Summary:
Compares the short stories, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and the short video, The Wave. Considers the common theme of blind obedience in each work.
Shirley Jackson's short story, " The Lottery," is about a small rural village that conducts an annual drawing to determine who will be sacrificed to ensure plentiful crops. The video " The wave," is about a teacher who experiments to see how easily the students catch on to blind obedience. Both stories share one important theme; They warn against blind obedience to authority.
The characters in "The wave," are Lori, who is the main character, and also the scapegoat in this story. There is David which is Lori's boyfriend. And Mr. Ross who is the teacher and conducts all of the activities they do. Mr. Ross puts the students through indoctrinization ( brainwashing) to see how easily they catch on to blind obedience. He taught them posture, timing, and discipline. He also taught them a salute that said "Strength through discipline, Strength through community, Strength through action!" The students just think it's an activity, they don't know that Mr. Ross is brainwashing them.
The Characters in "The Lottery," Tessie Hutchingson which is one of the main characters, and is the scapegoat to. Other characters are Bill, Old Man Warner, the kids and Mr. Summer. When the names were being drawn from the box, Tessie was the one who got the card with the black dot on it, which means she was going to be killed. "You didn't give time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!" (8). Even though Tessie cried out it wasn't fare, it was to them all the village cared about was there crops. They said kill Tessie despite her cries.
Tessie's motives were to kill someone else, she was scared to die and didn't want to, that's the way everyone else felt to, but Tessie would of felt better if it was someone else that was chosen instead of her. Tessie was also scared to stand up for the lottery because she had no one by her side to help her out, so the outcome was she ended up being killed because she didn't stand up for her rights. It warns against blind obedience because everyone cared about getting there crops then other people lives, including theirs.
Lori's motives were to end the wave. At first she goes with it and then she can't take it anymore so she ends up standing up to try to stop it. By then everyone has been brainwashed and didn't care about anyone else's opinion. She try's to talk to her boyfriend about it, and he gets out of control and ends up hurting her, he then realizes that Lori had been telling the truth and is now against the wave. So Lori and her boyfriend go talk to Mr. Ross about it and tell him the wave is getting out of control. The outcome was Lori was successful and Mr. Ross told everyone about it and told them how easily they caught on to blind obedience.
The reason why Lori succeeded in stopping The Wave because she stood up and said The Wave was getting out of control. She also had talked to her mom about it and she told her to stand up and say something, and her boyfriend was with her in the end, so that helped Lori be successful. Tessie wasn't successful for a few reasons, one reason was she didn't stand up and say anything and another reason was she had no one by her side to help her or to encourage her to do it. Tessie has been indoctrinated since birth, but has realized it is wrong. Old Man Warner and the kids are indoctrinated and still continue to gather stones. Tessie still does not think that The Lottery is wrong ( therefore she is trapped .) Lori thinks and does think,
(Therefore she can act.) It warns against blind obedience because Tessie is still blindly obeying by not saying anything.
In conclusion, "The Lottery," And "The Wave," warn us against blind obedience. In "The Lottery," Tessie is so entrenched, that she sees no way out. In "The Wave," Lori bugs into indoctrinization but she can think for herself and stand up for what she believes in and change what is happening. This says that society is so selfish they are to blind to see what is going on in front of them. And people who do see what is going on should act out, take a stand and start changing things. And if you don't the consequences could end up being really bad, it could lead to losing your friendship with someone because of a disagreement or it can even lead to death.
This is the complete article, containing 771 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
