Tyler Queylin
Midterm Essay, English 2001
October 26, 2020
The Lottery and a Rose for Emily
The two short stories âThe Lotteryâ by Shirley Jackson and âA Rose for Emilyâ by Faulkner are stories that require deep understanding of the plot and characters. âThe Lotteryâ is about a town of people who have an annual ritual of having a lottery, however throughout the story the audience sees that the lottery is not a regular lottery where you celebrate when you win but the person who gets picked for it dies. The town continues this ritual because of their superstition that if they donât sacrifice an individual annually that the crops will not grow out good. âA Rose for Emilyâ is about a mysterious and misunderstood lady who had just died and in the beginning of the story it takes place at her funeral, she lived in a town with many other individuals who really knew nothing about her and just assumed about her but they find out the truth throughout the story when they go to her house for the first time after her funeral. Emily is shown as a very misunderstood character throughout the story after her father dies. However, the authors use the main characters to portray the social hierarchy in the setting/time period and gender dominance.
The two well known and popular short stories share the same element of the two authors bringing up sex and gender roles/codes. Allan Lloyd-Smith explains American Gothic Fiction talking about how the genre in these types of stories bring up societal problems and âwrongdoing movementâ. In Shirley Jacksonâs story âThe Lotteryâ the main focus is the Hutchinson family which includes Mr. Bill Hutchinson, Mrs. Tess Hutchinson, and the Hutchinson children but especially little Davy Hutchinson who is mentioned a lot in the story. Tess Hutchinson is the prime example of gender roles and how women are treated unequally to men in the the story. âMr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully, thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie. Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, Wouldnât have me leave mâdishes in the sink, now, would you, Joe? And soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinsonâs arrival.â (Jackson 2) This quote shows the gender roles that the town has, we see that the men are held higher and have more power than the women and they make jokes about women only doing house work. They also didnât bother to say that they were going to wait for her, since she is a woman they didnât mind if she was at the drawing of the Lottery or not because they could have started early without her. Later on in the story Tessie is the one that is picked for the drawing of the Lottery and she starts to complain saying that it wasnât fair for her. The audience comes to figure that the lottery is something negative and Tessie is stoned to death at the end. Tessie is a woman and she is speaking up to the lottery saying it isnât fair and she is confident doing so, by them killing her this could show that Jackson was trying to imply that since she was speaking against the lottery and getting out of her place in her societal/gender role in the town that it was her faith that she was the one who is picked in the lottery and stoned to death. The gothic element of questioning sex and gender roles is also shown in Faulknerâs story âA Rose for Emilyâ, throughout the story we learn about Emilyâs childhood and how she has a father who likes to be in complete dominance over her life and decisions. Emilyâs father continuously lives her life for her through making decisions for her and saying that no individual male would ever be enough for her and good enough. âNone of the young men were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such.â (Faulkner 3) Her father didnât allow anyone else to accompany her but himself and would prevent any male individual from being with Emily. The only company that she had and was used to during her childhood was her fatherâs. This shows the gender/sex role in the story of male dominance and women always being lower than men, her father has such superiority over her that she couldnât live her life until he died later on in the story and even then she didnât know anyone elseâs company but his which is why when he died she denied his death and didnât want anyone to take his body away because she would be alone. Later on her life Emily falls in love with a man named Homer Barron and wants to be with him for eternity but the town and she knows that he is not the âmarrying type of manâ. One day Emily goes to the pharmacy and asks for Arsenic which is poison and the pharmacist asks her what she needs it for and she never tells him. She purchases the poison and the town assumes that it is to kill herself with the poison because she is depressed that she cannot marry Homer. âSO THE NEXT day we all said, “She will kill herself”; and we said it would be the best thing. When she had first begun to be seen with Homer BarronâŚ.â (Faulkner 5) However Emily uses the poison to kill Homer so that she can be with him forever physically by keeping his body in the house forever until she died. The gender roles in this scenario was the townâs perspective and assumption of how they thought Emily wanted the arsenic to kill herself, they thought since she knew Homer wasnât going to marry her and stay with her forever that she was going to kill herself. The town thought Emily was depressed enough to kill herself because she would be alone and she had to rely on the company of a male, in this case Homer but she overcame the societal gender stereotype and made a very bold decision instead using the poison for him.
Shirley Jacksonâs story is less rebellious than Faulknerâs story however because even though Tessie speaks out of her place about how the tradition of the town isnât fair she still is executed by stones. Emily has more of an impact showing she is not dependent on another male which is what the town thought but were shocked and surprised when they found out Emily had used poison to kill Homer. Both stories show the gender dominance of males and social change which leads the audience back to reality about how female inequality and societyâs views and beliefs on what stereotypes are true and if gender plays a role in dominance or power.
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