Essay IIIn the stories “A Moment before The Gun WentOff” and “The Lottery,” there is the situation inwhich a group of people cling to traditions veryblindly.
In both stories the traditions are so duginto the people’s way of life that questioning themis considered sacrilege within these communities. Furthermore, the members of the community no longereven remember why the traditions were set up in thefist place. They follow the traditions simplybecause their predecessors followed the traditions. Another similarity between the communities in bothstories is, even though these traditions are firmlyentrenched in these communities, they are rapidlylosing there grip in other communities. This detailis not only mentioned in both stories, but lookeddown upon by communities that still follow thetraditions. In the story “The Lottery,” the tradition is tohold a lottery on a specific summer day, butinstead of winning a cash prize or some other goodthing, the winner gets to be stoned to death by themembers of the community.
The character that ismentioned most in this story is one by the name ofMrs. Hutchinson. Mrs. Hutchinson is a devotedmother and housewife.
She is the one who eventuallygets singled out to win the lottery. So it is Mrs. Hutchinson who is impacted the most brutally by thelottery. However the other people of the villageare affected differently by the lottery. It is veryunlikely that the people of the village kill peoplefor the sake of killing people.
More likely thereis a deeper reason. One possibility is that thepeople of this village of this village are lookingfor a scapegoat. A person to take the blame formistakes and sins of others, so one person dies fora community and saves the community from whateversins that had been committed. The society can be affected in many ways by thelottery. Other neighbor societies have beenaffected by the lottery, many have abandoned thetradition of the lottery.
Even in the communitywhere the story takes place many of the ritualsthat go along with the lottery are fading into thepast to be forgotten forever. An example of thiswould be the chant that originally went with thelottery. Depending on how well the villagescommunicate with one another determines the fate ofthe lottery. If the people responsible forabolishing the lottery in other towns spread theirpreaching, there is a chance the tradition of thelottery could be destroyed.
Another factor thatdictates the future of the lottery is thepopulation of the village, if the village growslarge there are more people with all kinds of newideas, a few of which could be to get rid of thelottery. Eventually the societies that are home tothe lottery will deal with their sins and end thetradition of the lottery. The story “A Moment before The gun Went Off” isone that takes place in Africa. In the story theWhite minority are the ones in charge.
In thisparticular society, blacks are the blue collardworkers while the whites take the higher positions. The main character of the story is Mr. Van derVyver. In the story Mr. Van der Vyver accidentallykills a young farm hand by the name of Lucas. Mr.
Van der Vyver is more than Lucas’s employer he ishis father, so Mr. Van der Vyver feels truly sorryfor killing Lucas. Mr. Van der Vyver does notgrieve with his wife for the death of their sonbecause he is not married to the Lucas’s mother.
The tradition in this story is that interracialmarriages do not occur. While this tradition is notas brutal as the one from “the Lottery” it is justas sad. I believe that the society from “A MomentBefore The Gun Went Off” will suffer the same fateas that of the one from “The Lottery. ” Traditionwill give way to change, blacks will hold highsocial positions, whites will marry blacks. One wayor another this will be the eventual fate of thecommunity no matter how hard the whites try toseparate the black from the whites.
In both these stories there is a some sort oftradition that grips the communities very tightly. These traditions may have been vital for thesurvival of the communities in the past, however astime passes the need for these traditions becomesnonexistent. As the communities grow and becomecloser to others the process of abandoning thetraditions speeds up. this is because there is morecommunication between the people of different sex,religion and color.Category: English
