William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” are both short stories filled with traditions, death, and the need for change. Both stories highlight the tragic effects of outdated traditions that remain dominant in societies way beyond their significance or value. Both the Old South and the village in The Lottery are male dominated societies. The actions of the men in these stories is not questioned. Clearly in Emily's case, she was a victim of the dying South. Tessie Hutchinson, in The Lottery, is a victim of a lottery system that chooses a random victim for an annual stoning to death. No one can remember why this annual ritual takes place, but they are afraid to abandon it. While using fear of change and death
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In “The Lottery,” Jackson uses the lottery system as a calling card for death, seen in “the postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three- legged stool, . . . give me a hand? There was a hesitation,” this allows the reader to understand that everyone in the town knew that when this box and stool come out so does death (Jackson 540). After the Hutchison family draws the paper with the black dot, Mrs. Hutchison is quick to throw the rest of the family under the bus, saying “There’s Don and Eva, Mrs. Hutchison yelled. Make them take their chance! Daughters draw with their husbands’ families, Tessie, Mr. Summers said gently. You know that as well as anyone else,” showing just how eager Mrs. Hutchison was to make sure the rest of her family was in the drawing so she would have a better chance at surviving (542). By illustrating a mother who is willing to let one of her own children die in place of her, shows the reader just how powerful death is in the town. While in Faulkner’s story the theme of death is seen by the three people who die in the story. At the very beginning of the story the reader is brought in to the scene of Miss. Emily’s funeral, the “whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see inside of her house,” (Faulkner 323). While death for many is a time to mourn, the town didn’t feel this way towards Miss. Emily. While at the end of the story “the man himself lay in the bed,” and “the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace,” representing just how powerful the death of Homer was on Emily (327,327). The death was so powerful that she made part of her house a tomb for him. The death at the end also signifies the decaying of the prominent factor Emily and her family had
In “The Lottery,” Jackson uses the lottery system as a calling card for death, seen in “the postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three- legged stool, . . . give me a hand? There was a hesitation,” this allows the reader to understand that everyone in the town knew that when this box and stool come out so does death (Jackson 540). After the Hutchison family draws the paper with the black dot, Mrs. Hutchison is quick to throw the rest of the family under the bus, saying “There’s Don and Eva, Mrs. Hutchison yelled. Make them take their chance! Daughters draw with their husbands’ families, Tessie, Mr. Summers said gently. You know that as well as anyone else,” showing just how eager Mrs. Hutchison was to make sure the rest of her family was in the drawing so she would have a better chance at surviving (542). By illustrating a mother who is willing to let one of her own children die in place of her, shows the reader just how powerful death is in the town. While in Faulkner’s story the theme of death is seen by the three people who die in the story. At the very beginning of the story the reader is brought in to the scene of Miss. Emily’s funeral, the “whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see inside of her house,” (Faulkner 323). While death for many is a time to mourn, the town didn’t feel this way towards Miss. Emily. While at the end of the story “the man himself lay in the bed,” and “the profound and fleshless grin. The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace,” representing just how powerful the death of Homer was on Emily (327,327). The death was so powerful that she made part of her house a tomb for him. The death at the end also signifies the decaying of the prominent factor Emily and her family had