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Desiree's Baby And The Lottery Comparison Essay

1217 Words5 Pages

From both of the short stories, it can be grasped that people will exclusively consider their own needs in an attempt to preserve their own lives. While there are a few similarities that convey this theme between "The Lottery" and "Desiree's Baby", it is explored differently through varying elements of story. First of all, a similarity between each story is that people are not hesitant to go through any means necessary to secure their own survival. In "The Lottery", the people of the village are willing to kill their own citizens to secure their own survival until the occurrence of the next lottery. After Mrs. Hutchinson was chosen as the "winner" of the lottery, she was surrounded by the citizens of the village holding stones. Before she …show more content…

In "The Lottery", nobody in the village possesses the skills required to lead each other, and thus relies on a luck based "lottery" to decide who shall be killed. However, in "Desiree's Baby", Armand is able to use his intellect and opinions to reach a conclusion that will benefit himself, which was to exile Desiree to prevent her from soiling his family reputation and therefore his entire life. Nonetheless, while themes of survival are heavily displayed in both of the stories, themes of tradition are equally expressed as well. In both "Desiree's Baby" and "The Lottery", the message of how society is unable to willingly change their traditions and beliefs is conveyed through the multiple underlying elements of story. While each story possesses a few similarities, the contrasting story elements each author uses creates significant

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