Fiction Essay Thesis and Outline
ENGL 102-B06 LUO
201340 Fall 2013
Kevin Prohaska ID# 25391876
Writing style used: MLA

Kevin Prohaska
Dr. Suzanne Penner
201340 Fall 2013 ENGL 102-B06 LUO
20 August 2013

Comparison of the Lottery and the Destructors: Settings

* Compare the settings of each story to each other. * Could the settings have been changed and the punch of the story still be there? * The symbolism of the settings * How does the settings affect the story?

The significance of setting is it sets the mental time or place in a story. Setting plays an important role in the success of stories. The settings in of each of these stories could not be more different. The exploration of each of these scenarios is worth exploring in likeness to each other. What if the settings were changed? Could the same dynamic be achieved if the settings were different? What if any type of symbolism is deeply rooted in the setting? Is it made to make us think or feel a certain way or is it just there for the stories’ sake? What is achieved by the settings? How do we feel? Does it lead to the shocking end or sad comment at the prologue of the story?

The Lottery
The setting set forth by Shirley Jackson in the beginning of The Lottery creates a mood of peacefulness and tranquility. This setting also creates an image in the mind of the reader, the image of a typical town on a normal summer day. Furthermore, Shirley Jackson uses the setting in The Lottery to foretell an ironic ending.
The Lottery begins with setting right from the get go: the time of day, the place, and time of year in which this is happening. It is a cute, happy little town, perhaps a Mayberry type of town lacking only Sherriff Andy Taylor and Barney Fife. It is morning and early summer because school is just over. Green grass and blooming flowers give us a quiet, peaceful town in rural America with an event about to happen in the town square between the post office and the bank. The lottery.
Men are chatting about crops and planting, women are gossiping. This gives the reader an almost boring read and the feeling of being in a Norman Rockwell painting. All accept the gathering of stones by the children, which seems inconsequential until the end of the story. There is no celebration of holidays! Then the mentioning of a black box enters the reading and we start to get the feeling that something is not quite right here. The tone and setting change in one felled swoop. The ending of the story with the whole town committing murder by stoning is a complete and utter horror movie compared with the milk and honey beginning.

The Destructors
This story is set in post-World War II London. The setting is imperative to the tone and mental picture we need to continue the story. One can imagine the pictures we saw on television of the war-torn London after the bombing blitzes of the Nazis and the destruction of the V-2 rockets. Buildings have been blown up, people are walking around aimlessly, and there were many fires. This setting is all that is needed to give one a mental picture of where and when this story takes place.
Just as Jackson painstakingly goes to lengths to describe the peaceful normal town that is in the Lottery, Green does just the opposite. No surprising turns in this setting. It is ugly from the beginning, war-torn and ravaged, much like the gang who is featured in this story. The characters in our story of The Destructors are greatly influenced by their settings. They need to start anew by tearing down the old and getting rid of the memories of the war. The city needs rebuilding and so do the people in it. There seems to be a sense of despair as the destroy money that was hidden in mattress. A cathartic action must take place. In The Lottery, they are oblivious to the peaceful, quaint little town they live in and plan and have planned each year the systematic murder by stoning of an innocent townsfolk. . The Lottery’s conclusion catches us by surprise, a complete reversal on how the story begins. It show us everything is not always as it seems and the traditions of old should be questioned in the present.
One cannot imagine the scene being set any differently in either story. Perhaps another war-torn country: Japan, Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan come to mind as a setting for The Destructors. Would this play well in those languages and with their customs? One would think so. The tearing down of the old to start the new is as old as time, whether it be metaphorical or physical or a combination of both. It fits here perfectly. So does the opinion that the house is destroyed to rubble because that is what the gang believes their future to be. Even the burning of the money gives a sense of utter disappear and lack of hope. Tear down the bad, build anew.
In closing, The Lottery and The Destructors rely on setting to make the story. The plot, ending and entire purpose of the story would be difficult at best, even confusing and with little wow factor had we not known about the peaceful beauty of this little town or the war and destruction of a city.
Jackson and Green do an incredible job of putting us in the story. They create shock and awe as one of the characters is suddenly stoned to death or as a man watches his house being torn down and is not able to offer a defense.

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