Fiction Essay
Thesis
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Destructors” by Graham Greene are two short stories where the author explicitly uses symbolism and irony to showcase how tradition and geographical setting can breed violence in the community. Both stories have a peaceful start, but in the end, violent activities are witnessed.
Outline
“The Lottery” by Shirley explores the theme of communal violence in a community that abides strictly to the rituals while the theme of power and jealousy is explored in “The Destructors” by Graham Greene.
Both “The Lottery” and “The Destructors” were published after the second world war after people had gained freedom.
The plot structure in the two short stories describes how the fundamental conflicts result in violence and tension.
In “The Lottery,” violence is caused by blindly following the traditions while jealousy is the main cause of violence in “The Destructors.”
The geographical setting of the two stories influences the traits of the characters.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson explores the theme of communal violence and the dangers of blindly following the traditions of a community. The story is told from a third-person point of view where symbolism and irony are extensively used to enhance its themes. In “The Destructors” by Graham Greene, themes of control and jealousy are explored. Similar to “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “The Destructors” is also narrated in third-person point of view by an unnamed narrator. The two stories use different characters with different plot settings and styles to showcase how people in the community differently perceive community rituals.
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was published on June 26, 1948. Shirley wrote the short story immediately after the second world war to explore the theme of communal violence and the dangers of blindly following the rituals of a society (Robinson, 2019). The story begins with a tale of annual lottery exercise carried out in a small town in the New England. The people meet every year at a ground surrounded by a pile of stones to carry out the lottery ritual. The Green’s short story was published in 1954 after the second world war in London. The short story was first published in pictures before it was then published in twenty-one stories later in the year of 1954 (Gallix, 2017). The story involves a group of gang boys whose main aim is to destroy an old house that survived the bombings of the second world war. The boys are the inhabitants of the poorest section of the city, and the old building is the only the old building left on the part of the town. Therefore, both “The Lottery” and the “The Destructors” are two short stories written after the second world war.
In both stories, the plot describes how various characters build conflict, tension, and violence. In “The Lottery” by Shirley, a sense of freedom is felt at the beginning of the story where people gather in the garden square after the second world war to carry out the lottery exercise. The children arrive at the square before the adults later arrive. The lottery exercise is conducted by Joe Summers each year. The lottery box has worn out with time, and Joe Summers has suggested the making of a new box, but the people are reluctant because they believe that the lottery box is a symbol of their tradition that cannot be replaced (Robinson, 2019). Mr. Summers conducts the lottery while abiding by all the rituals, but Tessie shouts that the exercise is not fair. The villagers accuse Tessie of going against their norms, and the angry crowd stones her to death. In the “Destructors” by Greene, the leader of the gang group is known as T. who is led by jealousy and violence. T. instructs the young boys to destroy the old house belonging to Thomas. The old house is a well-designed piece of architecture, and T. is jealous of the house. After the house is destroyed, Thomas is deeply annoyed, and he utters a cry, “My house…. where is my house?” (Stavick, 2017). From the plot of the two stories, there is a horror ending of the tales. In “The Lottery,” following the traditions blindly results into violence while in “The Destructors,” the young boys are filled with the vice of violence and jealousy, which drives them in the destruction of the only traditional house in the section of the city.
The characters in “The Lottery” follow their tradition despite the cruelty of the rituals. In the story, Tessie is seen as not valuing the community rituals because she arrives late for the annual lottery exercise, and she is stoned by other community members (Schofield, 2018). The large portion of the villagers in the story believe that the annual lottery exercise is a traditional ritual, and should be obeyed by all the members of the community. By blindly following the ritual, the villagers become violent where they stone Tessie for failing to value the annual lottery ritual. In “The Destructors” story, T. is a character who is the leader of the gang and is filled with jealousy. Thomas in the story is the owner of the old traditional house, and he does not understand what the boys are after for destroying his house. Thomas embraces peace and is annoyed by the violent boys. T. has dark values, and he does not value the traditional old house, which results in the destruction of the house by the gang without any reason.
In conclusion, the setting of the stories greatly influences the characters in both “The Lottery” and “The Destructors.” For instance, in “The Lottery,” the annual lottery exercise is performed for seventy-seven years at a place surrounded by a disturbing pile of stones gathered by the children, which symbolizes violence. At the end of the story, the villagers use these stones to kill Tessie. In “The Destructors,” young boys meet at a ground where a bomb was dropped to destroy the city, which initiates them to act violently. Therefore, the geographical setting in the two stories influences the characters to become violent.
References
Gallix, F. (2017). Graham Greene’s Books for Children. Graham Greene Studies, 1(1), 12.
Robinson, M. (2019). Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Holocaust Literature. Humanities, 8(1), 35.
Schofield, L. (2018). It isn’t fair, it isn’t right”: The Affective Politics of Fear in Shirley J ackson’s “The Lottery. Verso: An Undergraduate Journal of Literary Criticism, 9.
Stavick, J., & Wise, J. W. (2017). Graham Greene Studies, Volume 1. Graham Greene Studies, 1(1), 1.