The Lottery vs. The Handsomest Drowned Man - Critical Essay

Introduction

The Lottery and The Handsomest Drowned Man are two different stories with an informative message from the author relating to the aspects of life instincts also referred to as Eros as well as death instincts knew as Thanatos. The Lottery revolves around a small town that practices yearly ritual referred to as lottery which ultimately results in the death of one person in town annually. The narration depicts an external conflict between the society and an individual because the community traditions played a significant role in the death of one person. On the other hand, The Handsomest Drowned Man portrays a transformation whereby a dead man can convert the whole village. Accordingly, a great individual has the aptitude for becoming an inspiration to others and changing their lives entirely.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

It plays a significant function in the psyche, and it is entirely unconscious meaning that people are not aware and do not have the facility to regulate its purpose. It is an outcome of evolution where it is found in every person and comparable to all. Everybody is subject to similar types of instinctual impulses like Eros and Thanatos. In The Lottery, the piece tends to concentrate on the psyche of a character which is mirrored in the people existent in the society. Fitting in that village is not an easy task because it means the following tradition dimly and being part of the annual lottery regardless of its atrocious consequences. The custom is illogical to the people of this village, yet it is the ceremonial itself, in that it is conducted every year but precisely comprehends why (Jackson 25). It is a reflection of an old need whereby people necessitate a scapegoat as a figure for displaying some undesirable characteristics and which ought to be wrecked through a ritual absolving sacrifice. In this case, the level of id can be termed as entirely unconscious. The people of the town are the characters whose mind is unconscious because they do not see the need for the ritual yet they hold on to it.

The scapegoat is one type of sacrifice with the classic examples being the poor, the old, females and minority. Others encompass those that the governing tradition shows its oddness. Human ritual is an example of a human sacrifice whereby tends time stop and a scapegoat such as Tod, or any other killer has the power to project his Otherness and scapegoat to another individual and the same can happen to a love object thus combining the aspects of Eros and Thanatos. A ritual sacrifice can be a place where love is perverted because to stop time means preserving the love object. One cyclical theme in Jackson is that scapegoating tends to surface in children nearly right after entering the Symbolic. However, it appears to be acquitted and also funny as it comes up in the game. For instance, the tintin' which is a children's game on Pepper Street constitutes a prompt phase in scapegoating. The congenial play of victimisation whereby the initial fighting victim in each game turns out to be the next, and in a prediction of chase and killing, children are seen playing hide and seek- and tag in accordance to an ancient ritual of pursuit and capture.

In the Handsomest Drowned Man, the drowned man appears to take the figure of what the spectators are interested in seeing. Once his body comes near the shore, the children imagine him as an enemy ship. After realising that he does not have masts, thus he couldn't be a ship, they visualise him as a whale. In the same way, they understand that the is a drowned man but still perceive him as a plaything because of this what they want to see. Even without unique physical features such as beauty and size, people tend to guess his history and personality highly. They agree on details such as name, but in the real sense, they could not have known. The certainty that they have appears to be an outcome of the magic pragmatism and the joint essence of knowing him and feeling that he part of them. As a determinant of Eros, people show the dead man love beyond measure such that they can only spot out the best parts. These are basic instinctual impulses of hunger and thirst for something elements that have been deemed significant when it comes to preserving and lengthening life for people.

The story depicts various behaviours of Eros that bring the people together. There is movement from a state of awe to compassion as the women are astonished of the man that they visualise him to have been. They argue that if the man were a resident of that village, his wife would have been pleased and his power would have drawn the fish out of the sea just calling their name. The men of the town who are fisherman tend to compare themselves to an impractical apparition of a stranger. However, this is beyond the norm. Thus this could have acted on behalf of something else. It is as though be women are not happy with their lives, but they do not have any hopes for improvement. They only visualise about unobtainable happiness that just a dead man could have been capable of delivering. However, there is a transformation in the story whereby adverse effects start to erupt. The women contemplate on how the body of the man would have been dragged on to the ground because of its big size. Rather than concentrating on the advantages of his vast strength, they imagine how the big body was a huge liability socially a well as physically. What follows is a perception of the vulnerability of which they want to protect him more than ever. The awe has now transformed into empathy, and he is defenceless in their eyes. The tenderness that the women have for him is comparable to that of their husbands. The love they have for him becomes advantageous to their life such that they emerge more active in their role. They start feeling proficient of transforming their life instead of trusting that they require a superhero in life. The hunger and thirst for the unknown triggers compassion, then togetherness in the community and the people end up realising themselves in the process.

In the Lottery, Shirley Jackson is trying to warn us about the negative impacts of tradition and following without questioning. The characters are accepting the actions of the lottery since this is the only thing they know. They do not even have a trace about the beginning of Lottery neither do they remember the first ceremonies. Our cultures are comprised of traditions some of which could have negative impacts on life yet we are obligated to practice them. The author is pinpointing that that people are supposed to recognise the menace of tradition. Just because there is a structured approach of doing things doesn't mean that better methods of doing the same do not exist which could be more human an effectual(Marquez 6). With the developments in technology, re-examining the manner of doing things is crucial. A village is supposed to feel safe and secure thus people ought to shun acts such as murder and violence.

Conclusion

Various moral values have been passed through the story regarding how people ought to live their lives. These are observed by how the town's members respond to something inimitable, strange and exotic. As a determinant of Eros, people show the dead man love beyond measure such that they can only spot out the best parts. These are basic instinctual impulses of hunger and thirst for something elements that have been deemed significant when it comes to preserving and lengthening life for people. The love they have for a stranger becomes advantageous to their life such that they emerge more active in their role. They start feeling proficient of transforming their life instead of trusting that they require a superhero in the experience. If society were morally degraded, such finding would have resulted to commotion and people would have found a chance of expressing their worries and dismays of life using the death of this man. Acts of compassion and kindness are significant to human beings and practising them can lead to complete transformation or instead realising new things.

Works Cited

Jackson, Shirley. "The lottery." The New Yorker 26 (1948): 25-28

Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. "The Handsomest Drowned Man In The World." A famous tale in the magic realism genre. MyObject, OpenWorld (1984