In both of the short stories, ‘the lottery’ by Shirley Jackson and ‘the one who walks away from Omelas’ by Ursula K LeGuin, the writer’s purpose is to challenge the reader to reflect on whether we accept the wrong in society or whether we challenge the wrong in society. ‘The lottery’ by Jackson is about an unique ritual that is carried out in a small village. This ritual is similar to a raffle where everyone in the village to participate and draw out one piece of paper, hence ‘the lottery’. However, the winner does not receive a prize, but death by stoning. Similarly, in ‘the one who walks away from Omelas’, LeGuin explores the cruelty that one innocent child is punished and locked to provide happiness to the people in the Omelas. Both story is centered around the cultural beliefs and their human integrity is questioned by the reader of the stories.
Jackson uses the ‘black box’ symbolically show the cruel ritual in the village, which is death. The black box is an old box passed from generation to generation in the village. It symbolizes the people live in the village as they all participate to rewarded death each year. The villagers thought that “making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.” This tells the reader that the box itself is falling apart, but the villagers are not willing to replace it. As they pride in the ritual of lottery and do not want to change the traditions and the guilt, which significantly shows that the villagers are clinging to belief without understanding. Jackson also uses the emotive words such as ‘grew shabbier’, ‘black’, and ‘stained’ to denotes death and giving us the feeling of evilness. The black box “was put away, sometimes one place, sometimes other.”
This alludes the never-ending guilt that linger on to every place of village and people. However, the people do not feel the guilt, as they are blindly following traditions and willing not embraces the changes from generation. Similarly, LeGuin also use the symbolism of the locked, windowless cellar child to represent the cruel and wrong in society. As it is described by LeGuin “behind every great fortune there is a crime”. This foreshadows that there is some sort of ‘crime’ hiding from the peaceful and beautiful city of Omelas. Later on, it shows that there is one child chosen randomly who is live in the cellar under one building, that get treated badly and inhuman being. The writer describes how the child is ‘feeble-minded’, ‘naked’, and ‘it is so thin there are no calves to its legs. Its belly protrude.’
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This clearly highlights the cruelty in the society and how the people doing it without understanding. Both of the stories show how the people can just do such a cruel thing but turn a blind eye so easily. These ideas made by the writer has influenced my reaction to think that the group forced that we revolve around and will to change if we feel uncomfortable or it something does not seem tight to us. The will to change the wrong in society is important as the wrong can influence us negatively without us noticing.
