Sophie Hathaway

Humanities AB Best 10/15/13 Compare/contrast

Thesis: The active Hancock shaker village and the lottery community portrayed by Shirley jackson are both tight knit communities in which tradition and beliefs are valued: while these communities look similar on the outside, the attitudes toward children and the values of equality can alter and profoundly change the experience for those living in each of these communities inside.

Child raising practices:

-school, work, family, beliefs (how the beliefs of the community is pedagogically conveyed to the children) A. The Hancock Shakers 1. The children in the shaker community all went to school at least three months out of the year, and received an equal amount of education and treatment by the teachers. it did not matter if you were a young girl or boy everyone was required to get a bit of education until their sixteenth birthday. 2. Everyone in the Hancock Shaker community was given a job and expected to share and bear the work load, everyone was considered apart of the community, so working to sustain the community was required. The children were given individual jobs and trained how to do them when they became a bit older then ten.

B. The Lottery community portrayed by Shirley jackson 1. The children in the lottery community went to school just like the Shaker

community except they went for more then three months. The children were put in school by their parents and probably required to stay in school by the town ofcials, like Mr. graves or Mr.summers, because they did not want uneducated people in the town.

2. Everyone in the lottery community has a job, after all they are a self sustaining

community and in every community there are jobs to be done. The children don't have assigned jobs but their parents probably have them help with harvest season and cleaning around the house, jobs a lot like what the children would d in the shaker community. The difference in child raising practices within these two communities is the parenting factor, in the Hancock Shaker community the children are raised by their brothers and sisters also known as the fellow members of the community, and the children are taught about the religion and beliefs by the eldereses and elders of the community. In the lottery village the children are raised by their parents and taught about the lottery and the customs and beliefs that are within the community by their family not by the community.

Equality: -men and women, work,

A. The Hancock Shaker community

1. In the Shaker community one of there core beliefs is equality, whether in men and women, in work or in architecture. In the shaker community men and women are equal so one isn't better than the other, and one doesn't have priority over the other.

2. In work men work in the elds and the women work in kitchen but they work for the same time, and the work they do is valued equally, so if a man was to spend a whole day in the elds and a women in the kitchen ones work wouldn't be valued more then the other.

B. The lottery community portrayed by Shirley Jackson 1.In the lottery village there seems to an absence of equality because the men are considered the heads of family, and in the lottery they have the whole family draw if the man gets the black dot, almost as if to have the family killed before the man. The women are always behind the men, literally and guratively they are always second best. 2. The jobs are very gender segregated in the lottery village, the women wash the dishes and make the house and the men work in the elds and outside. The children are taught according their gender, so girls go with the women and learn how to be a good wife and the boys go with the men and learn how to self sustain and full the lottery duties.

These communities both have very different views on equality, in the shaker village everyone is equal and there is no recognised difference between man and women, but in the lottery village women are less then men, and there is a customary and recognised

difference between them. That difference between the man and women in the lottery village really sets the two communities apart, and changes the experience for the residents living in both of these communities.

In conclusion these are two very different communities are very different in core beliefs and all around outlook on how ones life should be lived. The shakers are a caring equal community that plants the seed of kindness and being friendly and simple, but the lottery community is broken and split, there is no equality and they plant the seed of submittance and fear. The lottery community does not value women or they're work a tiny bit and they would rather have them die for the good of their husband then lead or be respected like in the Shaker community. In the Shaker community they respect and value everyone and want equality and education for all. So in conclusion the Shakers and Shirley Jackson's the lottery community are very different and the all around experience for those inside is greatly affected.