Sacrifice: Research Paper

Sacrifice has played a crucial role since the dawn of time. Every culture, society, and denomination has used some aspect of sacrifice in the way they either live their daily lives or who and or what they praise. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary definition of sacrifice is an act of offering to a deity something precious; especially: the killing of a victim on an altar. It’s been written in textbooks and historical novels for centuries that different cultures specifically had blood offerings, whether it is to the sun which they worshiped, or to the “god” they believed in. Even in the Bible it states that God sacrificed his only Son. In present day society, Americans especially sacrifice on a daily basis, just maybe not to the extremes of previous humans. With the rise of the red scare around the world, the ideas of socialism and communism deep-rooted themselves into the minds of many great American literature authors. With an over-lying theme of sacrifice, and an influence from socialism, communism, and puritan New England, evolved stories such as The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and The Crucible by Arthur Miller. These three great American classics deal, either directly or indirectly, with the theme and influences listed previously. When looked at on a broader spectrum, each piece seems to hold an entirely different concept than any of the others, but when broken down and searched deeper, it is clear to any logical reader that these three pieces and three authors used their knowledge and skill of language and writing. In such ways that they expressed both their views and their reality’s upon their current and future audience; their works stay alive after years of publication and they allow the mind of the reader to wander and ponder on their message of truth and imagination. Shirley Jackson's 1948 The Lottery, a very conflicting and controversial piece for its time, portrays the story of an unknown town set in New England