The Most Dangerous Game and The Lottery - Literary Essay Sample

Most individuals have come up with means that can help them keep their minds busy even when they are idle. By doing so, they have created other activities, completely different from work, but also very engaging. For an extended period, people have taken games to be a very important piece of their lives. In fact, many researchers believe in the fact that playing helps in the body development and general fitness. It is for this reason that nowadays almost every school has a slot for physical education where the children can play and stay fit. A few authors over time have been able to come up with a lot of creative pieces that bring out the importance of the games. However, bearing the fact that many people derive different pleasures from different things, some of these authors could come up with stories about other diverse games that at the time, were pretty much popular among their peers. For these authors to earn from their writing, they had to employ a lot of creativity that would be fully functional with what many people would buy and then creatively put all this into a book or novel. It is because of this demand for something they like that a few authors such as Richard Connell and Shirley Jackson came up with creative writings, "The Most Dangerous Game" and "The Lottery." Although these books are anciently dated, they still could express the zeal of the people and show how various escapades was fun.

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In the book, "The Most Dangerous Game," the author uses a lot of creativity to swirl along and find himself at the peak of the reader's expectations. His story highlights a big game hunter from New York who somehow miraculously falls of a yacht in the Caribbean islands. This comes just as this hunter sets sail to go on a hunting spree for a jaguar in the Amazon. When he loses his pipe to the water as he tries to get a better view of the gunshot sounds, he ends up falling overboard. Realizing that no one can help him out, he swims to a famous shipwreck island where he meets with another big game hunter who is surviving in a pretty much luxurious way. When they get talking, the main character, Rainsford, gets to find out that the other guy for fun was trapping most ships. Once the sailors get captured, they are given enough supplies and then set off on the island. This is where he starts playing by engaging in a search for them. If he does not find a sailor by the third day, the sailor is set free. This is what ends up happening to Rainsford. However, for him, the hu8nter decides to play games with him even though he is aware of his whereabouts. Rainsford, however, keeps on being creative by making traps that end up reducing the manpower that the hunter has. When the search gets too close to him, Rainsford goes ahead and throws himself over a cliff. Sad at the loss of his manpower and his inability to capture Rainsford, the hunter goes back to his shelter a dejected man. However, when he locks himself in his room, Rainsford reappears. He had swum and gotten back to camp to evade the hunter's dogs. Rainsford then challenges him to a duel where the winner would be allowed to occupy the hunter's bed while the loser would get fed to the dogs. In as much as the duel is not covered, it gets deciphered that Rainsford says he had never slept in a better bed. This gives an impression that he won the duel.

The other book, "The Lottery" brings out a situation whereby a particular community is used to a particular annual event that none of them likes to get left out. In a small town, the locals are completely anxious over their annual ritual that is well known as "the lottery." Everyone is busy preparing for the event where children are seen collecting stones while the adults slowly get to the square. This event is usually carried out so that they can be able to have a good harvest. Being a practice carried out from time to time, some of the people in the north are pulling out of the same.(Jewel, 1982) This goes around to the people who have been hearing stories of the withdrawal. For the event, a lot of effort gets put into use. The story even brings out the situation where ballot boxes with the resident's names are made ready and stored safely. When the main day comes, they all gather around early enough so that by noon, they can get done with this. In an orderly form, the slips in the ballot boxes are handed out by the heads of the extended families. The family that picks the slip with the black spot is the one that ends up being the chosen one. This goes on for several rounds within the family that have picked the winning slip. Once the last winner gets chosen, the other slips are let loose to sway with the wind as the chosen one is placed in a strategic position as the locals pick stones and stone her to death. (Shirley, 1948)

Therefore, from the two stories expounded in the article, it is indeed clear that many people tend to hold some practices very dear to them. In fact, with the way these characters have been able to make use of their situations perfectly well to bring in another phase of creativity, it is still very much important to note that with these activities, most of the characters were holding them dear to them. For instance, with the dangerous game, the hunter felt attached to the chase. For him, his pleasure got derived from making the sailors work well trying to hide them finding them in the long run. However, when Rainsford challenged him, the feeling grew more. He even felt the need to find him increase. With the lottery, the locals had a particular affiliation to their practices where they stuck to what they had been doing even though many had started pulling out. This means that these people had a lot of importance with their practices.

Work Cited

Jewel, R. (1982) "The RKO Story. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House. ISBN 0-517-54656-6

Shirley, J (1948). "The Lottery." The New Yorker. Retrieved 2008.