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Fiction

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I. Compare the murder of innocent people
A. The Lottery, Tessie dies for picking the marked paper.
1. Killed by a stoning of her peers
B. The Most Dangerous Game, Zaroff dies playing a game.
1. Zaroff was the hunter ended up dying as the hunted.
II. Contrast why they were murdered.
A. The Lottery, Tessie was murdered so town can reap a reward.
1. The instinct of survival makes people very violence.
B. The Most Dangerous Game, Zaroff died because he wanted to have fun.
1. Rainsford has turned into the same person as Zaroff.

“The Lottery," written by Shirley Jackson and “The Most Dangerous Game," written by Richard Connell, share a common theme of violence and cruelty. In “The Most Dangerous Game” humans are hunted, as if they were animals, to satisfy an unquenchable desire for a challenge. In “The Lottery” the people of a little town is forced to participate in a ritual that will unexpectedly take the life of an unwilling participant to comply with a story that if they sacrifice of one of their own, then the residents of that little town will be guaranteed a bountiful harvest. By comparison, these two stories show us just how selfish we as people can be. Both of these stories contain violence, and murder and show that humans are selfish. “The Lottery," takes place in a small town where the traditions of sacrificing a person for their fruitful harvests are kept. Tessie is a woman who selects the marked lottery paper, and she dies by being stoned at the end of the story. People usually think winning a lottery is fortunate, but this story is very different. In this story, the lottery signifies the customs of the community and how people do not want a change even though it could improve their lives. The people of this town are blinded by tradition, they are not questioning the tradition but at the same time no one wants to die either. It is funny that nobody tries to stop the tradition; they may feel powerless, or maybe they are scared but no one tries to stops it even though no one is making them participate in it. In “The Most Dangerous Game,” Rainsford, the hunter, arrives on the island to hunt jaguars. After he falls off the boat, he meets a man named Zaroff, who lives in the island and is a hunter also. The only difference is that Zaroff has a passion for hunting humans. The big game starts between these two characters. Both stories disclose the idea of human nature. For this reason, people in “The Lottery” choose one of their own as the victim for their own survival. This instinct of survival makes people very violence, and cruel. On the other hand, Zaroff cares more about his fun than the facts that he is taking away someone else’s life. At the same time, Rainsford kills Zaroff even though Zaroff tries to free him. Rainsford could just have given Zaroff a punishment for his crimes. I do not think that Rainsford was in his right mind at the time, the game had made him think irrationally. This demonstrates that Rainsford has turned into as much of a violent killer as Zaroff. In both stories, it shows that we as humans are always just a step away from insanity. In both stories, the day for Tessie and Rainsford started out pretty normal, and something happened to make someone or a group of people snap for their own survival. The town stoned Tessie for their own survival and Rainsford killed Zaroff, even though Zaroff was going to set him free, because Rainsford could not trust him after the game. I think that we need to take away from this how the human mind is something that we really do not understand, and we need to be careful what situations; we put ourselves in. (706)

SparkNotes Editors. (2007). SparkNote on The Most Dangerous Game. Retrieved October 17, 2012, from http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/the-most-dangerous-game
SparkNotes Editors. (2007). SparkNote on The Lottery. Retrieved November 8, 2012, from http://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/the-lottery/

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