The Lottery by Shirly Jackson

        The two short stories The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Story of an hour by Kate Chopin both represent the issues of women seeking freedom and independence in society. In the end, both main characters risked their lives to resolve the conflicts in the stories. The conflicts and resolutions in both of these stories allow the readers to better understand the problems that occur in oppressive societies. As a result, both stories convey strong messages such as freedom of choice and the right to live through complex conflicts and surprising out comes that arises from these conflicts.

To begin with The Lottery by Shirly Jackson represents a traditional in an old village. The villagers believe if they sacrifice one person by stoning that individual, they will have a bumper season.  So, they chose this person by using “the lottery”, and they kept this “tradition” for many years. No one ever doubted this as they were all accustomed to this ritual.  The villagers thought this is right, true and they looked down upon other villages that give up this tradition.  The author writes, “A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, “Come on, come on, everyone.” Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him” From this situation, we can fully understand the people’s cold blood in this village. Nobody felt wrong or confused except the one who won “the lottery”. In the end, Mrs. Hutchinson understood how foolish, useless, bloody they were, but she could not tell anyone because she died. This story shows to the readers the bloody of this small village by using irony. I thought it is a funny story about someone who won a lottery usually has a better life instead of a poor women died because of “sacrificed”. The author showed us the conflict between people and the old traditional society and made a women died to resolve it. The author made the surprise ending in order to let readers understand what will happen if people do not change just keep to old tradition.

And then The short story of an hour by Kate Chopin. This story represents a situation in the 19th century. A man’s name was on the list of “killed” of a railroad disaster, all the relatives came to his home to comfort his wife to not be ill with grief. They exhorted Mrs. Mallard everything would be all right, do not do silly thing.  Then Mrs. Mallard locked herself in the room, everyone was worried that she killed herself. Surprisingly she was happy and felt better than ever. The author mentions, “She said it over and over under breath: “Free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright”. From these sentences, we can see what Mrs. Mallard thought inside her heart. She thought she was free, because her husband’s dead, no one can control her anymore. How come a woman feels brilliant and happy when her husband dead? Because of the background settings, in 19 century young ladies always married rich old men. And they were not allowed to go out anytime. They should just stay at home and make breakfast, lunch, and dinner… There were just like canaries in a golden cage, without freedom. The author wrote this story in order to tell the readers about male and female inequality in the 19th century. The ending was a surprise and full of irony, Mrs. Mallard died because her husband came back, and the doctor said she was died because of joy. She died to resolve the conflicts inside her heart, when she heard her husband died she was so happy. But then her husband came back alive, her “freedom dream” broke immediately, so she would rather die instead of being a canary again, because she felt finally felt the feeling of freedom.