Similarities of Characters: Ervin D. Krause's The
Snake and Shirley Jackson's The Lottery
An Essay Explaining the Similarities of Characters in the Stories “The Snake” by Ervin D. Krause and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
The population of the world is more than seven billion and it is still increasing. Babies are born and people die, and that is a part of nature. Many kids start their life into families that come from different backgrounds and have different beliefs, and that is called tradition. Tradition is a powerful motivator because it can alter the human being 's instinct before doing an action, which therefore leads to evil actions and innocence that is lost. In the stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Snake” by Ervin D. Krause, by following their societal traditions, both characters ' Bobby Martin and the nephew act with instinctual evil and lose their innocence.
When kids are born, their future lies in their parent 's hands. Bobby Martin from “The Lottery” is a child that is experiences the lottery every year. He goes through the same event of exterminating the life of the winner with other town members which includes people of his age. In the story the author says, "The Children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles." (Jackson 6). Since Davy Hutchinson 's mother is the ‘winner’, he is still obliged to throw stones at her. This quotation shows how all kids in that town still follow this tradition without even acknowledging that they are doing something evil. Davy and the rest of the Hutchinson family give up their loyalty for their mother and sees that when she is getting approached by him and sees his darkness take over him. The act of throwing stones has a strong religious association with community punishment of abomination and it is used for expelling an outsider to reinforce group beliefs. The parents from that town all follow this tradition blindly, without acknowledging the evil that they are forcing down on their children which would continue generation after generation. In “The
The population of the world is more than seven billion and it is still increasing. Babies are born and people die, and that is a part of nature. Many kids start their life into families that come from different backgrounds and have different beliefs, and that is called tradition. Tradition is a powerful motivator because it can alter the human being 's instinct before doing an action, which therefore leads to evil actions and innocence that is lost. In the stories “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Snake” by Ervin D. Krause, by following their societal traditions, both characters ' Bobby Martin and the nephew act with instinctual evil and lose their innocence.
When kids are born, their future lies in their parent 's hands. Bobby Martin from “The Lottery” is a child that is experiences the lottery every year. He goes through the same event of exterminating the life of the winner with other town members which includes people of his age. In the story the author says, "The Children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles." (Jackson 6). Since Davy Hutchinson 's mother is the ‘winner’, he is still obliged to throw stones at her. This quotation shows how all kids in that town still follow this tradition without even acknowledging that they are doing something evil. Davy and the rest of the Hutchinson family give up their loyalty for their mother and sees that when she is getting approached by him and sees his darkness take over him. The act of throwing stones has a strong religious association with community punishment of abomination and it is used for expelling an outsider to reinforce group beliefs. The parents from that town all follow this tradition blindly, without acknowledging the evil that they are forcing down on their children which would continue generation after generation. In “The
Cited: D. Krause, Krause. “The Snake” Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery”