What had happened to the society? How one can bear killing of people, beating and murdering of innocent children indifferently? Both a story “The Lottery” and a movie “The Boy with the Stripped Pajamas” emphasize on the fact that it is difficult to be a good person in a cruel society. The society is the indicator of human behavior nowadays. The main character of the movie is a little boy Bruno. He is a researcher and tries to find the light in the darkness. The story is told by him according to his own world perception; perhaps it is the core reason why the viewers are so impressed by cruelty and injustice of that time. Bruno is waiting for the piece; he wants to play with the little Shmuel in his house. However the hero cannot, since he is a Jew, “the enemy of the people” and is surrounded by a barbed wire. Throughout the film, Bruno changes his perception of the world. The main character cannot understand why some people have more rights then others. The Bruno`s parents are totally different. A boy has a military fanatic father and a sympathetic mother who is waiting when the war will be finished. Family relationships reflect the relationships in the whole world in which these people live.
Parents need to talk more with their children and explain them even the most simple things that are interesting. If so, this shocking misunderstanding could be avoided.
“The Lottery” is also the story about injustice and cruelty. There are few main characters in “The Lottery” – Old Man Warner who has participated in seventy-seven lotteries, Tessie Hutchinson – the victim, Mr. Summers – the man who conducts the ritual and Bill Hutchinson – a Tessie’s husband. It is an extremely cruel and terrible story about a bizarre tradition of a little town – the lottery, the winner of which will be killed. It is interesting, but Tessie Hutchinson most of the story is accepted as a good member of the society. The main character is defined by being an undistinguished and normal woman. Tessie begins to resist and claim that the system is unfair only when she is chosen to be sacrificed “It is not fair! It is not right” (Jackson 1948). The ritual is cruel, but everyone sees nothing wrong with the lottery until he is chosen and about to die. It is terrible, but even little children take part in the lottery. The inhabitants of the town do not want to reject this tradition since it is their favorite entertainment. It is necessary to underline, the strong point of this story is that the terrible actions are presented by Shirley Jackson as the simplest things in the world.
These stories try to teach people that if somebody wants to change the existing order of things, he should start from himself. It is necessary to be able to share the love and kindness with other people in the modern world full of injustice.