Injustice In The Crucible And The Lottery

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Central to Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery is the theme of injustice. In both texts, the theme of injustice is present, due to societies failure to question superstitious beliefs and tradition resulting in inhumane treatments. The societies in both texts, adhere on tradition and superstitious beliefs regardless of the harmful effects it may cause. Fundamentally, it portrays human kind’s vagueness concerning the purpose of their actions, being more alarmed about tradition and rituals. Failure to this, leads to harsh penalties and measures towards the main characters, John Proctor and Tessie Hutchinson. In Miller’s The Crucible, injustice is caused mainly because of societies failure to question their superstitious…show more content…
And in this case, the person who is selected to be stoned. In The Lottery, Tessie Hutchinson is chosen among hundreds of people in the town gathering. She is put to the center and stoned to death by the towns people. This is mainly due to the villages tradition and yearly ritual, to kill a human being by stoning them to death, showing a great deal of inhumane treatment. The lives of the people in the town are basically jeopardized due to this yearly ritual, the “lottery”. The people of the town, are obsessed with tradition that they forget their purpose of action and the effects it may contain. “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones.” The Lottery, page 71 line 221. The villagers are blinded by tradition that they do not see the cause of their actions. Tradition and rituals are basically stoning a human to death and in this case Tessie Hutchinson who is chosen among the villagers. “Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair.” she said. The lottery page 71 line 229. This scene clearly shows inhumane treatment, Tessie Hutchinson confronts due to the failure of her society to question tradition and superstitious
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