The Lottery and the most Dangerous Game

The lottery and the most dangerous game are stories about killing people in inhumane ways. Both storys have hints that they have done it more then one time like a ritual or tradition. They shor no remorse for the person that is going to die. Also they are set in times that are more modern. Not in times where thinsg like that were more common as. Some think that scaraficing animals or even hunting animals for sport or as a ritual is already inhumane but killing others when they have done no wrong for is on another level of evil people.

Sherley Jackson born in California in December 14, 1960 started writing at the age of twenty at the university of Syracuse. “This was to be the beginning of an independent life for the author, as she would finally be away from the dominating presence of her mother” , she liked to make story's about certain theme. “almost every story is about a protagonist discovering or failing to discover or successfully ignoring an alternate world. Jackson. Often a change in a character's perspective leads to anxiety terror neurosis or even loss of identity”

Jackson's story “The Lottery” is told as an objective, third-person point of view. The narrator is an outside person just watching. He is a person who is not involved in the story itself. The narrator reveals very little about the thoughts and feelings of the characters. The only way to know the characters thoughts is through how the narrator describes their actions. “This lack of knowledge of the thoughts and feelings enhances the contrast between the violence of the characters' actions and their apparent civility.” At the beginning of the story we get a scene that children are picking out rocks, but they only get certain ones. We think that the kids are just being kids they pick out the rocks until the lottery begins and they are called. everyone expects that the lottery is something where someone will win a lottery and get a prize. However, as the reader continues to read the story, some details makes the reader question what the prize is. we are given the impression that something bad is going to happen. When Tessie draws the unlucky token and begins to say that “It wasn’t fair,”. At this point the reader is sure that the prize is something bad. The lottery wasn't a prize the lottery it was a tradition where the town uses it to pick someone who will be stoned to death by the stones the children were choosing at the beginning of the story. “Readers are given the sense that no one cares about Tessie’s death, increasing the disparity between reader reaction and character reaction the townspeople urge her to be a good sport and accept her prize. All the townspeople join in the stoning, even her own children. The townspeople have no remorse for her getting the black dot. “The basic social theme focuses on how people often hold on to customs, even when they are barbaric and have lost their earlier meaning.” The idea of the lottery comes from when primitive societies would make sacrifices to a god for their crops. This is called scapegoating. “What makes the story so disturbing is that the story takes place in the modern 20th century. “Moreover, instead of being written as if it were a parable of man’s primitive nature, it is presented realistically as if it were actually taking place.” This means that the story was written in times where rituals like this were common and normal but this story as she sets it in modern times gives the reader even more chills. Traditions like this in the 20th century were not common and this being so inhumane it makes it a lot worse.

Richard Connell began his writing career at an early age. summiting his work for publishing at the age of ten and the person who published his work was his father owner of The Poughkeepsie News-Press . By the age of sixteen he was editing for the news press. When his father died Connell transferred from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., to Harvard University. There he rose to the position of editor of The Daily Crimson and also of the Harvard Lampoon magazine. He would find it easy write short story's or journalism. After he finished school he took up short storys. he wrote many story's buy one of his most famous storys being the most dangerous game a story about a man hunting another man for simple pleasure. This story is an example of an evil society

The story is told from a third person limited point of view. Where we get to see Rainsford thoughts and feelings throughout the story. The title is a play on words, it is about the game that the general and Rainsford have later in the story, it can also mean “the most dangerous game” and game would be referring to animals like deer or dangerous animals like tigers . Rainsford being a hunter who is very talented hunter says that the animals can’t think or feel. He believes that they are not smart because if they were, they would come up with tactics that would prevent them from being hunted and killed. He is looking in to the ocean when He falls overboard in the beginning of the story and ends up at the island that the sailors waned him about. They have a talk about hunting over dinner. They begin to talk about the lack of challenge there is in hunting animals now. Since they are both very good hunters themselves. Then general zaroff explains why he is on that island. He tells Rainsford there is. “When the general informs him that he stocks the island with the only animal that can reason, Rainsford is aghast to realize that Zaroff hunts men. This perversion of sport repels him, and he rejects the general’s defense of manhunting even as he is fascinated by the man’s madness.” When Rainsford refuses the generals offer to hunt with him the genera gives Rainsford his reason behind it. He says that “the weak of the world were put here to give the strong pleasure,” he is talking about Darwinism or natural selection. He refers to his prey as “scum of the earth” Zaroff believes these men have no rights and no feelings. Something that Rainsford had said in the beginning of the story Rainsford believes that hunting men is inhumane and just not right. Rainsford refuses to be a part of the hunt and takes the generals challenge in trying to escape him for three days. The general is very shocked as some one with the knowledge alike rainsfors he thought he would want to join him in hunting the men but he lets rainsfrod off with a head start and begins to hunt him. Rainsford becomes very scared using tactics that he learned from hunting animals trying to run from the general. Now he rethinks what he said about the animals in the beginning of the story. He now knows that the animals do have feelings and they do get scared and they are very intelligent. And he realizes that the general thinks of the humans the same way that he thinks of the animals He tries to survive but he gets cornered by the general and he jumps to the se. the general sure that he has died he returns home to find Rainsford in his room seeing that he is beat him and Rainsford have a final fight where the ending to it isn’t directly revealed. This story shows the inhumanity in the general he has no feelings in killing animals or humans and say that they are only there for his enjoyment. This story isn’t set in primitive times it is more modern times.

Both of these stories are set in modern times and tell a story about evil society’s and inhumanity. Weather it be hunting them or having a lottery to get rid of some one in the town. These stories are to show how things can still happen in modern society’s just because we don’t know about it doesn’t mean that bad things aren’t happening. what makes it more dramatic is that the towns people are ok with it even her kids joined in to kill her. That was there to show that the tradition was still being passed down in to the younger generation and it will keep going longer. and the general and his servant are both ok with hunting down and killing another human being and have no remorse. Both of these stories are about killing some one inhumanely and not having any remorse about it.

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