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Where Love is God is by Leo Tolstoy / the lottery by Shirley Jackson.
“Where Love Is, God is” by Leo Tolstoy, is a short story which incorporates several themes. The story focuses on topics such as struggle, doubt, grief, growth connection and contentment. Most importantly, an unnamed narrator narrates the story in a third person. Fundamentally, the story is based on a theme of grief. On the other hand, “the lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a tale, which involves numerous themes. Significantly, its focus appears to be society’s need to reexamine its traditions, mainly if they are out-of-date and violent. The author employs various stylistic devices to deliver the message. The lottery seems like a ritual sacrifice of a town citizen to ensure good crops, although the phrase sacrifice Is never applied in the tale. The primary connotation of this subject is to evaluate the two stories critically by comparing and contrasting the stylistic devices employed by the authors.
“Where Love Is, God is” the author portrays symbolism in the theme of the beauty of God and Love through Martin’s transformation from bitterness over death to the joy of a “lighter heart” in Jesus. Significantly, the story depicts how Martin’s spiritual motivation and moral came from meditating the Word of God and the fruit of a transformed heart. Nevertheless, “The lottery” by Shirley Jackson, the author uses the lottery as the symbolize any behaviour, action or a notion which is passed down from one generation to the next which is followed unquestionably and accepted no matter how illogic or cruel. Therefore, stone in the story acts as a symbol of violence which humans are seemingly always ready to commit.
However, the authors have a difference in their writing techniques apart from their similarities. For instance, Leo Tolstoy, the author incorporates stylistic devices such as a moral tale such that he illustrates a spiritual and a moral lesson from the story. Tolstoy uses the story to enable the readers to understand the theme and identify the moral lesson. In his writings, he ensures that he focuses on Love and how one should treat other people with compassion; therefore, he uses the shoemaker as the main character to show the transformation of the heart.
On the other hand, Shirley Jackson employs multiple facets of literary devices such as irony and metaphors, among others. For example, in “the lottery”, the splintered and shabby box that holds the lottery tickets is a metaphor for the outdated and worn out lottery rituals. Therefore, for the black colour of the box, it signifies the darkness of the lottery in which it ends in the death of a close relative or a community member. Therefore, the metaphor used in the story expressed the mood of the narrator such that it clarifies to the reader so much more. Irony twists are used in the story to enables the reader to believe the winner of a lottery is supposed to be awarded a prize when, in reality, they get stoned to death by the village members. There are ironic names such as Mr Graves and Mr Summers. Besides, Shirley Jackson sees foreshadow to predict violent conclusions. for instance, in the story, the second paragraph illustrates how children make piles and put stones in their pockets in the town which appears like a pure-play until the at the end where real purpose of the stones becomes vibrant at the end of the tale
Leo Tolstoy uses omniscience as the third person in the story based on the tale. The story is told from numerous diverse characters’ standpoints. Fundamentally, the narrator knows the actions, feelings and thoughts of each character. Importantly, through employing such techniques; the author has the advantage of writing several different voices or creates more activity in the story. On the other hand, Shirley Jackson uses a first-person strategy that is limited to omniscience.
Moreover, using limited omniscience enables the narrator to put the reader inside the narrator’s head such that, it allows an intimate portrayal of emotions and thoughts. Therefore, the narrator can communicate to the reader every moment needs: smell, taste, and touch throughout the ideas of the narrator. From my point of view, the tone used in the “lottery story” is disconnected and objective. I understood the tone as moving from calm to disturbing and apprehensive.
For instance, the author used imagery to put clarity on the setting: “bright and sunny day in June. The description, which Shirley Jackson used, clearly meant to contrast to the inevitable end of the tale where other village dweller stones Mrs Hutchinson.
To sum up, the above information clearly states its arguments with facts through evidence-based as illustrated in the context. The comparison and contrast of both authors are represented in the above arguments. Moreover, the paper has focused on the stylistic devices and techniques used by both authors.
Works cited
Nugraha, Intan Siti, and Sutiono Mahdi. “TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM ON BUILDING CHARACTER OF MR. SUMMERS IN THE LOTTERY BY SHIRLEY JACKSON.” Celtic: A Journal of Culture, English Language Teaching, Literature and Linguistics 7.1 (2020): 35-43.
Tolstoy, Leo. “Where Love Is, God Is.” The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories. Ed. William J. Bennett. New York, New York: Simon and Schuster (2016): 158-165.