Humans as a species are ridiculously complex. Our capacity for emotion is what sets us apart from all of the other species on the planet. While other organisms do feel emotion, we stand alone in the way we express ourselves. Alongside that is our unique sense of “good” and “evil”. Humans have a concept of what is right and what is wrong, and this is often called our conscience. In this area, we are again completely unique. The thing that makes this sense of right and wrong so profound is the fact that this sense is somewhat dependent on how we were raised, what culture we have been surrounded with, and what our parents have taught us. In other words, outside factors affect a fundamental driving force for us as humans.
Many books have been …show more content…
It focuses on a small village in rural New England, and the ominous “lottery”. This lottery is quickly found out to be a barbaric practice, where the winner is stoned to death. The striking feature of the story is the normalcy of this practice among the villagers. The atmosphere at the beginning of the story is one of a picnic or festival, with men casually “speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes” (Jackson 1). Then it quickly takes a darker turn, but the mood of the villagers remains generally the same, with the ultimate outcome of all of the people stoning the winner to death being treated completely normally. I contend that this obviously evil act is the product of social construct and peer pressure influencing the villagers, and consequently people in the modern day, to accept some evil as normal, and that these types of generally accepted acts of evil can be found in the sheltered world we live in …show more content…
This sequence shows the common acceptance of an obvious evil, and draws a parallel to my examples in everyday society. To them, the killing of the winner was only logical. It made sense because they’d been doing it for so long, why should they ever change? Just as our culture today has the same mindset.
Conclusion
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a captivating short story and forces a very important question: have we let society alter our perception of good and evil? In some instances, we have. In reality, how do we know that our ‘good’ is any more right than the next person’s? That is why we must be diligent in our involvement in society, and always aware of the influence that popular culture has on us. We can either learn from it, or let it destroy
Many books have been …show more content…
It focuses on a small village in rural New England, and the ominous “lottery”. This lottery is quickly found out to be a barbaric practice, where the winner is stoned to death. The striking feature of the story is the normalcy of this practice among the villagers. The atmosphere at the beginning of the story is one of a picnic or festival, with men casually “speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes” (Jackson 1). Then it quickly takes a darker turn, but the mood of the villagers remains generally the same, with the ultimate outcome of all of the people stoning the winner to death being treated completely normally. I contend that this obviously evil act is the product of social construct and peer pressure influencing the villagers, and consequently people in the modern day, to accept some evil as normal, and that these types of generally accepted acts of evil can be found in the sheltered world we live in …show more content…
This sequence shows the common acceptance of an obvious evil, and draws a parallel to my examples in everyday society. To them, the killing of the winner was only logical. It made sense because they’d been doing it for so long, why should they ever change? Just as our culture today has the same mindset.
Conclusion
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a captivating short story and forces a very important question: have we let society alter our perception of good and evil? In some instances, we have. In reality, how do we know that our ‘good’ is any more right than the next person’s? That is why we must be diligent in our involvement in society, and always aware of the influence that popular culture has on us. We can either learn from it, or let it destroy