Eng essay

ENG 104 FINAL ESSAY: You have read both “Harrison Bergeron” and “The Lottery.”

Both stories take place in societies where society itself seems to be “out of whack” somehow – in

“Harrison Bergeron,” people in American society of the future have become so equal, that the

government has passed laws preventing anyone from being better than anyone else at anything – beautiful

people have to wear masks, strong people have to carry weights, and brilliant people have to wear

earpieces through which are broadcast an endless series of random loud noises, messing up their thinking

so that cannot use their brains effectively. In “The Lottery,” a small town which seems normal on the

surface carries on a tradition from their early days as a settlement that has stuck around for generations,

even though – as you see at the end of the story – the tradition has a shocking and horrifying twist.

Each story has several key themes, but there is one that they have in common: the idea that going along

with something because “that’s the way it always has been” or “that’s the way things are done” can be

potentially very dangerous, and lead to dreadful outcomes in life and in society. Tradition is important for

people, families and cultures. The same is true for laws, without which a society cannot function.

HOWEVER, both stories warn that simply accepting things the way they are and not questioning them

or speaking out, not only does not solve the problem, it can and will eventually make it worse.

In an argument essay of 1200+ words, explain how this theme applies to BOTH short stories, giving and

explaining specific examples from each to support your claims. You will also need to conduct outside research to

complete this essay, and cite that research to support your explanations and claims, and to provide detail or other

necessary information. You must have a minimum of 4 outside sources:

 A minimum of 1 source found using the college databases or Google Scholar

 A minimum of 1 source found using just plain old Google

 A minimum of 1 print source from the library (a book, for example)

The following do NOT count as sources (i.e. use them, but they are EXTRA):

o Anything from a dictionary or dictionary website o The stories themselves

For the stories, you MUST cite any quotes using the page numbers provided. Use these copies of

the stories to make sure that all students’ page number references match:

 Use the following link and printout for “Harrison Bergeron” : http://wordfight.org/bnw/bnw-unit_packet.pdf

Cite it in-text as (lastname page#), for example: (Vonnegut 4).

Use this as the Works Cited entry:

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. “Harrison Bergeron.” Wordfight.org. n.p., n.d. pdf file. your date here.

<http://wordfight.org/bnw/bnw-unit_packet.pdf>

 Use the following link and printout for “The Lottery”: https://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf

Cite it in-text as (lastname page#), for example: (Jackson 7).

Use this as the Works Cited entry:

Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery.” So.An.105: Society & The Individual. soan 105 (Middlebury College), n.d. pdf

file. Your date here. <https://sites.middlebury.edu/individualandthesociety/

files/2010/09/jackson_lottery.pdf>