Ever since the beginning of time, there has been a government or leading body to rule over some kind of group of nomads or citizens. Thousands of years later, no one questions this ideal, but accepts the way it has always been. In 1948, Shirley Jackson writes about a civilization, who for as long as they can remember, conducted the lottery every twenty seventh of June. The tradition has gone on for so long, that the black box Mr. Summers, the oldest member of the community, pulls names out of is so worn you cannot even tell it is black. In 2008 Suzanne Collins released her dystopian trilogy, The Hunger Games, where the country of Panem’s Capital conducts a competition to the death of randomly selected young adults from the twelve districts. In both of these tales, the person from the random selection ultimately dies in a brutal death, while the bystanders of the civilization watch. This is the norm for both societies, to stand by and watch death come for an innocent person, because tradition has dictated it. Both authors highlight the themes of blindly following tradition just because the man in charge has demanded it the norm, for hundreds of years. By looking at, the Lottery and The Hunger Games, we can see the textual conversation about aimlessly following the government’s tradition of death and the danger of random persecution as tradition, which most readers don't see; this is important because the texts reiterate the themes in different methods, to convince the reader to not loose empathy and prevent history from repeating itself. 

When you grow up with a tradition, you cannot imagine life without it. When your family stays home in their pajamas all day for Christmas, you don’t question the tradition, because that’s the way it is and has always been. In the Lottery, when a man mentions that a town next door no longer conducts the lottery, a seventy seven year old man, Old Man Warner, says “Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves…There's always been a lottery” ( Jackson 4). This society associates the lack of the lottery system with chaos, anarchy and the olden days. This tradition has been around for so long, that there is no need to question anything you have done your whole life.  In the first novel of the Hunger Games series, the narrator describes the games origin for the punishment of 

“the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins” ( Collins 4).

The Capitol has held these games for seventy-four years to remind the districts how they rely on the power and mercy that the Capitol holds. The citizens of Panem accept their children’s random fates as tradition to keep the peace. 

In both societies, to keep everything fair, the one delegated to does a random drawing. In the Lottery, the man of each house hold must go and get a piece of paper from the bowl, the man with the black dot must place his whole family in their own lottery. Out of that particular family, one member randomly is drawn to die, no matter the age or gender. In this town, the citizens think of this has something that has to be done quickly so that people can get on with their day. There is no sympathy or pain, but solely rushed to be done so they can be on time for dinner. When Tessie Hutchinson is chosen from the lottery, she begins to argue saying how unfair it is. Her fellow neighbors and friends reply with “Come on everyone, hurry up. Grab that stone there” (Jackson 8).  In the mess of the tradition, the lottery causes its population to lose all sympathy for its fellow man, but more as something that just needs to be done. Worst of all, the person dies by the hand of their own family and village. In the Hunger Games, the citizens of Panem truly despise the tradition of the games, but merely go along with it to keep the peace. They mourn the sacrifice the children have made to keep the country safe from war and admire their bravery. Side by side, the two stories enhance each other, this creates a more in depth meaning to their own motifs of empathy. Two different realms with the same concept of death, but two different reactions. One society questions a rebellion and the other simply moves on with their day. The two authors share the same message of empathy through two different routes. 

In both short stories, the selected participants are chosen at random, by pulling a slip from a large pool of names. In The Hunger Games, children of certain age’s names are placed in multiply times based off of their place in society. The various categories can be their amount of siblings, if they are a major caregiver to the family or their role, their age, gender, wealth, and talents. These factors play a large role in the probability of who can picked, a name can be in the pool one time or, as the main character did, seventeen times. That chosen person is then thrown in an arena with twenty-three participants, to fight to the death, to show the district’s loyalty to the Capitol, through sacrifice. Due to this system, the main character’s little sister, Primrose, has her name in the pooling only once, and she is chosen. Now in the society of Panem, the citizens truly hate the tradition of the games, this distain for the tradition causes a large amount of sympathy for the person chosen, to where someone can volunteer to take their place. Katniss volunteers herself as tribute in place of her sister, through the love and sympathy. On the flip side, the Lottery’s participants are chosen by the head of each family picking one slip. Until one family head receives the paper with a black dot. The family that receives this places the whole family into the lottery, all members pull a slip until one receives the black dot slip to die at the hands of their family and friends. But in this society, they have no empathy. Before the participant can fathom their fate, the rocks are already being thrown so that the citizens can make it on time for dinner. Both of these texts show a major theme of the randomness of persecution. The major difference is how the government perceives the victims and the bystander’s opinions of them. In Panem, they care for the participants, mourn, and feel sorrow. In the Lottery, the citizens could care less who dies at their hand, solely because it is tradition, and that is the way it has always been done.

 In the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Elizabeth Dunn and Claire James claim that empathy is a choice. During their experiment, they discovered that their patients did not feel empathy when their time or money was being wasted. This concept is depicted in the Lottery when the citizens are eager to get the ceremony over with to go eat dinner and get ready for bed. On the flip side, they also discovered that sympathy increases when there is a moral purpose to their sacrifice. This is illustrated in The Hunger Games, when the tributes die in honor and survival for the districts (Dunn and Claire 2-5). In 2011, Daryl Cameron and Keith Payne conducted an experiment to see how the everyday person’s sympathies lie. The two discovered that “as the number of people in need of help decreases, the degree of compassion people feel for them ironically tends to decrease. This phenomenon is termed the collapse of compassion” (Cameron and Payne 1). In their experiment, they discovered that the average person’s sympathies increased for the increased amount of people in harm. If one person dies in car accident, does that mean that the five thousand that died in a hurricane deserve more sympathy? This theory is demonstrated in both short stories. The citizens of Panem ooze sympathy for the twenty-four children fighting to the bloody death in an arena. But the Lottery citizens kill their one victim without hesitation, and do not mourn the loss for their neighbor, friend, mother, or wife. 

By looking at, The Hunger Games and the Lottery, the reader can see the textual conversation about the danger of random persecution as tradition and blindly following the government’s tradition of death. This is essential because the authors from different generations are trying to get the same message across. These themes can be applied to modern day society because our sympathies have been misplaced. Today, majority of humanity suffers from apathy for its fellow man in pain. We walk right past them every day without a glimmer of guilt, shame, or remorse. These short stories have different plot themes and endings, but share the same moral theme of sympathy as a reminder to the reader to not lose it. They have two radically different formats, but the two texts also complement each other in the concept of blindly following the crowd. These authors leave the reader with the haunting questions of self-reflection. Do I also follow the crowd? Do I lack sympathy for my fellow man? Ultimately, why do two authors from two different eras discuss this very same issue? Mankind has showed us again and again that history repeats itself, that we do not learn from our elder’s mistakes. Over and over again, different generations have to be reminded of these themes, because humanity has not changed.  
