"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins and the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson both illustrate the dangers of blindly following rituals, practices and traditions. The stories involve the use of an institutionalized design system, used to blindly choose a sacrifice for their respective societies. “The Hunger Games” uses a system called “the reaping,” which is used to select two teenagers to participate in a death-defying gladiatorial battle. Similarly, in “The Lottery,” the lottery system allows a town to locate a sacrifice who is subsequently stoned to death. Both systems use a combination of humor and dialogue, references to pre-order chaos, and the characterization of authority figures to portray the results of communities mindlessly submitting to the practices of tradition. The result of these systems is that individual members of that community are forced to bear the consequences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In both narratives, societies treat the lottery and the harvest with an attitude of deference and veiled apprehension. The atmosphere surrounding these events demonstrates the communities' feeling of anxiety about the ceremonies, despite their apparent reluctance to change them. In each story, the writers create an eerie mood through the characters' behavior and dialogue. The characters joke before the events, but gradually become more solemn as the drawings get closer. In "The Hunger Games", Gale and Katniss laugh as they imitate the ceremony and its leader Effie Trinket. However, Katniss notes that they only joke "because the alternative is being scared to death" (6). As a result, the citizens of "The Lottery" smile and make small talk, "talking about plantations and rain" (1). . This nervous attitude becomes more and more solemn as the ceremonies approach, and is intended to serve as a veil for the feelings of fear towards what the harvest and the lottery represent, the idea of ​​imminent sacrifice and death for the selected people. In both stories, the characters' reactions towards the formalities of the services indicate that they are overly familiar with the rituals of the traditions. In “The Lottery”, the citizens become complacent while reading the directions, “they have done it so many times that they have only half listened” (3). Repeating this ensures that they have internalized its rituals. In "The Hunger Games", the mayor also reads "the same story every year" during the harvest, and all members of the community are familiar with the history of the Games and the backstory, as well as the rituals of the ceremony itself. In the stories, the characters all share a similar feeling of terror towards the rituals, but the events are so institutionalized that no one attempts to question them. In each story, authority figures use references to past chaos to highlight why rituals are important for maintaining order. and prevent relapse. Old Man Weaver serves as a figure for the citizens in “The Lottery,” and notes that if institutions like the lottery were not in place, they might return to an uncivilized lifestyle and go back to “living in caves” (4). His justification is that "there has always been a lottery", and he relies solely on the importance of tradition to support his claims (4). Similarly, in “The Hunger Games,” the mayor alludes to the “Dark Days” and the disorder of the riots before the implementation of the Hunger Games (16). References to past chaos serve to highlight how authority figures use the.