This essay will compare and contrast the author’s theme/purpose/conflict and plot of two short stories called “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson and “The Rocking Horse Winner” by DH Lawrence. In both stories the author had a purpose of teaching an important lesson. “The Lottery” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” portray how people can act in horrific ways when influenced by society. In the “The Lottery” and “The Rocking Horse Winner” the authors’ use symbols, irony, and morals in their stories. In both stories there is an un-timely death of one of the characters. How it differs is the emotional connection with the characters. “The Rocking Horse Winner” allows the reader to sympathize with the mother and the son, Paul, while “The Lottery” does not give that same emotional connection to its characters. Both stories end abruptly after the death of the character. In “The Lottery” the author was trying to entertain and inform the reader. She conveys the theme of her story which is that traditions are often followed without question and it shows how easily humans can conform to following traditions no matter how pointless and barbaric they are. The author is trying to communicate a moral in this story that even though something has been done for many years, people should find the root of the tradition and ask themselves if it is still relevant
In the “Rocking Horse Winner” by DH Lawrence, the authors theme here was also to convey a lesson of morals. The author realistically portrays the moral problem of money being the root of all evil. The woman was not exactly evil; she was never mean to her son. She showed...