Understanding Sacrifice To communicate an understanding of life, I believe are told in the stories of, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” by Ursula K. Le Gain and “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson. In these readings I compared and found that in order to survive, people from those communities must give up one of their own and learn to cope with the immoral choices to keep living. There must be a balanced weight of many lives to a single person to carry that liability.
The story of “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” by Ursula K. Le Gain states, “They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there” (245). The people of Omelas understand they must cope and deal with this persons “abominable misery” in order to survive and keep everything about living beautiful and a person to be talented and sharp. The suffering and loneliness of one, makes everything better for everyone else. Jesus is a prime example of this. He went thru so much, alone and with no help for everyone on earth.
As in “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” the story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson shares a link in giving up a person. In Shirley Jackson’s story which states, “Use to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” (250). In order for the people to have a good year, the villagers understood they had to have a lottery to bring in good blessings. The lottery helped by deciding in somewhat fairness who it is that will be sacrificed so as not to point fingers and cause more turmoil. Just as with people in the military, they take their chances of surviving, being caught as prisoners of war or sacrificing their lives.
Another case in point of understanding from “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” is a passage written, “They know that they, like the child are not free. They know compassion. It is the existence of the child and their knowledge of its existence…” (249). In this exert, the people of Omelas must cope with what goes on under the perfect skin that is their society. They try to forget about that child that carries their weight, though it is impossible. They try to make up for it in other ways; as in caring for and being gentle with their children. They know, were it not for “that child” they would not have what they cherish. Just as in the television commercials of the small malnourished child in a country fighting disease and hunger, you look around and become grateful for your surroundings.
In “The Lottery” society, understanding comes from the knowledge that a person must be chosen through their tradition of chance. In “The Lottery,” the example of coping comes from the lines detailing,” Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a clearing space by now and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. “It isn’t fair,” she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head” (256). This community not caring who the person will be, either father, son, mother or daughter; in order to keep their perfect utopia. This is depicted in all television reality shows nowadays, showing a group of people willing to give up everything to reach the number one spot.
Both societies need to keep a balance between good and evil, depending on one person to carry that weight. In the stories, each village has perfected how they treat that person and what must be done to that person to keep it
