Traditions in ‘A Moment BEfore the Gun Went Off’ and ‘The Lottery’ In the stories ‘A Moment before The Gun Went Off’ and ‘The Lottery,’ there is the situation in which a group of people cling to traditions very blindly. In both stories the traditions are so dug into the people’s way of life that questioning them is considered sacrilege within these communities. Furthermore, the members of the community no longer even remember why the traditions were set up in the fist place. They follow the traditions simply because their predecessors followed the traditions.
Another similarity between the communities in both stories is, even though these traditions are firmly entrenched in these communities, they are rapidly losing there grip in other communities. This detail is not only mentioned in both stories, but looked down upon by communities that still follow the traditions. In the story ‘The Lottery,’ the tradition is to hold a lottery on a specific summer day, but instead of winning a cash prize or some other good thing, the winner gets to be stoned to death by the members of the community. The character that is mentioned most in this story is one by the name of Mrs. Hutchinson. Mrs.
Hutchinson is a devoted mother and housewife. She is the one who eventually gets singled out to win the lottery. So it is Mrs. Hutchinson who is impacted the most brutally by the lottery. However the other people of the village are affected differently by the lottery. It is very unlikely that the people of the village kill people for the sake of killing people.
The Essay on Man Warner Lottery Mrs People
The first time I read "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, I thought it would be about someone in a desperate situation who wins a large amount of money. However, after reading the story I was shocked and disgusted like millions of other readers because of what the "lottery" was all about. After my shock wore off I thought about why the author had chosen to be so cynical. It occurred to me that she ...
More likely there is a deeper reason. One possibility is that the people of this village of this village are looking for a scapegoat. A person to take the blame for mistakes and sins of others, so one person dies for a community and saves the community from whatever sins that had been committed. The society can be affected in many ways by the lottery. Other neighbor societies have been affected by the lottery, many have abandoned the tradition of the lottery.
Even in the community where the story takes place many of the rituals that go along with the lottery are fading into the past to be forgotten forever. An example of this would be the chant that originally went with the lottery. Depending on how well the villages communicate with one another determines the fate of the lottery. If the people responsible for abolishing the lottery in other towns spread their preaching, there is a chance the tradition of the lottery could be destroyed. Another factor that dictates the future of the lottery is the population of the village, if the village grows large there are more people with all kinds of new ideas, a few of which could be to get rid of the lottery. Eventually the societies that are home to the lottery will deal with their sins and end the tradition of the lottery.
The story ‘A Moment before The gun Went Off’ is one that takes place in Africa. In the story the White minority are the ones in charge. In this particular society, blacks are the blue collard workers while the whites take the higher positions. The main character of the story is Mr. Van der Vyver. Inthe story Mr.
Van der Vyver accidentally kills a young farm hand by the name of Lucas. Mr. Van der Vyver is more than Lucas’s employer he is his father, so Mr. Van der Vyver feels truly sorry for killing Lucas. Mr. Van der Vyver does not grieve with his wife for the death of their son because he is not married to the Lucas’s mother.
The tradition in this story is that interracial marriages do not occur. While this tradition is not as brutal as the one from ‘the Lottery’ it is just as sad. I believe that the society from ‘A Moment Before The Gun Went Off’ will suffer the same fate as that of the one from ‘The Lottery.’ Tradition will give way to change, blacks will hold high social positions, whites will marry blacks. One way or another this will be the eventual fate of the community no matter how hard the whites try to separate the black from the whites.
The Essay on Native American Whitecloud White Society
Blue Winds Dancing By: Whitecloud A main idea of this work concerns itself with the role of contemporary Native Americans in white society. This is evident in the text when we read, "No constant peering into the maelstrom of one's mind; no worries about grades and honor's; no hysterical preparing for life until that life is half over; no anxiety about one's place in the thing they call society ( ...
In both these stories there is a some sort of tradition that grips the communities very tightly. These traditions may have been vital for the survival of the communities in the past, however as time passes the need for these traditions becomes nonexistent. As the communities grow and become closer to others the process of abandoning the traditions speeds up. this is because there is more communication between the people of different sex, religion and color..
