The Lottery, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Both of these stories were pretty shocking. I remember reading The Lottery in an english class and high school, but I was still equally interested reading it for the second time because the ending is so unexpected. This story has always kind of reminded me of The Hunger Games, which I think has a very similar premise to both of these stories.

I think both stories were good illustrations of groupthink. It was clear that people in both of these towns understood that what they were doing was wrong. In fact there are people in both stories that either try to suggest that there are other better ways to live that do not require such brutality, or that simply cannot take learning of what is going on in the town and leave. These ideas, however, are called crazy and shut down. The idea of not having a lottery each year seemed foolish to some members of the town. These people shutting down the idea of cancelling the lottery are acting as mind guards and keeping out new ideas. It seems easier for these people to live with their current situation than to actually do something about it. Also, nobody wants to be the first person to seriously propose a change.

Both of these stories were kind of illustrating that there is no such thing as a perfect society. Even the happiest of societies have some flaw that is allowing them to be that way. The stories suggested that not everyone can be happy. Some person is always going to end up unhappy, but one person being unhappy is worth it if it makes the rest of society happy. Having this one example of an unhappy person seems to be a way of maintain control over society. It shows people how they could end up if they don’t conform to the societal norms that allow people to operate the way they do. The stories, however, also suggest to me that having on person imprisoned, or otherwise harmed, leaves everyone else imprisoned to a certain extent because they know they must conform and they know that everything is not perfect.