Fiction Essay-The Lottery and The Rocking Horse Winner

Fiction Essay-The Lottery and The Rocking Horse Winner
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In “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the villagers gather and partake in ritual tradition requiring picking a black dot from a box when drawing lotteries. If one selects a specific slip of paper, they are stoned. “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence focuses on a low-income family whose fortunes improve as Paul, the son of Hester, rides a rocking horse toy, which helps predict horse races. In the end, Paul dies, and there is a question on whether Paul was a worthy son to his family. In both stories, a strong and intense feeling of dread and shock fills your body. There are deaths in the stories, and they highlight the overwhelming sheer realization of how terrible people can be and the effects that their shallowness and belief can affect others. 
One common theme in both stories is death, as someone ends up dead due to other people. While a lottery winner ought to get something valuable, mostly money, being the winner is a death sentence in the lottery. Still, the people support the tradition believing the community benefits as a whole. Anybody could be chosen at random regardless of whether there are pious members of society. At the same time, immoral and evil people can stay alive so long as they are not lottery winners. Family representatives select the lottery for families and individual households, but no one was exempted from being picked in the lottery process. Paul’s death in The Rocking Horse Winner is closely linked to greed and materialism on Hester and other people, while Paul was only motivated to help his family. Paul’s mother was dissatisfied and wanted more money, and Paul pushed himself harder to get more money to help her, but she ignored how Paul’s sacrifices benefitted her until he died.
 In The Rocking Horse Winner, the mother’s selfish love of money killed her son, as Paul’s parents were still unsatisfied with what they got from the race winnings. In particular, Paul’s mother was greedy and ignored the possibility that Paul’s behavior may lead to his death and the...