about clinging to traditions in "A Moment before The Gun Went off" and "The Lottery,"

In the stories 'A Moment before The Gun Went

Off' and 'The Lottery,' there is the situation in

which a group of people cling to traditions very

blindly. In both stories the traditions are so dug

into the people's way of life that questioning them

is considered sacrilege within these communities.

Furthermore, the members of the community no longer

even remember why the traditions were set up in the

fist place. They follow the traditions simply

because their predecessors followed the traditions.

Another similarity between the communities in both

stories is, even though these traditions are firmly

entrenched in these communities, they are rapidly

losing there grip in other communities. This detail

is not only mentioned in both stories, but looked

down upon by communities that still follow the

traditions.

In the story 'The Lottery,' the tradition is to

hold a lottery on a specific summer day, but

instead of winning a cash prize or some other good

thing, the winner gets to be stoned to death by the

members of the community.

Lottery Winners Barbara and Michael Ayres

Lottery_Rena

I took this photograph of a lottery document I own

The character that is

mentioned most in this story is one by the name of

Mrs. Hutchinson. Mrs. Hutchinson is a devoted

mother and housewife. She is the one who eventually

gets singled out to win the lottery. So it is Mrs.

Hutchinson who is impacted the most brutally by the

lottery. However the other people of the village

are affected differently by the lottery. It is very

unlikely that the people of the village kill people

for the sake of killing people. More likely there

is a deeper reason. One possibility is that the

people of this village of this village are looking

for a scapegoat. A person to take the blame for

mistakes and sins of others, so one person...