How are murders and violence defined in societies? In both “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell acts of murder and violence are displayed. According to Kennedy and Gioia (2015), “Short stories show rather than tell” (p. 13). Both “The Lottery” and “The Most Dangerous Game” do just that. The short stories share similarities such as a common tone, shared symbolism, and violence, but differ in purpose and character structure. The first short story, “The Lottery” takes place in a village of 300 people on June 27th. The story is mostly about two characters: Mrs. Hutchinson, who shows up late to the village lottery and Mr. Summers, who runs a coal business and reads off the name of the lottery “winners”. The black dot represented a “winner”. Mrs. Hutchinson draws a card with a black dot, which leads to a conflict within the short story. The conflict deals with Mrs. Hutchinson vs. her community. This is a conflict due to the villagers believing someone should be stoned to death in order to help with the harvest, however,
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The stories’ main characters are Sanger Rainsford and General Zaroff. Rainsford is a big game hunter who falls off a ship and ends up on General Zaroff’s island, which leads to the conflict. The conflict involves Rainsford vs. Zaroff (or man vs. man). Both Zaroff and Rainsford are avid hunters. Zaroff, however, hunts humans. Rainsford is one of the humans that he wishes to hunt. However, Rainsford sets traps and outsmarts Zaroff by hunting him as well. The common theme for the short story involves violence. This is a common theme because Zaroff hunts humans as a game and believes that it is sport and should be acceptable. Zaroff gives the option to either to be given to Ivan to be beat or to be hunted. He refuses to allow a person to live, but only gives the choice to overcome his challenges in the hunting
The stories’ main characters are Sanger Rainsford and General Zaroff. Rainsford is a big game hunter who falls off a ship and ends up on General Zaroff’s island, which leads to the conflict. The conflict involves Rainsford vs. Zaroff (or man vs. man). Both Zaroff and Rainsford are avid hunters. Zaroff, however, hunts humans. Rainsford is one of the humans that he wishes to hunt. However, Rainsford sets traps and outsmarts Zaroff by hunting him as well. The common theme for the short story involves violence. This is a common theme because Zaroff hunts humans as a game and believes that it is sport and should be acceptable. Zaroff gives the option to either to be given to Ivan to be beat or to be hunted. He refuses to allow a person to live, but only gives the choice to overcome his challenges in the hunting