Preview

Rocking Horse Winner

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1043 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Rocking Horse Winner
Fictional Essay APA

“The Lottery” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” portray how people can act in horrific ways when influenced by society. I. Horrific ways A. “The Lottery” 1. Death by stoning 2. Children involved 3. Bad tradition B. ”The Rocking Horse Winner” 1. Un-loving mother 2. Greed 3. Selfishness

Fictional Essay This essay will compare and contrast the author’s theme/purpose/conflict and plot of two short stories called “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking Horse Winner” by DH Lawrence. In both stories the author had a purpose of teaching an important lesson. “The Lottery” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” portray how people can act in horrific ways when influenced by society.
In the “The Lottery” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” the authors’ use symbols, irony, and morals in their stories. In both stories there is an un-timely death of one of the characters. How it differs is the emotional connection with the characters. “The Rocking Horse Winner” allows the reader to sympathize with the mother and the son, Paul, while “The Lottery” does not give that same emotional connection to its characters. Both stories end abruptly after the death of the character.
In “The Lottery” the author was trying to entertain and inform the reader. She conveys the theme of her story which is that traditions are often followed without question and it shows how easily humans can conform to following traditions no matter how pointless and barbaric they are. The author is trying to communicate a moral in this story that even though something has been done for many years, people should find the root of the tradition and ask themselves if it is still relevant In the “Rocking Horse Winner” by DH Lawrence, the authors theme here was also to convey a lesson of morals. The author realistically portrays the moral problem of money being the root of all evil. The woman was not exactly evil; she was never mean to her son. She



References: Lawrence, D.H. The Rocking Horse Winner Jackson,S. The Lottery

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In The Lottery one way that the danger of blindly following traditions can eventually lead to you being cruel is seen through setting in the second paragraph “Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones” and “…eventually made a great piles of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raid of other boys”. The theme is seen through setting,…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Thesis Statement: The two stories, “The Rocking Horse Winner” by Shirley Jackson and “The Lottery” by D.H. Lawrence reveal that parents and other family members have a great influence on the emotional and moral development of the children in their lives: a person’s value is controlled by external factors rather than in who they are,…

    • 2024 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Usually, when one hears anything about a lottery, it is perceived as being a great fortune brought down upon whoever wins it, even if the person has done nothing to actually deserve it. After all, it is won only by a stroke of luck, an unforeseen and unexpected circumstance. But even so, it is supposed to bring wealth and luxury into the winner’s life. Not one person in today’s society would ever see the lottery as an unfortunate event that winning it would bring serious repercussions such as execution and death. On the contrary, “The Lottery,” written by Shirley Jackson, uses irony to exemplify how people can illogically follow senseless traditions and ultimately demonstrates how society can blindly persecute innocent individuals.…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her story “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson, utilizes symbolism to underline the importance of questioning tradition. Her story, “The Lottery,” begins in a small intimate village of about 300 people. In this little village, tradition is important because it must be practiced in order to help get better crops throughout the year. The way these crops are produce is by one person getting sacrificed via stoning once every year, and that is led by Mr. Summers. Though this tradition is practiced yearly, not everyone in this village is content about the sacrificial aspect of this tradition, creating conflict in the story when Mrs. Tessie Hutchinson, the one being sacrificed, chooses to rebel against this established institution tradition. Though she…

    • 168 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the major themes of Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” is the barbarity of human nature. The story depicts a seemingly average American town, where the people willingly participate in an annual tradition of killing one of their own. The person is chosen randomly by a lottery, which gives the people enough humanity to continue on with the ritual.…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Lottery” the narrator describes the setting as a beautiful, warm summer day where the town’s people are gathering for what seems to be a typical social event. The reader anticipates a positive outcome as the narrator describes the day and the characters dispositions. However as the story reaches its climax, the reader realizes that the outcome is not positive at all. The winner of the lottery is to be stoned to death. The author’s intention of this story shows how people become blind to the outcomes of their traditions because of their obsession with traditions. In Richard Connell’s, “The Most Dangerous Game” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” the characters are portrayed as normal human beings with normal behaviors, but as both stories unfold, the characters are shown to be evil with an enjoyment for murder. In “The Most Dangerous Game” humans are hunted, as mere animals, to serve as the perfect prey to satisfy a desire for challenge. In “The Lottery” the townspeople are forced to participate in a ritual that will result in the death of an unwilling participant to satisfy a belief that the sacrifice of one of their own will guarantee a bountiful harvest. By comparison, the elements of violence and cruelty demonstrate the self-centeredness that abounds in each…

    • 567 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short story by Shirley Jackson “The Lottery” serves as a mirror to see our own society and rituals at an extreme. Throughout the story the author normalizes the characters’ inhumane ritual so the reader would be able to understand the underlining meaning of the story. In our society there are rituals that we do not dare to question because they have been embedded into our lives. The character Old Man Warner justifies such rituals by saying, on page 142, “There’s always been a lottery.” he himself not entirely understanding why it is done. Shirley Jackson wants the reader to understand how oblivious society is to itself, and shows how it would be if it were to be looked upon in an outer perspective.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    (Introduction) “The Lottery,” a short story by Shirley Jackson, is about a woman who has been selected for sacrifice by a lottery drawing. Tessie Hutchinson, and the rest of her town, are unfeeling about how the annual sacrifice affects the selected. However, they carry on with their tradition year after year, with no intent to make changes to meet modern day morals and needs. “The Lottery” is about blindly following tradition, the awareness of how cruel a practice sacrificing is, and how one’s mindset can change when they are the chosen one.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” it is evident that conforming to society and sticking with tradition can lead to outweighing personal morals./be a burden on the lives of people. Although The Lottery was a tradition that has been occurring for years, nobody sticks up to support their morals to challenge The Lottery. Not only does The Lottery limit the rights of many, but many other expectations in their society do too.…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “ The Lottery”, written by Shirley Jackson, shows the corruption in a village whose people treat life with insignificance. Through the use of literary devices, Jackson portrays how practices in traditions can be barbaric;ultimately, resulting in persecution.…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Some people read stories and see them all completely different with all completely different meanings. In a way that is correct, they are all different, however; though this analysis it will be shown that“The Lottery” and “Young Goodman Brown” are very similar through different literary elements of fiction. In “The Lottery” and “Young Goodman Brown,” authors Shirley Jackson and Nathaniel Hawthorne employ point of view, setting and conflict to show similarities between these two very different stories.…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In “The Lottery”, a short story by Shirley Jackson, the story exposes the cruelty of humans nature; thus, the injustice of society . In the short story, it says “‘It isn't fair, it isn't right,’ Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.” This shows that they knew that it was wrong, yet they did it anyway. The lottery ritual was very ancient in their village, so they did not want to change. Their complacency during the stoning of their friend reveals the darkness in the village; nevertheless, the darkness in human society.…

    • 95 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The short stories, “The Lottery” and “Charles”, have notable differences in writing styles. “The Lottery”, is a story about chance. Will you be lucky enough to live for the day? “Charles” is about Laurie, who is starting Kindergarten and wants attention from his parents. In both short stories, the author, Shirley Jackson, described the characters, the themes, and the situations to create an illustration for the reader.…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story, The Lottery by shirley Jackson, blind tration and resistance to change are explored through the story. Presented to anyone who might find themselves in the similar situation that the main character of The Lottery, Tessie Hutchinson found herself in. The invisible pressure that is enforced by society to act a certain way, and follow certain traditions is one of the main themes of this story. More importantly though, this story also encourages individuals who feel oppressed by society in one way or another to speak up and defend what they truly believe in, even though the price of that might mean their lives. In addition, author utilizes literary elements such as irony, symbolism and allegory.…

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Lottery

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages

    stoning of an unlucky woman. At first glance, I believe this strongly clashes with our contemporary values. A much deeper evaluation of the portrayal of swinging mindsets and how humans have the capacity to coincide with a mob mentality. As civilized and noble human beings, it's important to dissect and criticize the traditional values in the society described in the story "The Lottery" and others like it because we as a society play it out in reality. Judging the values that were portrayed in "The Lottery", its important to look back on our own history in the United States to compare and learn what we did wrong from our past mistakes. It would be wrong not to criticize these traditions because without being critical, we as humans may not progress past that point, allowing pillages to still take place.…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays