And, now that we are here, how shall we live?” However he diverts from his central thesis and most of his text malign and smear all religions while the two questions go almost completely unanswered. His tone is demeaning, scornful and he presents religious beliefs as being ridiculous. He makes absolute statements without any clarification and supporting evidence and his arguments lack logic.
“In thinking about religion, it is easy to be confused about what it is.” (Smart, 1992) To combat this, Smart uses seven dimensions to define common characteristics of religion. Much of what will be explored will fit his dimensions. The practical and ritual dimension can been seen in all three religions through worship and rituals and patterns of behaviour. The latter are those acts that help the believer develop spiritual awareness or ethical insight, such as yoga or meditation in Buddhism and Hinduism. The experiential and emotional dimension of religion explains that religion feeds on human emotions and key events from history to illustrate this is, the enlightenment of the Buddha, or the visions of Muhammad. A person will not follow something without meaning or emotion driving it. The narrative or mythic dimension of religion refers to the use of story telling in religion. Typically, all faiths use stories to illustrate their beliefs or events in history, whether they might be of things to come, or like in this essay, stories of the Buddha, or Muhammad. The use of story telling is important as the stories are often based on accounts of history or documents that have been found. Story telling can enhance the believers faith and are often integrated into rituals. The doctrinal and philosophical dimension of religion talks about the importance of the holy books/ doctrines. Since the doctrines typically have an account of the leaders life, and the leaders are usually educated, believers read the doctrines to gain an insight into the leaders life; and thus strive to become more like them or abide by their teachings. The ethical and legal
In “The Lottery” the author uses many different types of themes to inspire the reader to feel certain emotions. Themes such as the perils of blindly sticking to outdated traditions. Traditions such as sacrificial murder in which some ancient societies believed that “Life brings death, and death recycles life” (Griffin); this shows how some readers could accept the actions depicted in this story. Yet another way of looking at it and finding a way to accept it is that it’s been said that capital punishment today is a form of ritualistic killing. But other readers may just see it as cold blooded murder in which they may be appalled that some societies could still do this in 1948 when this story was written.
The short story “ The Lottery ” the author Shirley Jackson uses symbolism and imagery to develop a theme the brings forth the evil and inhumane nature of tradition and the danger of when it’s carried out with ignorance.
Religion is essential to every human being. Not only does it serve as a foundation for one to form his/her own set of values and integrity, but it also acts as a source of conflict for many people. Internal religious conflict can be seen in the form of one’s personal struggle with his/her belief. However, personal struggles are mostly influenced by external factors, which cause disturbances to one’s faith and loyalty to their beliefs. On the other hand, external conflict is the concept of which chaos and upheavals occur in society from clash of beliefs. Both conflicts between religions and internal religious conflict are found to be central to the plot of many examples of 20th Century Non-Western literature. African and Middle-Eastern literature, in particular, addresses many aspects of religious conflict, both in the form of the individual and collective struggle.
When initially reading Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” focusing on aspects of themes and ideas is difficult, as the apparently seamless shift from ordinary socialization to death is highly outrageous. However, after multiple readings, Jackson’s messages become more apparent, with her prominent theme tackling societal norms. Growing up Catholic, attending parochial school until sixth grade, and regularly attending church creates a tendency for me to follow tradition and rituals, without question. Yet, Jackson’s story directly challenges the ethics of this behavior as she criticizes how society functions, blindly maintaining the status quo simply because that is how it has “always been” (246), regardless of its morality or relevance in the modern world. Even
For the layman, familiarity with the major religions stems from the stories that are associated with them. Using the narratives that are derived from the sacred texts is the most prominent way in which our society identifies the Western religions. The Jewish tradition is best correlated to stories like the Exodus and the parting of the Red Seas, for example, as are the many tales of the miracles of Jesus connected to Christianity. This essay will present narratives as an easy method of providing the basic groundwork for the Western religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam because of their simplicity and easily transmittable nature. Furthermore, narratives impart many of the rules, laws, and moral fundamentals for these faiths, and are used by religious writers as a novel method of initiating discussion or providing a parallel for other narratives.
Religion and the lottery are two concepts of our society and Jackson’s fictional society that are just blindly followed. Shirley Jackson wrote this story to force society to ask themselves why do they follow such traditions. These traditions exist because they have been around forever. Blind faith is exactly what all of her characters in “The Lottery” are doing and what Catholics have in the face of Jesus. The “Lottery” maybe for heavier crops in the month of June (Jackson 368). While the Catholic religion is for a higher faith and ending. This is how Shirley Jackson takes society’s way is forcing us to open our eyes. She wants us to understand the parallels and do something positive and learn form what goes on. Things may not have the same brutal ending, but if they have no rhyme or reason what is our cause for believing.
Set in 1948 and published in The New Yorker, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson describes a village ritual of sacrifice. Contrary to the positive feeling associated with the word “lottery,” the story strikes fear into the readers’ hearts as the winner is stoned to death. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” uses symbolism and genre conventions of a classic dystopian story to show the different ways in which human cruelty can occur.
Albert Camus’ The Stranger and Peter Shaffer’s “Equus” reveal the degenerative effects of religion on society through a negative portrayal of characters’ relationships with religion. Both introduce religion as a means of releasing welled up human emotions and as an optimistic distraction from the realities of life. However, both criticize religion as being dangerous to one’s mental stability as well as to society as a whole. Camus and Shaffer each communicate this message through their respective characters: the magistrate and Alan Strang.