Lottery and "The Story of Term Paper

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She is excited by the idea of an independent life without her husband. "There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature" (Chopin, 1894).

But while Chopin's protagonist seemingly instinctively seeks freedom and independence, the townspeople of Jackson's tale seek community and convention, even when they could freely choose to leave the town or abandon the lottery, to allow every citizen to live without fear. It is an unquestioned part of their culture: "The lottery was conducted -- as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program -- by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities" (Jackson, 1948). And when Mrs. Hutchinson complains about being the victim of the lottery, her complaint is not that it is wrong -- how could she say so, given that she could have left the town -- but that it is not fair. Community values blind the town, and even in death, unlike Mrs. Mallard, Mrs.

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Hutchinson cannot see the wrongness of the lottery, only the unpleasantness of her death.

However, Chopin's Mrs. Mallard also could have left her husband, and spurned societal approval, and she did not, although she welcomed a release from her prison that would allow her to live respectably as a widow. Both women are harmed by societal assumptions about the value of human life, and what it means to live well, but they have a hand in their own destruction, if only by doing nothing. Instead, they only wait for the death of other people to free them, and end up dying themselves, even if Chopin's view of human nature is more positive in its assumption that even socially imprisoned people yearn to be free.

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