Even though there are societies with rules and regulations that may seem different than that from your own, at least the norms aren’t as odd as sacrificing someone for the greater good of that society. Or does that society actually exist, like imagine moving to an area for any reason and you walk into a place that’s really a nightmare wrapped in a pretty bow. In both “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” that seems to be the case in fiction.
“The Lottery” starts off isolated and ordinary for all we know, then it later creeps into your curiosity of this traditional lottery that consists of everyone who participated. Now you might be thinking “what’s the possible award or outcome?”, and it’s so organized yet why is there this feeling of caution. Then you notice that the older generation is indirectly telling us how ridiculous this lottery is and how the rules have been changed yearly, and that the younger generation is clueless, just like how we’re somewhat clueless. Once the ending revealed that the whole act was a traditional sacrifice of one “lucky winner”, it’s still uncomfortable to realize that Tessie Hutchinson didn’t consider the lottery to be unfair, but the rules that made her end up being stoned was unfair. In other words, this evil act is normal in this society, which the story did a good job creating the suspense with the unusual atmosphere.
“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” is sort of similar in it’s own sense of sacrifice. Basically you’re in a Utopian society that is way more sci-fi looking than your average society, and everything seems to be festive at first glance. But then you’re being informed that this society’s happiness is being fueled by the suffering of one child… so a cruel justice. There was no suspense to this one, it was mostly a flat out description saying how our normal society is complex compared to them saying how evil is interesting. And the more you hear the speaker talk about the child’s suffering the more absurd it sounds. But then once the people of Omelas grew up and gained a conscience, the ones who had a realization of this torture practice left Omelas to what can only be our normal society. Now at least in this society you have the option to leave, but I do wonder if it would have been a good idea to fight the system.
Both story’s societies can be viewed as the same when it comes to both societies being normal in the means of evil laws, yet they don’t share the same moral outlook. In “The Lottery” the moral could be simply to don’t blindly follow traditions only because a higher power says so. The impact that Tessie portrayed in the ending made that moral work since she didn’t think the Lottery was unfair, in fact mostly the younger generation didn’t think the lottery was bad in the slightest. Coming to the conclusion that “The Lottery” is mainly focused toward thinking for yourself when things seem odd for your own good. Now in “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” you might say, well isn’t it the same for this story, technically but not mainly. The moral can possibly be similar in terms in your decision making based on your conscience. It is that you have the choice to have the child suffer or not, which is what the whole text was trying to make you decide. Either you help the child, change society and be hated by all, or be a part of a bystander effect and still feel bad for not helping. Sounds difficult, but at least we don’t live in a bad society, okay an even worse society.
ENG 222: Literary Genres 