Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Lottery
In Shirley Jackson's, "The Lottery," one theme is Man's ability (and need) to rationalise generally unacceptable actions. This sounds a little bit to me like a movie I saw recently. The movie was called "The Purge," which was about an era of future government where every crime, including murder, was made legal for a period of 12 hours. It supposedly was meant to keep crime rates down by allowing people to "purge" all their anger. I thought the movie was a messed up concept, and I don't think much more about this story either but I think it paints a small picture of each of our lives. Just like the movie, the people seem to view the one extremely messed up thing that they do every year to be a completely normal thing. It really makes me wonder how many horrible things we do on a daily basis that we just throw under the rug because it is "tradition" and it is rationalized to us.
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I suppose it's worth thinking about the role of a large governing body in either example. Rules are handed down by authority, and we rarely question authority. In both cases, the consequences are dire. I'd love for your to bring up your example in class. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point to make, that a lot of our bad behaviors are being thrown under a rug because it's tradition and we are accustomed to certain things. I haven't seen The Purge but really want to and now even more after reading this post.
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