Comparing Symbolism In The Reaping And The Lottery

Everyone has those family traditions that they follow blindly, but in most cases everyone’s family tradition does not result in a dead family member or friend. In the story ‘The Lottery” a small village town has an annual lottery that they host every year that results in one dead member of their village. They choose their winner by gathering all the towns people’s names into a black box and drawing first a family from the town and then a member from within that family. In the film known as The Hunger Games, the people of Panem also follow the annual tradition of a lottery where the winners die. Although both stories share similar properties such as symbolism, they differ when it comes to the society and protagonists of each one.

During each story there are two female protagonists that both are the ‘winners” of their lottery. The main contrast between the two are how they reacted when they were chosen; which reveals each woman’s true character. For example, when Katniss’ sister Prim was chosen for The Reaping , Katniss instantly volunteered to take her place. This showed that Katniss had a deep love for her sister to where she would take her place and head towards almost certain death. This is important to mention because it displays the selfless traits as a heroic protagonist. In contrast the less fortunate protagonist Tessie, from “ The Lottery”, when chosen would not go down without a fight,

For example, in both stories they have two symbols that represent death “ The Lottery” in particular used the dreaded black box as a way to portray death in the story. The box symbolised death because it had inside of it white pieces of paper that were blank except for one with a black circle and whoever got that slip of paper was chosen to die . This is important to mention because the tradition for people dying as a way to preserve