Obedience vs.Disobedience
To obey someone is natural and a common occurrence. Disobeying someone on the other hand is thought to be wrong and immoral even if it brings more happiness and pleasure to all. In the story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, she describes a small village gathering in the square to take place in a lottery. This is great you say. A lottery, what could be better than winning money? Unfortunately this is a lottery for much more than just money, but to see how a tradition of a society can have people do something that ordinarily they would never think of otherwise. On average, people say that they would never want to hurt anyone or anything. This is primarily true in the story when Mrs. Delacroix said to M . . .
“As long as you are obedient to the power of the State, the Church, or Public Opinion, you feel safe and protected (380, Erich Fromm. ” What I am trying to say is that at these lotteries, the rest of the villagers will stone whoever looses. “For centuries…parents have insisted that obedience is a virtue and that disobedience is a vice (377, Erich Fromm). ” What this is saying is that you give up your rights as an individual. The act of the lottery is a deep tradition that dates back long before the oldest person in the town. In the end, I think that the characters conformed to the situation that they were in simply to not be the rebellious person who made trouble and angered the rest of the villagers. They are merely slave to this lottery and cannot think for themselves otherwise they would know that this is wrong. ” If you rebel, many look you down upon you and there is no sense of security and almost nowhere to fit in with the rest of society, you are alone. This tradition that they have has no purpose or reason but they continue to do it because “There’s always been a lottery (387, Shirley Jackson)” according to Old Man Warner. The villagers gave up their autonomy to a stronger authority. By people obeying a higher authority they feel good and it is comforting to be part of the crowd. ” In order to keep up with the traditions that they have they must be totally obedient to whatever their leader says is right and wrong.
Common topics in this essay:
Erich Fromm, Shirley Jackson, , Delacroix Graves, Public Opinion, shirley jackson, erich fromm, feel safe, rest villagers, |
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