Compare and Contrast Essay: The Lottery and The Possibility of Evil

From being stoned to death to having your roses ruined, retribution is scarcely fair. And while these fates may sound worlds apart, these two stories written by Shirley Jackson share many traits with each other.

In this essay, I will be comparing and contrasting the lottery  and  the possibility of evil. My first main point is the evil in both stories, which is the lifeblood of these stories. While both protagonists face a bad fate, one is considerably worse than the other. In the lottery, a lottery takes place, but the winner, rather than receiving a large cash prize, gets stoned to death by their townsfolk. For simply being born in a situation where the lottery takes and drawing the wrong note, she is killed by her town . On the other hand, in the possibility of evil, someone who willingly sends notes spreading paranoia in the guise of better awareness of evil, only has her roses ruined. And this, while not first apparent, may actually be justified from a different point of view. While it may seem like the protagonist of the lottery is innocent, she does allow the cycle of the lottery to perpetuate by not speaking or acting against it, and though because we are not told her thoughts, the only hint we are given to her disagreeing with the notion of the lottery is that she forgets about the lottery, which could potentially be interpreted as her not wanting to remember it, but that is a far stretch. Since the town seems to be perfectly fine with it when they are not in the hot seat, we could also assume she was as well. And since she is rather mature in age, it can be assumed that she has participated in the lottery as well, making her implicit in the system. This is made the most clear in her final words, “it isn't fair it isn't right”- Shirley Jackson, rather than remarking how it wasn't right that the lottery existed, she said it wasn't fair and right the time she was given to draw the card. At the same time, when you are young your system of morals is based on what's around you, so can she really be blamed for not speaking against a cycle she might not have even recognized as wrong, but an  entire book could be made on morals and what makes wright and what makes wrong, so i'll end the topic here. While there is a lurking evil that permeates within both stories, it could not be shown best without the next topic.

The second comparison is the disguise of self and objects. This is basically symbolism, but the people needed an in. The first symbol is the rose, to say the rose has a lot of symbolism would be an understatement, and while all things represented in the rose are insurmountable, this essay can cover some of the ones that apply. Roses in literature can represent courage, which would explain why they are ruined, as ms. Strangeworth was hiding behind anonymous letters. They can also represent purity and joy, which just like courage, is something ms. Strangeworth. believes she is, but is corrected by the town and the people she hurt. There is also symbolism in the stones from the lottery, stones often represent the divine or eternal, which follows the cult theme the story follows. The last thing hidden in both stories is true nature, from the protagonist of the possibility of evil to the town in the lottery, one’s nature is hidden throughout the story and only revealed later. In the lottery, the town is the one hiding their true nature, they do this by pretending to be kind folks to one another, but in reality all they yearn for is the violence, the reason of having a better harvest might have been forgotten with the original box Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.. In the possibility of evil, the protagonist is the one hiding their true nature. In a similar fashion to the town, they pretend to be kind to those around them, but in their mind, they believe themselves to be better than those around them. Unlike the lottery, however, it doesn't end in a very violent response, this can be attributed to the fact that  it’s coupled with chronic disillusionment. This has the end result of making her believe she is looking out for her town more so than materializing as a god complex. This leads me to the final comparison between the lottery and the possibility of evil. The final comparison that will be made is the characters. In the lottery, the protagonist is named Tessie Hutchinson, Tessie Hutchinson is characterized as a forgetful housewife, a reminder of the time the story was made, she arrives at the lottery flustered and out of breath, this presents her differently from the rest of the crowd by giving her an excess of personality in comparison to the townspeople. ms.Strangeworth from the possibility of evil is mostly the opposite, with a very limited personality. A similarity between them is that their personality contrasts with their environment, just that Tessie contrasts in an expressive manner, while Strangeworth contrasts by having none. 

In this essay I have compared three key points from both the lottery and the possibility of evil. I have compared the evil in both stories, the pieces hidden through symbolism and the like, and the main characters of each story. With all this in mind, there are many similarities and differences between the two stories. While at first it may seem like these two stories are a world apart, if you look a little deeper, you’ll find they share more than you may think.

Works cited

Beers, G. Kylene, et al. “‘The Possibility of Evil.’” Holt Elements of Literature, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Orlando, 2008, pp. 365–376. 

Jackson, Shirley. THE LOTTERY. 26 June 1948.

Leguin, Ursula. The Wife’s Story.