“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, and the first book of the trilogy “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, both demonstrate the dangers of blindly following traditions.
Traditions are respected and followed in both societies and their attempt to maintain them has taken away the lives of innocent human beings. In the short story “The Lottery”, the importance of traditions is well displayed. Tessie Hutchinson, for instance, is executed by her fellow villagers as well as her family because she is the victim who received the slip of paper with the black dot. The one with this slip of paper must be stoned to death according to traditions in the village. Similarly, in the book “The Hunger Games”, there is a tradition of yearly choosing two tributes (a boy and a girl) from each of the twelve districts to be brought to an arena to fight to death. Only one person can win, so they must fight even the ones close to them just to survive. The society’s will to follow traditions has caused them to take the lives of faultless individuals.
In both societies, they know something is wrong, but they are too afraid to fully rebel which resulted in consequences. For example, in “The Lottery”, Tessie Hutchinson arrives late to the lottery grounds on purpose because she doesn’t fully like the lottery system, but she still comes and participates, only to be the one killed at the end. In “The Hunger Games”, Katniss tries to rebel against the Capitol, but can’t bring herself to escape with Gale, and then ends up volunteering for her sister Prim as a tribute and risking her life. This is shows how they have a little idea that something is wrong, and they want to show what is right, but aren’t able to.
All in all, the short story “The Lottery” and the trilogy “The Hunger Games” both display the theme of the risks of following traditions without understanding its consequences.
