Civility in the Hunger Games, the Lady or the Tiger, and the Lottery
“As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me” -George Orwell. Being civilized has always been, in my opinion, an extremely important trait of any society or civilization. Not only that, but I feel we humans create what civilized means and it is defined totally by what we truly think is right or wrong. In the stories The Hunger Games, The Lottery, and The Lady or the Tiger I feel The Lottery is most civilized because they’ve been doing their lottery for a long time, they truly think it’s a reasonable thing to do and everyone has a fair chance.
In the small town The Lottery is set in, they have been doing the lottery since the beginning of the creation of their society. Traditions and customs past down from generation to generation have to be civilized or at least thought to be civilized or else they would be thrown out. For example, on page two of the story while talking about Mr. Summers wanting to remake the box used for the lottery it says, “…the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here” so obviously if it’s something that’s always been around it would seem to be civilized to them even if not to someone on the outside, simply because they don’t know any better. After all, ignorance is bliss. We also see this theme in The Hunger Games however in a completely opposite way, the activities that go on in this story haven’t been around for long it says so on page nineteen when the mayor talks about why they have the Hunger Games; “Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.”
The story of The Lottery is also more civilized because everyone in it thinks having the
In the small town The Lottery is set in, they have been doing the lottery since the beginning of the creation of their society. Traditions and customs past down from generation to generation have to be civilized or at least thought to be civilized or else they would be thrown out. For example, on page two of the story while talking about Mr. Summers wanting to remake the box used for the lottery it says, “…the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here” so obviously if it’s something that’s always been around it would seem to be civilized to them even if not to someone on the outside, simply because they don’t know any better. After all, ignorance is bliss. We also see this theme in The Hunger Games however in a completely opposite way, the activities that go on in this story haven’t been around for long it says so on page nineteen when the mayor talks about why they have the Hunger Games; “Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.”
The story of The Lottery is also more civilized because everyone in it thinks having the