Similarities Between The Giver And The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

Imagine living a normal life in a normal town but suddenly, your life has been turned upside down. This is the unfortunate reality for the main characters in The Giver and in “The Lottery”. In The Giver, a Utopian Society chooses a receiver of memory whos job is to handle all of the memories from generations past. In “The Lottery”, a quaint little farming town comes together for a sacrificial ritual to help get a better harvest. Both of the ritualistic styles of life in the Giver by Lois Lowry and in the short story, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson demonstrate the overall theme of tradition.

In the Giver, the writer, Lois Lowry reveals the theme through talking about an old profession in being the receiver of memory.. The theme of tradition is reinforced in the Giver through the character development of Jonas, a young boy chosen to do the job of the receiver. Jonas is chosen to be the receiver of memory a job in which he is given memories from, “Before the previous receiver and generations before him,”(77). This quote reveals how even having a receiver of memory is a very old tradition as it is said that they have been there for generations. All in all, The Giver portrays the theme of tradition through a generation old profession, Jonas’ job of the receiver.

The narrator talks about a tradition called the lottery, in which, one of the citizens of a small farming town is picked to be killed. The townsfolk believe that the practice of the lottery will bring them a good harvest. The author states that, “The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner,”[5]. This quote conveys that the ritual that they had been using was very old. So old that, the originals had been lost and, the backup was older than the oldest man in the