The two stories, ‘Rocking-Horse Winner’ and ‘The Lottery’ both uses themes, symbols, and the underlying moral lanes to illustrate how greediness is depicted in today’s families effectively. Nevertheless, the setting of the two short stories and their main themes seem to be unequivocally different as portrayed in the stories.
Similarities
The Rocking Horse Winner’ by D.H. Lawrence and ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson both use the symbols to enable the reader to know and fully understand the theme of both short stories. For instance, The Lottery’s author, Jackson, uses a black box purposely to symbolize the village dwellers in association with the lottery tradition (Jackson, 2012). In each year the table had to grow shabbier though the villagers had shown no interest in fixing or doing the replacement. For some reasons, the lottery was alleged each summer with no arising inquiries from the villagers despite the early traditions of the lottery that was abandoned. Also, many of the most customs were abandoned purposely to meet up with the developing city that made the villagers unenthusiastic to change thus giving rise to the lottery. (Jackson, 2012) Typically, the black box did not affect for the next year in that town.
Both the short stories contain underlying morals in their plot lines to aid the reader in understanding and analyzing the stories more keenly. For instance, Tessie who seems to be the main character in The Lottery becomes unlucky and stoned to death after drawing the marked papers. She was the only person who was against the lottery, and therefore she claimed it to be unfair (Jackson, 2012).
The prosecution of Tessie sounds to be noble, and therefore they should have questioned her before since she also knew she was going to die. The moral for Tessie’s prosecution reflects directly on today’s society whereby if not careful, the murdering that takes place each time becomes normality to the people. Thus, it is not advisable to stay comfortable with the vicious murders and every human need to be treated specially. For “The Rocking-Horse Winner” conflict is imminent whereby Paul’s mother who was beautiful had no luck and decided to be married for love and later turned to dust. She got children whom she felt they were thrust to her and now she couldn’t love them. (Lawrence, 2008). In connection with this, Paul gives her money in exchange for love which is a symbol of being corrupt.
‘The Rocking-Horse Winner and The Lottery’ both stories seem to have occurred in the summertime of the early-mid 1900’s. The stories also revolve around two families, and they both share the theme of gambling. Besides, the author’s view of winning about gambling is completely different in the two stories.
Both the atmosphere within the setting of these short stories affected the characters in which it was among the cause of fear, stress, depression, and nervousness. The impact on characters in ‘The Lottery’ happened when they had to wait for Mr. Summer for the black box, and everybody was smiling though not laughing and each woman wore a faded clothe (Jackson, 2012). However in the Rocking- Horse Winner, not all symptoms were in all characters, but Paul’s mother was the most affected victim due to lack of money. (Lawrence, 2008). Paul’s siblings had fear which served as symptoms when the demand for more money was needed in the house.
Differences
The two stories discuss luck. However, the ‘luck’ discussed turns out to be rather ‘unlucky.’ (Jackson, 2012). Under The Lottery by Jackson, luck it’s not quite what it is. That is, initially the reader is let to trust and believe that winning is something that is significant and yet towards its conclusion, the grief of the winner becomes more pronounced. Precisely, Mrs. Hutchinson’s associates turn against her.
The two short stories are very different in setting, that is, one playoff was in the house the other is in the town square. It is difficult to determine the setting time for the Rocking-House Winner whereas easy to decide on the time for ‘The Lottery.’
Nevertheless, the themes in the short stories are not the same, and therefore the authors used different symbols to assist the reader to understand them. ‘The Lottery ‘discusses the lack of love and compassion shown by villagers, and ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’ talks about the love a boy had for his mother.
Conclusion
In some sense, the story is mainly about its literal at a narrative degree, that is, the family that prefers money over other stable valuables take it as its node of affection. The same case as The Lottery, the family in the Rocking Horse Winner, is consumed by the notion of ‘luck’ without knowing that their ‘unlucky’ is primarily as a result of the choice they make.
Reference
Evans, R. C., Little, A. C., " Wiedemann, B. (2012). Short fiction: a critical companion. Locust Hill Pr.
Jackson, S. (2012). The lottery. The New Yorker, 26, 25-28.
Lawrence, D. H. (2008). The rocking-horse winner. Lacan and Literature: Purloined Pretexts, 32.
