A Tale Of Two Cities

Katherine Watson
WR 121
Final Draft
A Tale of Two Cities
Depending on the situation, your lifestyle, and the choices that you make persuades what direction your life will go.   Many times it can also be influenced by where you live and what the religions, rituals and beliefs are of that area.   In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” it is about a small city where it is a ritual to participate in a lottery drawing on June 27th every year.   Everyone in the town has to draw a slip and the one person that gets the black dot gets stoned by the townspeople.   In the story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin the happiness of city is dependent only on the abuse and neglect of a child.   Both short stories have a very deep meaning, yet in Le Guin’s story the meaning is hidden behind all the descriptive and colorful language.   However in Jackson’s story everything is laid out in a step by step narrative.   The characters both the children and the adults play a major role in both stories and the society seems to believe they can sacrifice one person for the happiness or joy of many.  
There was someone tortured or killed in both stories, one was forced and one was willing to sacrifice herself for her town.   The child in Le Guin’s piece was tortured at the young age of almost 10. The story describes the child as: “It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day.” (Le Guin 258-59).   How could the people in the city just stand by and let this poor child suffer?   Yet in Jackson’s piece as Mrs. Hutchinson was about to be stoned she was screaming “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right.” (Jackson 324).   To me this shows her in kind of a selfish way, she was fine with this ritual until she was the chosen one, she also knew she had to for the town but she was very unhappy about it.   The child in The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas was forced into being tortured, he had no choice in the matter.   It...