Shirley Jacksons The Lottery and Albert Camus The Guest :: essays research papers

Two great works known for irony, in sensation a great author, Albert Camus, creates a masterpiece and in the other, a masterpiece creates a great author, Shirley Jackson. Camus had been known to the world and his works had been study even without the social movement of lhote or known as The Guest, but Shirley Jackson was a nobody till she wrote The Lottery and stunned the world.Both works are studied as pieces of irony but I believe both to be great works in other, with a twist of irony in the conclusion, although, outlay mentioning, the ironies both serve to the other purpose rather than the plane simple sake of irony.The Guest, a pen and paper advert for Paul Sartres Existentialism, carries traces of this panorama throughout, while, The Lottery, being a symbolic society questioner, with its many symbols undermines the American society. But both short stories carry within them even more, they talk of breaking the norms, they intercommunicate of minorities, giving up, and wast e of look.The Existentialists say man is free to choose yet the choice and having to choose is inevitable and this is seen in The Guest where the Arab is forced into Darus life so thrusting upon him the crossroad of what to do with the Arab, either turn him in or let him go. In Existentialist belief due to the exact alike choice man is always anxious and hesitant, not knowing whether his choice is proper or not, is it accepted by others or not, and this is seen so clearly once again by the simple repetition of the word hesitation and its other forms in the story1.The orders? Im not Daru hesitated A choice forced upon him2.He served Balducci more tea, hesitated, the Hesitation onward the person forcing the situation upon him3.The old gendarme hesitated. Its up to you Hesitation while swaying choice4.The Arab hesitated, then bit into Hesitation before even lifes inevitables such as eating5.In the classroom, before going out, he hesitated a second Hesitation before devising a cho ice6.Looked hesitantly at the motionless Arab Hesitation before the source of choice7.Daru hesitated. The sun rather high Hesitant look at lifeIn the end Daru tries to get out of choosing by putting responsibility of the choice on the Arab but this in itself is again choosing.Existentialist beliefs express the dilemma in life and again is shown by Daru not being able to decide what to do with the Arab, whether to go against his country, and let the Arab free to choose, or go against his morals, and turn him in, and all life comes to the crossroad dilemma between freedom and prison for the Arab.