The Lottery And The Hunger Games: A Literary Analysis

The Book and Movie, The Hunger Games, is an allusion to The story of Theseus and the Minotaur from Greek Mythology. The story goes that Minos, the king of Crete, once sent his only son on a visit to Athens, and he was sent by the Athenian king to fight a bull. When the boy died from the fight, the angry Minos captured Athens and declared that he would destroy it unless they completed his bizarre demand: once every nine years, the Athenians had to send a tribute of seven maidens and seven youths, who would then be forced to confront the Minotaur, who would devour them. This directly parallels the story of The Hunger Games. This rewritten version of an old Greek legend shows a theme of how history can repeat itself.

Both “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins are about dystopian societies in which life and death events occur. They are similar in a way and not similar in a way.

In the Hunger Games series, a dystopian future is set up. The government of Panem, The Capitol, holds the wealth of Panem giving it the power to control all districts. In order to enforce this theory, they created the Hunger Games. They suppressed the rights of the citizen’s of Panem and selected their children in order to fight each other do death for survival. These games were created to scare the people and show them who was in charge. While these dystopian societies are going on, there are also utopian societies that we can see in our dreams. These societies are filled with what we think makes them perfect. For example, the utopian universe that can be brought to mind could be free of poverty, homelessness, war, racism ,etc. But, if we deeply think about it, if these problems did

The short story “The Lottery” is written by Shirley Jackson. This story takes place in a small village where everybody knows each other. In this story all the villagers gather around town for their annual lottery. Everyone in the village is compelled to follow this tradition even if the outcome ends up with someone dying. In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses conflict, theme, and irony to develop this suspenseful short story.

The famous Roman orator and senator Publius Tacitus once wrote that “the more the laws, the more corrupt the government.” A corrupt system always tries to put restrictions and create laws in order to ensure that their power as an authority is not in danger of being disregarded. In Suzanne Collins’ renowned novel The Hunger Games, the Capitol is a corrupt system in Panem because it abuses its powers to control the citizens. It does so by forcing restrictions on the freedom of the people, favoring the rich and imposing harsh punishments.

“The Lottery”, by Shirley Jackson is a very suspenseful, yet very shocking short story. This story is set in a small village, on a hot summers day in June. Flowers are blooming, and the towns people are gathering for the lottery, which is a tradition the town does every year. As the reader reads the first paragraph they think this is a happy story. The title also says, “The Lottery” which is a word often used for winning something or receiving a prize. It’s a beautiful summer day and everything seems perfect, but as the reader keeps reading they come to realize that this story is not as simple and straight forward as the title suggest, rather it is a horrifying and dark tale. Shirley Jackson is forwarding the theme on tragic it can be to blindly follow traditions by using foreshowing, symbolism, and dialog.

“The Lottery” is an realism/horror story written by Shirley Jackson. The story is about some villagers of a small New England town who follow the tradition of making a lottery every year. When it comes, they like to celebrate it with the correct rules and the correct objects so they can feel more comfortable. Everyone need to take a slip of paper from a small black box, and the paper with a black dot in it means that the family is the winner, then they raffle again; Bill Hutchinson, who was the husband of the protagonist Tessie Hutchinson picked a paper with a black dot in it, that meant that Tessie was the winner of the lottery, then she starts complaining because the drawing was not conducted properly. At the end, the townspeople moved off to a cleared spot outside the town and they begin stoning her to death (Jackson). In “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson uses characterization, symbolism and themes to develop the action of the short story.

“The Lottery" is a verdict of depraved tradition of a community. The story surrounds a town where the lottery is drawn every year as a sacrifice ritual one 's life for a good fertile crop. The lottery rose up public opinions when it first published in 1948. It is a piece of Shirley Jackson in which she wrote about inhumanity and violence among human based on her real experience when she moved to a small town and was rejected by its people. Shirley Jackson always believed in sinful spirit within each individual self as her writing style portrayed the vicious side of her and people 's souls, “The dark current of awareness of evil that runs through her life and work seems too strong to have as its sole root the observance of suburban hypocrisy” (Judy Oppenhaimer). This short story shows that the author has been mastered the art of foreshadowing, symbolism and irony by her diction, narration and the shocking revealed at the end.

The Lottery is a story by Shirley Jackson. It is about a town that has a type of stoning event called the lottery. It is basically like gambling with your life. Each person has to pull out a slip of paper out of a black box. There are enough slips for each member of the town. It is like a process of elimination. First, each person draws a slip. If a person pulls a slip of paper with a black dot on it, that family has to each pull a slip. The person that pulls a slip with a black dot on it (from the family) has to be stoned to death. So in the end, one person must die. Traditions should not be blindly followed.

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.

Many people would die to win the lottery; in the short story “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson you would do anything NOT to win this lottery. This annual lottery reveals the negative aspects of this town’s Tradition, Savagery, Barbarism, and cold-heartedness. In this paper I will show why this town blindly follows these customs, not because it’s a tradition but because of the accepting wickedness that can be shown.

‘The Lottery’ is a story about tradition and sacrifice. However, even though the NY times article is about sacrifice, they are for different things. Such as money vs. good luck. ‘The Lottery’ talks about this small, peaceful village that have no problems and has mainly positive dialogue. But this village has this really weird tradition. This tradition is based on a lottery. There would be this lottery and every family has their name on it by force since it is a tradition and the family that gets picked would have to do another lottery to see which one in the family dies. To know which person in the family dies every person in the family gets a paper and the paper with the black dot dash. In the lottery someone picks out a family name and the family name that year was the Hutchinsons. The Hutchinsons were pretty mad and mostly Tessie Hutchinson, who started shouting that this is unfair. Then they proceeded to the final lottery, which was the one based on who will die. Every person in the family got a paper and the person with the black dot was Tessie Hutchinson, who then started shouting this is unfair and everyone started throwing rocks at her until she died. The whole story is ironic itself because the tone of the story is a place that’s perfect. The dialogue is mainly positive. The title “The Lottery” also gives the reader a positive perception of the story, that the lottery is a contest, not an execution, but it is in fact an execution at the end. In the article it talks

First of all, everyone in the town follows along with this lottery and it is never questioned and they are not even being forced to partake in it like in the districts are in The Hunger Games

In this movie, dystopia is the reason for the actual hunger games themselves. This is because dystopia is used in a way that creates propaganda. They have the citizens watch the hunger games as a source of entertainment. This, or so they think, distracts all of the citizens from worrying about how odd their government may be compared to other governments throughout the world. They make the hunger games seem like a very cool thing that should be celebrated when in reality, it is very sad because lots of teenagers are dying. In addition, freedom is restricted. In one of the scenes, Katniss is shown in the forest and has to climb a fence in order to secretly get in the woods to hunt for animals. The citizens of this society are not allowed past certain points and their government is separated into twelve different districts that all serve different purposes. Another way that dystopia is displayed is through citizens being under constant surveillance. Especially during the hunger games, there are secret cameras planted everywhere to watch the tributes and their every move. While this government is perceived to be “perfect”, there are lots of flaws that are being hidden from the citizens. While the tributes are preparing for the hunger games, they are starting to recognize these flaws in their own government and seeing how they are literally right under their noses and they did not notice them before. This is because