The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas compared to the Lottery

Comparison paper Honors English When driving, two roads can be completely different, one possessing steep hills and sharp turns and the other being relatively flat in grade and strait in its direction, and still bring you to the same location. In literature, two stories can be written on completely different subjects, one containing a narrative of the murdering of a woman in contemporary America by lottery and the other giving the chronicle of torture in a mystical fairy-tale like society of an innocent child, both delivering your mind to the same final thoughts. This is the case for the two short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin. These two stories are told in quite different contexts; yet their theme of a single person taking on the burdens of society to allow the rest of the culture to live in happiness and the devices used to arrive at this theme are strikingly similar. Both of the stories begin with a warming description of a beautiful summer day. “Fresh warmth…. The flowers were blooming profusely and the grass was richly green” (Jackson pg 1) in “The Lottery” is similar to “Bright air…..great water meadow…..moss grown g

Next thing you know, they"tmll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work anymore, live that way for awhile. The person that draws the only slip that does not posses blankness is then stoned to death by their entire town, including their friends, siblings, significant others, and children. They do not feel that the committing of one great evil is worth the trade off of prosperous life. In ""Omelas" these individuals are "The ones who walk away from Omelas. Although less jovial in their gathering, the citizens in "The Lottery" all gather together with the children participating in play and the adults engaging in small talk. How different are the actions of our own society from the actions of the people in "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" and "The Lottery". For example, the working class of America work jobs for the betterment of society that cause them to live in impoverished conditions and degraded lifestyles. They forced us to ask if we would walk away from Omelas (Davidson pg1). " In "The Lottery" there are the people in other towns who are doing away with the Lottery. As stated in the before mentioned quote, "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon;" the productivity of the harvest relies on the action of the Lottery. The theme that is presented through enactments of these savage traditions is that one person must pay for the utopia of the rest of society. The authors used their stories as societal and political weapons, demonstrating the pointless inhumanity in our society (Kosenko pg1). Both Stories contain congregation of joyful townspeople. Although the exact reasons for the traditions are marginally different in each story, they are both done for the continuance of their respective societies, and they are both incredibly vicious. In today"tms society what views do we hold towards people who are sacrificed for the good of the group An initial reaction to this question might be the same one you got when you read these two stories; a feeling of disgust and a thought of how could we ever do this in our world But if you truly analyze the actions of western culture you will see our society is many ways similar to the ones in the stories.