Conformity Vs. Rebellious

Conformity vs. Rebellious

This comparison of "The Lottery" and "Two Kinds" will demonstrate how both short stories share similar themes, literary devices and writing styles. According to Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz (2007), editors of Literature: The Human Experience works with a theme of conformity and rebellion often "feature a clash between two well articulated positions, in which a rebel, on principle, confronts and struggles with established authority". "The Lottery" and "Two Kinds" equally share the theme of conformity and rebellion and each contains a female protagonist who personally experiences rebellion and conformity in some form.

In "The Lottery", the entire village has confirmed to an outdated ritual stoning for more than 77 years; a ritual kept intact by the belief that a personal sacrifice will bless the village with a good crop harvest "Lottery in June, corn heavy soon" (Jackson). The lottery is a drawing that takes place on June 27th of every year, right before the crop season. Everyone who lives in the village, even the children, draws a piece of paper from the black box and doesn't look at it until everyone draws theirs. When everyone finishes drawing, you turn your piece of paper over and the one with the mark on in, which is marked with coal, is the one who wins the lottery. But if you this lottery it isn't a good thing. The person who wins the lottery, the one with the marked sheet of paper, gets stoned to death. The main character Tessie Hutchinson participated with this ritual for years but she rebelled when she found that she had won the lottery. "You didn't give him enough time to take any paper he wanted, I saw you, it wasn't fair.'"(Jackson) "The Lottery" illustrates the dangers of conforming to group thinking and traditions without questioning the purpose.

In "Two Kinds", the Chinese American female narrator Ni kan, struggles with her identity and relationship with her Chinese born mother. Initially the narrator conforms to her mother's desire to become a piano prodigy "in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more, so" (Tan). But as the story develops Ni Kan begins to hate the tests that her mother gives her and rebels against her mother's requests. She demonstrates her unwillingness to participate when she says, "So now on nights when my mother presented her test, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm" (Tan). The theme of conformity and rebellion follow the narrator until her thirties, at which time her mother passes away. At conclusion of "Two Kinds" the narrator discovers two pieces of music left with her piano that were, in fact, parts of the same song; one piece entitled "Pleading Child" and the other piece entitled "Perfectly Contended" (Tan).

Both author's lives directly influenced the stories each wrote. Shirley Jackson's recurrent depression issues could be the reason most of her major work does lean toward the ominous, threatening, and gloomy (Abcarian and Klotz, 2007). According to the Library of Congress (2006), Jackson specialized in creating stories that had chilling and morbid insight into the psychological horror which she perceived to lie just beneath the surface of modern life. Although Tan was raised in California, her parents' emigration to the United States created personal issues that Tan had to deal with her entire life. Jackson uses third-person point of view in "The Lottery" whereas Tan uses first-person point of view to tell her fictional story "Two Kinds". The use of the third-person in "The Lottery" allows the reader to feel like an outsider in contrast to the closeness of the village and their annual ritual. The use of first-person point of view in "Two Kinds" allows the reader into the young girl's innermost thoughts and feelings, which also contributes to the tone of the work. Selective memorization was used throughout the telling of "Two Kinds." It was mainly used to focus on her life as a child. However, the author did give us a glimpse of Ni Kan after she had grown up, "I opened up the Schumann book to the dark little piece I had played at the recital" (Tan) which made the story more interesting.

The theme of conformity can be found in "The Lottery." Although people are individuals, conformity is key so that one does not become an outcast from the group. "The Lottery" displays this need to conform by the characters in the short story. Starting with the children of the town, we begin to see this need to conform. "Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones" (Jackson). These children of this community are just following the social norms as they are taught. Unlike the adults, they just think that stoning people to death is just something you do every year so bad things don't happen. It just goes to show that humans are creatures of habit and that sometimes we continue to participate in (or tolerate) harmful practices. This is simply because as individuals we feel powerless and unable to stand up against behaviors that have always been accepted.

The use of iron is used throughout "The Lottery" one example of this is in the title itself. When one thinks of winning the lottery they think of winning some type of reward or prize, but in this village winning the lottery means losing your life. The character of Tess Hutchinson is also of significance. She displays hypocrisy and human weakness. Though she puts up a brave front and pretends to be unconcerned with the lottery (arriving late, forgetting the date), Mrs. Hutchinson is the first to protest the lottery when her family is endangered. She complains, ironically, "It wasn't fair!" (Jackson). Up until this point, however, Tess has been complicit in allowing the lottery to proceed, though she knows of the gruesome outcome. She does not question the lottery's fairness when she first arrives at the event. She does not have a problem with it until she and her family are put in the