Traditions VS Happiness In the two short stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin, the reader explores similar but different themes. The two authors create two dissimilar short stories based on the same idea, the idea of arrogant people and the traditions that they live in. Jackson and Le Guin show how people are selfish, and they care only for themselves, but they also demonstrate how traditions are affecting people’s lives. Through out these two short stories, the plots determine how the world can abuse innocent people for unnecessary reasons and the fact where traditions can hurt physically or emotionally others. More specifically, the first story presents a small village where …show more content…
For instance, the danger of the people who follow the traditions blindly is one of the common topics that both short stories explore. In “The Lottery”, people kill Tessie Hutchinson because she is the unlucky citizen. The residents of that town throw stones at her until she actually dies. No one tries to stop all these people from killing her, not even her own family. The only person who speaks up at last minute is Tessie. When she feels the fear of death, she speaks up and says, “It isn't fair” (Jackson). Everyone knows that it is not fair, but no one tries to stop this custom because they haven’t felt the danger yet. It is just another day for them, and this is the reason why they do not understand the real problem. People live the utopian life, full of happiness and joy. Even if they know about the child who suffers, they don’t try to help. They recognize that if something changes, they are not going to have the same utopian life as they have now. That’s why, individuals prefer not to talk about it, and just continue their lives in Omela or in a different place, far from Omela, “They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back” (Le Quin 4). From the time when citizens meet the young kid, their feelings are multiple. Some people stay in Omala, trying to forget about the suffering child, and others leave, without saying anything to