“The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.” The way Shirley Jackson in “The Lottery” and “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” by Ursula Leguin uses literary techniques in a very unique way. These two short stories apply to the following quote. This quote means that a person might not know what to do in a situation and but people will judge that person by the way they act. This statement is valid because few people are leaders and stand up for what they believe in. They would all rather be like everyone else and follow them. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” by Ursula Leguin are pieces of literature that can be applied to this quote through literary techniques and elements.
The two literary techniques that connect the quote with this story are characterization and theme. “The Lottery” is about a town coming together for small town lottery. The word lottery usually means something good. In this short story that is not the case. The lottery in this story means something bad. Every man of the family draws a card out of a box and hopefully it is blank. If they end up getting the card that has a big black dot, then their family has to pick cards out of the box. The one person in that family that gets the card with the big black dot on it they get stoned to death by the rest of the town. This applies to the quote because in the town no one knows what to do when that one person has drawn to be stoned to death. When one person acts and throws the first stone at the particular person everyone else has no idea what to do so they follow everyone else. Shirley Jackson describes the little girl as whinny and trying to get out of being picked for the stoning describes the characterization in this short story. She repeated “it wasn’t fair.” The theme applies to the quote because the citizens. They realize, it has been going on for a long time. They know it has no real good explanation for the whole lottery. There is no reason why they should be killing human beings for a stupid reason as a sign that they would have a good harvest season.
The Essay on First Person Stories Jackson Dubus
Andre Dubus, Raymond Carver and Shirley Jackson have changed the landscape of contemporary fiction both culturally and stylistically. All three comment about the affect upon the individual whose life circumstances have caused them to act the way that they do. When reading their short stories you can't help but notice that Dubus and Carver have very similar styles. Their use of the first person ...
Another short story that this quote applies to is “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” by Ursula Leguin. The use of theme and symbolism is used in a very unique way in this short story. The author uses theme in content with this quote mentioned above, to show that what judges anyone and everyone is the way they act. Everyone in the world looks at your behavior when you have no clue what is going on. The author uses symbolism to show that the way the character looks and how everyone else looks at the person. She uses these literary techniques very uniquely.
In conclusion the short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The One Who Walks Away From Omelas” by
Ursula Leguin are two ways that the literary techniques they chose to use, applies to the quote “The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do”.
