The Themes Of Shirley Jackson And Chris Abani's The Lottery

Humans are capable of both good and bad things. Many people are selfish and willing to go to any lengths to get what they want, even if it means they could hurt someone or destroy their life. Shirley Jackson and Chris Abani 's stories “The Lottery” demonstrates the cruelty humans are capable of by showing the awful things people are willing to do to others.

The people in both stories follow cruel traditions that kill innocent people. In Chris Abani’s story, there are mobs that carries out justice by cracking down on whoever gets accused of a crime. The accused person gets penalized even if he is innocent. Getting accused of a crime means certain death, because crimes are paid with your life. Comparatively, in Shirley Jackson’s story, a village

In Chris Abani’s story, a thief gets chased down by a mob as he runs towards the center of a market. At the center of the clearing was the elders who has the most authority in the community. They are the highest council in the community. “In the center of this sacred space, the sole elder to stand up and call for tolerance was booed…” (Abani 26). Although, the elders had the most power in the community, they got ignored. Moreover, the people ignored the system they were living under. A man from the mob set the thief on fire. “If you burn here, you won 't burn in hell” (Jackson). His justification for setting the thief on fire is that the thief won’t burn in hell if he burns on earth. There are many ways to punish criminals, and, yet, the mob chose the most painful way possible. The person who “won” the lottery in Shirley Jackson’s story was Tess Hutchinson. She tried to risk her daughter’s life to save her own, but failed. Furthermore, it is heartless how she is willing to risk one of her children’s life just so that she can live. It is brutal to get stoned to death. There is no instantaneous death, unless there’s a fatal blow to the head. Thus, Tess must have died very

man by showing how everyone turned against the victim of each story. Although, the thief from Chris Abani’s story said that he was innocent, no one believed him. The people in the market formed a line and spat on the burning man as they passed by him. Moreover, it was not just the mob who wanted to see the thief suffer. But every single person in the market was against him and just watched as he suffered. Similarly, Shirley Jackson demonstrates man vs. man by telling about how the villagers stoned Tess at the end. The village turned against her as soon as she “won” the lottery. “Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands…” (Jackson). Mrs. Delacroix was Tess’s friend and chatted with Tess before the lottery. Yet, after the lottery drawing, Mrs. Delacroix picked the largest stone. Mrs. Delacroix murdered her own friend. Tess even got stoned by her own family; her children killed their own