The parable is widely used in literature. Centuries ago, it was used only as a religious didactic story, but today the writers want to give a lesson for people hiding it under the cover of a nice story. Reading The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The One Who Walks Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin, I was expecting the sweet and kind stories; the ending of both was an unpleasant surprise to me. The authors clearly used parables as a way to illustrate how spoilt our society is. In The Lottery the author definitely used the irony; beginning to read we expect a winner and happiness from the luck, but what we get is a wild and crazy annual event that I cant even comprehend. The aim of it is to pick the pieces of paper from a black box and so-called winner (who is definitely not a lucky one) is killed with stones by all the members of the community to provide a good harvest next year. A warm sunny day of 27th of July, playing children and happy people create a contrast to a tension that flies in the air and desire to end the lottery as soon as possible. The lottery itself is the tradition that takes
place every year and all the 300 citizens of the city know the rules. One man even tells that it is his 77th lottery. The lottery itself is a symbol of traditions that exist in our society, passed down from time immemorial. We celebrate hundreds of holidays annually, some people dont even know about the origin and meaning of them, following them because everyone does. The community of the village is afraid of giving up the lottery, even though northern villages already did it. The reader does not know if the sacrifice and bloodshed were justified (no murder can be justified). What if not? People dont know whether it helps or not. They have always blindly believed without even trying to live at least one year without it; the northern villages are some kind of coward apostolate. What was meant by the lottery? Is it the traditions or religion? Was it an intention to show that peoples faith is not as pure as it may seem? The black box from which people draw their pieces of paper is very old and shabby, but the community is against refreshing it, its like some kind of relic that shouldnt be touched.