The Theme of the Evil of Society in Shirley Jacksons The Lottery and Bharati Mukherjees A Father - Essay Example

The Evil of Society Modern society has its evil side. This evil side has consumed the people living in the societyas well as the communities in it. This evil is seen in the illegal and immoral activities that are happening around us. Most importantly, however, such an evil is seen in the unconscious obedience of man to the traditions that actually harm him, his families and his children. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Bharati Mukherjee’s “A Father” shows that the evil rules and traditions of society have turned the characters into the worst that they can possibly be. First of all, society is evil as long as man continues to worship it. The evil that one experiences in society actually reflects the fact that man worships this evil or the society itself with all its evil ways. In Jackson’s “The Lottery,: the townspeople worship the town’s tradition of evil, which is the tradition of stoning someone to death every year. In fact, the tradition is so strongly worshipped by the villagers because although “the original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago,” they were still able to continue observing such a tradition (Jackson). In short, the observance of this evil tradition is not just an external expression but in fact it is a deeply embedded in their human nature. In fact, through the portrayal of the formal procedure of drawing the lots by each household and by every person participating in it, Jackson has successfully fulfilled the purpose of the work – which is to shown that most people obediently follow any tradition for its own sake and regardless of the harm it may cause them. Therefore, people may indeed turn a blind eye to the evil of tradition as long as it satisfies their own needs. This is actually true among some very poor societies nowadays which unconsciously perpetuate things like drug addiction and prostitution. Murkejee’s story reflects the worship of tradition in the same way. In “A Father,” the wife also worships the modern society with all its evils. In fact, “it was [Mr. Bhowmick’s] wife [herself] who had forced him to apply for a permanent resident status in the U.S. even though he had a good job in Ranchi as a government engineer” (Mukherjee 368). The fact is that in Detroit, where Mr. Bhowmick and his family live, he was “a lonelier man” (368). The problem, however, is that his wife unconsciously worships the advancement of the modern society and believes in whatever it brings. His wife has already forgotten Hindu tradition and has in fact converted herself to a worshipper of “pop psychology paperbacks [that] preached that for couples who could sit down and talk about their ‘relationship,’ life would be sweet again” (364). They usually use these pop psychology books to judge someone including Mr. Bhowmick himself. For example, one day, his wife tells him “Face it, Dad…You have an affect deficit” (364). Moreover, his wife has become obsessed with trivial matters already instead of dealing with life seriously. For example, his wife insists that “French toast must be eaten hot-hot…otherwise they’ll taste like rubber” (365). She does this not only to show off the information but to hurry her husband who is still actually praying to a Hindu deity. Secondly, the evil of society breaks families and turn people against each other. In Jackson’s story, despite the fact that the event was attended by fathers and husbands, mothers and wives, and their children, this is a sign that people and their families are actually united in evil. This is also a proof of false family ties which actually produce a disaster. In “The Lottery,” although people have a loyalty to tradition, there is actually no loyalty to the family. The evil society simply wants to use each member of the community to simply destroy each other. In fact, the little son of the victim, Little Davy Hutchinson, young as he is, participates in the event where he does not even know that his participation will lead to his own mother’s death. Moreover, he even puts his own life in danger as he draws a piece of paper. If he had drawn out the piece of paper with a mark, he would have been the one stoned despite his age and feebleness. Furthermore, the evil tradition of society has in fact allowed that “someone [give Little Davy] a few pebbles” in order to stone his own mother although he may not be able to do it himself (Jackson). In short, the evil of tradition has made every person turn against his family, mother against daughter, parent against child, and children against parents. This will therefore inevitably lead to the destruction of the basic unit of human society, which is the family. The breakdown of the family is also what the characters of Mukherjee’s story experience. It all begins with the destruction of religion for religion is highly instrumental in holding the very fabric of human society. However, Mr. Bhowmick’s wife practically insults religion whenever her husband prays to the goddess Kali. She tells him, “Hurry up with the prayers” as prayer and religion are nothing important to the family anymore (Mukherjee 364). In fact, “[Mr. Bhowmick] wasn’t praying, [his wife] nagged; he was shutting her out of his life” (364). This means that Mr. Bhowmick is merely using his prayer as a means to escape his wife’s nagging, thus making him pretentious in his religion. Furthermore, his daughter Babli also belittles Hindu myth and philosophy by saying that it is merely “like a series of super graphics” which is something like mere vandalism instead of something highly venerable and sacred (366). Babli also abandoned the Hindu tradition of womanhood as she “wasn’t womanly or tender the way that unmarried girls had been in the wistful days of his adolescence” (365). In fact, Mr. Bhowmick himself thinks that Babli is even unable to help him financially (365). Thus, the evil of modern society seeks to break down the family. Nevertheless, such evil appears very logical and it is enticing by virtue of its logic: “A dozen times a day he made these small trade-offs between new-world reasonableness and old-world beliefs” (366). Thirdly, the evil of society influences and destroys the children. IN Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the tradition of evil is made possible only through the inculcation of wrong values in children. As Mr. Martin and his son Baxter “held the black box securely on the stool,” one can see how such an evil tradition is securely guarded and even passed on to future generations (Jackson). Children like Baxter are unquestioning and thus are given special roles to preserve their tradition but never their families. Moreover, in the story, there are three other kinds of children aside from Baxter. The first group is the children who “assembled first” and who possessed that “feeling of liberty” in them (Jackson). One of them is Bobby Martin, who “had already stuffed his pockets full of stones” (Jackson). He belongs to the group of other children who “made a great pile of stones in the corner” (Jackson). These are the kids who are so enthusiastic about the lottery, especially about the practice of stoning someone to death. These are the children where the evil of tradition has already been deeply ingrained and now they do not question it anymore, and these are the very children who will most likely perpetuate and even officiate the tradition when they grow up. The second group of children is made up of Nancy Hutchinson’s friends who “breathed heavily” as she draws a piece of folded paper and one of whom says “I hope it’s not Nancy” (Jackson). This is the group of the fearful children. Such fear simply means that not all the children seem to like the lottery but although this group seems to dislike the practice, it is evident that they are dominated by fear and thus they remain powerless against the evil tradition established by the adults. They cannot complain, and perhaps when they get accustomed to this tradition, they would not fear it anymore. In fact, Amy A. Griffin confirms this when she likens evil tradition to a “scapegoat archetype,” or a means to somehow justify the continued existence of a ritual by saying that such a ritual is done for the good of society (44). The teenagers therefore may possess real hatred towards the practice of the lottery and may even want to have it abolished. Nevertheless, because of fear, they may only simply choose to continue justifying the existence of the lottery by focusing on the good it can do to society. The third group of children includes Little Davy Hutchinson as well as all other “very small children [rolling] in the dust or [clinging] to the hands of their older brothers and sisters” (Jackson). Although they still are basically infants who do not know what is going on, they are already participating in the gruesome tradition. This is because their parents have brought them to the lottery event. Through the example of the children, the author successfully accomplishes her goal of portraying the utter helplessness of the people involved in the traditional event. The evil of tradition remains because we have children who have already been brainwashed into believing such tradition, children who cannot speak up for themselves, and those who do not even realize that they are gradually being introduced into the world of evil traditions. In the present society, children are also plunged into a world of violence and chaos, especially because the print and broadcast media exposes young audiences to pornography, sexually suggestive advertisements, as well as the unhealthy concept of freedom in sexuality. Moreover, it is also an undeniable fact that we have already exposed our children to the most destructive human activities such as war, environmental pollution, graft and corruption, crimes and terrorism, pornography and prostitution. Nevertheless, although some of our children would want to react violently against these, they remain either helpless or ignorant, just like Little Davy Hutchinson. In the same way, Mukherjee’s story is all about the inculcation of the wrong values of the evil society in the child. Babli has obviously become a rude woman and not the child that her father has expected her to become. After Mr. Bhowmick offers Sinutab, Babli rudely says, “What’re you doing here?...I feel fine” (Mukherjee 367). This is definitely rudeness against one’s parents and elders, and it is obviously the influence of the evil of the modern society. Moreover, because of her pregnancy, Mr. Bhowmick thinks that girls like Babli were “too smart, too impulsive for a backward place like Ranchi, but not tough nor smart enough for sex-crazy places like Detroit” (369). This means that the evil modern society of Detroit has transformed Babli into someone not only very undesirable but extremely irresponsible. Even more than that, Babli becomes defiant of her parents’ authority and reprimands, and she even threatens to call the police because, as she said, “This is brutality…you can’t do this to me” (370). This means that she is already being disobedient towards her parents and she is even thinking of having them arrested if they continue pushing her to do what they want. Babli is not even sorry for what she has done yet she is adamant in implying to her parents that she did the right thing. This is all because of the influence of the evil of society. In fact, the American society is turning into a society where there are 36% of births to unmarried women and where children suffer from poverty (Kristof). Babli’s case is no different from this. Fourthly, this evil offers no hope for a better future for each of the characters in the story. This can be seen in the bad and horrible endings of the stories. In Jackson’s “The Lottery,” the ending of the story marks the time when the truth comes to light. As soon as Old Man Warner throws a stone “on the side of [Tessie’s] head” we realize what the “lottery” is all about – it is a lottery of death. The story finishes with “someone [even giving] little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles” (Jackson). The story therefore ends with the obvious perpetuation of the tradition of murder. In Mukherjee’s “A Father,” the story ends with the father’s total dejection and frustration after hearing his daughter say insult marriage by calling it “like livestock…Just like animals” (Mukherjee 370). Upon hearing this, Mr. Bhowmick used the pin on Babli’s stomach until such a time that his wife called the police (370). The story therefore probably ends with the father’s arrest and probably nothing good comes out of it. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Bharati Mukherjee’s “A Father” both illustrate the evil of society and how it consumes not only the characters in the stories but all people who belong to societies that unconsciously worship evil traditions. These traditions break down families, negatively influence children, and eventually lead to more evil. In the present society, problems of prostitution, corruption and pornography as brought about by the media are the ones responsible for the continuing decay of the society where evil serves the purpose of the many. Top of Form Bottom of Form Works Cited Griffin, Amy A. “Jackson’s THE LOTTERY.” The Explicator 58.1 (1999): 44-46. Print. Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery." Middlebury, 2014. Web. 5 May 2014. Kristof, Nicholas. “Modern Family Matters." The New York Times, 22 Jan 2014. Web. 5 May 2014. Mukherjee, Bharati. “A Father.” Literature and the Writing Process. 9th ed. Ed. McMahan et al. New York: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print. Read More