The lottery and hunters in the snow: theme of human abuse

Hunters in the Snow and the Lottery both deal with a theme of how cruel you can be to another human being, or oneself. Though they differ through how characters and settings express three types of abuse; verbally, psychological, or emotional and physically.

In Hunters in the Snow verbal abuse is seen between Frank, Tub, and Kenny. This abuse most of the time is just Frank and Kenny taking turns talking smack about Tub. Tub takes the abuse because he has the least will power to fight back. This abuse to Tub via Kenny and Frank could be seen as either a way demotes Tubs self esteem, and see who can dish out the most pain. For example, when they are on the hunting trip and it’s about lunch time Kenny says to Tub, in response to Tub eating only a hardboiled egg and a piece of celery, “ You still on that diet…It’s the first diet I ever heard where you gain weight from it(pg. 154)”. Then frank adds “ you haven’t seen your own balls in ten years”. Tub takes these comments very personally and tries to explain it’s not him it’s his gland condition. Another example of verbal abuse to tub is after the hunting accident and they reach the tavern and Frank learns that he was lied to about Tubs glands and told the truth “ I just shove it in (pg. 164)”. Frank then encourages Tub to eat more pancakes by saying things like “ Weigh in, Tub”, “ get down to business” and almost sarcastically says “ are you full?” Frank does this to abuse Tub both verbally and to encourage Tub’s psychological problems of his double life.

Tubs double life is just one example of how psychological you can abuse yourself. Tub basically promised to be healthier, but instead he got into a mindset that junk foods like twinkles and Oreos were more what he wanted to be, fat. This is shown when Tub says “ I never got any big kick out of being thin, but the lying (pg. 161)”. This lying was to manipulate the reality of the situation to Alice to believe he was being healthy by making a big deal of like only having an orange for breakfast, but snacking the rest of the way to work. This is not the only psychological point to the story it is the incident with Frank and the baby sitter that Kenny knows about. Kenny threatens Frank with this incident to control the situation. For example, when Frank said to Kenny “ You talk too much”, after a brief argument with Tub, Kenny said “ I won’t say a word. Like I won’t say anything about a certain babysitter” (pg. 153). Kenny says this because he knows Frank is thinking about leaving his Nancy and doesn’t want anyone else to know. This plays out in the story to the point where Tub just gets curious of the incident, and Frank eventually reveals his intentions with the fifteen almost sixteen year old girl to Tub. Frank from psychological point thinking about such a young girl, Frank is potentially going to sexually abuse this girl. This is inferred from the fact according to frank “ this so called fifteen year old girl has more in her little finger than most of us in our entire bodies” and that “ she’s opened up entire worlds to me that I’ve never seen (pg. 160)”. If he were to leave Nancy he even though “ She’s been dammed good to me all these years(pg. 160)” Frank would have to overcome the emotions either choice he makes and merge it into one reality instead of almost leading a double life and tell both of them the truth how he feels about the other.

Feelings and dealing with emotions are one thing, but being physically abused like being shot, threatened, or saying something the wrong way at the wrong time can lead to disasters. For example, when Tub shot Kenny because he thought he was going to get killed because Tub took Kenny’s actions of shooting things and the words “ I Hate this post”, “ I hate this tree” “ I hate this dog”, “ I hate you (pg. 156)” seriously because three out of the four he shot before he got shot. Another example of physical abuse happened when Tub and Frank put Kenny on a board to try and place him in the truck. Tub ended up dropping him because he slipped and Frank said “ you fat moron…you aren’t good for diddly (pg. 158)”. Tub Snapped at this and grabbed Frank and backed him hard against the wall and told him to lay off his fat condition.

In comparison to Hunters in the Snow the lottery shows verbal abuse more seriously, but there is also less talking.

Then in comparison via psychological abuse The Lottery shows us it is a very stressful and emotional experience to go through the lottery. Everyone is up for execution and everyone both doesn’t want to die, but also doesn’t want certain other people to die. An example of this stress when Mr. Summers “ holding his slip in the air, said, all right fellows” and “ for a minute, no one moved, and then, all slips of paper were opened(pg. 121)”. At this moment several people were relieved they weren’t the one, but at the same time were wondering who it is. The result was it ended up being Bill Hutchinson. This result only was for his household, so he, his wife and three kids had to draw again to see who would be the victim. The result was stressful yet again because “ the crowed was quiet and a girl whispered I hope it’s not Nancy, and the sound of the whisper reached the edge of the crowed (pg. 122)”. As they all waited to see one by one they opened their papers the kids were safe, bill was too, but Tessie would be the next to be stoned.

Though the lottery is stressful for the town the person who gets stoned is the one who is physically abused by a long time ritual the town has been having. This ritual was to ensure a good harvest but at the cost of a life, in which “ All of us took the same chance (pg. 121)”. This chance had one overall winner, or loser, Tessie Hutchinson. She was shown the winner when “ Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the paper out of her hand (pg. 123)” and showing its black mark.

In conclusion The Lottery and Hunters in the Snow both deal with human abuse via psychologically, physicality, and of the verbally kind. The characters and sometimes settings played a role at how they were shown.