The Lottery is a very known short story that tells a tradition that people in a little city have. The tradition consists in doing a lottery, with all the Parents from the family taking a paper and if its marked then their family will have to take each one and if they have the bad luck of getting the marked one they will be stoned until they die. This satire shows how ridiculously violent and inhuman can traditions get, even when now a days people have more conscience about things, only because of keeping with the continuation of the tradition they can get blind about what they're doing.
In the Whacking day episode of the famous series The Simpsons, this same message is given by showing their little town, Springfield, has this tradition of going out and start whacking snakes like crazy. As in the Lottery there are people that oppose to this tradition, the difference is that in The Simpsons episode Lisa and Mr White actually make people see things clearly and stop the whacking day. The themes of the stories are actually the same, both show a ridiculous tradition, that includes violence happening in a small town. This messages are very relevant today because there are still cultures that just to keep in touch with their ancestors or to feel like they continue with their traditions, and because of doing that atrocities every year or every some years they start loosing empathy and stop caring about the animals or people in the case of the lottery, they are hurting.
In the Whacking day episode of the famous series The Simpsons, this same message is given by showing their little town, Springfield, has this tradition of going out and start whacking snakes like crazy. As in the Lottery there are people that oppose to this tradition, the difference is that in The Simpsons episode Lisa and Mr White actually make people see things clearly and stop the whacking day. The themes of the stories are actually the same, both show a ridiculous tradition, that includes violence happening in a small town. This messages are very relevant today because there are still cultures that just to keep in touch with their ancestors or to feel like they continue with their traditions, and because of doing that atrocities every year or every some years they start loosing empathy and stop caring about the animals or people in the case of the lottery, they are hurting.