Goodman Brown/Lottery Literature is frequently employed as a device for social and political commentary. This is certainly true in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," and Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." Both these stories darkly satirize the rigid social conventions that define small town American life. Even though they wrote about a century apart, Hawthorne and Jackson drew similar conclusions about American religious life and culture. Throughout his career, Nathaniel Hawthorne remained concerned about the hypocritical nature of puritanism. Stories like "Young Goodman Brown" darkly satirize religious fundamentalism and mob mentality. "Young Goodman Brown" is about a man who believes he might have dreamed of a strange pagan ritual set deep in the woods. Even his wife, ironically named Faith, attends the ritual. Faith's presumed faith in Christianity is proven false by her attending a Satanic rite in the woods. Watching the ritual shocks Goodman Brown literally to death. In "The Lottery," a similar situation of hypocrisy and mob mentality is revealed. Tessie Hutchinson sees that there are flaws in the system by which the loser of the lottery is chosen. When she tries to draw attention to the situation, no one will listen. Shirley Jackson also wrote "The Lottery" nearly a century after Hawthorne, which shows readers how little has changed in America. Jackson, like Hawthorne, uses a sort of morbid humor to satirize religion and small town American life. Both Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" elucidate...
For example, in Jackson's "The Lottery," the people of the town venerate a three-legged stool and a little black box, both of which have potentially pagan connotations. A three-legged stool essentially represents a cauldron with three feet. Jackson even uses the term "ritual" to directly describe the strange and deadly tradition of the annual town lottery. In "Young Goodman Brown," even more overt pagan symbolism is used to convey Hawthorne's central theme of the hypocrisy of monotheistic religions like Christianity. The fire set deep in the woods signifies a pagan ritual. There is also imagery of people flying on sticks, like the proverbial witches of lore. Serpent imagery also connotes all that is un-Christian and Santanic. The ritual in "Young Goodman Brown" is a religious gathering like one at church; only Hawthorne turns it upside down and places it at night in the forest.
Thematic Development in "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Most Dangerous Game" While Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" and Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game" both feature the same basic theme of good vs. evil, the additional themes that the author utilize in telling their stories serves to differentiate them in a significant way, so that Hawthorne's story suggests that evil can corrupt even a successful protagonist while Connell suggests that his protagonist
Lottery" by Shirley Jackson and "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne" Nathaniel Hawthorne and Shirley Jackson like using symbols in expressing their thoughts in stories. "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Lottery" utilize symbols to emphasize themes in each of the stories. While Hawthorne makes use of objects and names to strengthen the theme, Jackson predominantly makes use of names to consolidate her theme; she does not limit to using a
" Ellison's "Battle Royal" would not have taken place in New York City or any other cosmopolitan place. A small town element is necessary to convey the idea that small towns breed small mindedness. Similarly, Jackson, Mississippi is an apt setting for Faulker to describe the townspeople's impressions of Emily. Characterization is similar among these four stories. A sense of loneliness and isolation pervades "The Lottery," as well as "A Rose
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and DH Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner," the desire of human beings to gain control over their existence with the use of rituals and 'magic' is in evidence. Use of ritual and superstition in "The Lottery and "The Rocking Horse Winner" In one story, magic is real, in the other it is not II. "The Lottery" Plot of sacrifice Sacrifice highly ritualized Not performing the magic is seen as barbaric, ironically "The
setting of a story can reveal important things about the narrative's larger meaning, because the setting implies certain things about the characters, context, and themes that would otherwise remain implicit or undiscussed. In their short stories "The Lottery" and "The Rocking-Horse Winner," Shirley Jackson and DH Lawrence use particular settings in order to comment on the political and socio-economic status of their characters without inserting any explicitly political or
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