Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and Flannery O'Connnors "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" are stories that deal with mans inhumanity to man by illastrating different situation, but lead to the same conclusion and with no thought of the consequences. Jackson and O'Connor use central characters to show how man has the power to distort reality into something the people accept into everyday life. Jackson uses tradition in "The Lottery" when she uses Mr. Summers as the announcer of the lottery every year. Mr. Summers was a person who believed in the lottery and never thought of ending this tradition. Every year Mr. Summers spoke about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. When the people were asked to get in like to pick a paper, they had done it so many times, " they half listened to the directions," (Jackson 235). For generations the lottery was always performed on the twenty-seventh of June, but the orginal box was lost, the rituals were forgotten, but the villagers did remember to use stones. Tradition in "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" O'Connor goes a different path of traditon but lead to same consequences. The Misfit like Mr. Summers is messanger of death, but for different reasons. Like the people of "The Lottery" the family in "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" both have a destination and a purpose and that is to meet their maker. The person in "The Lottery" is killed for being unlucky, and in "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" the Misfit was inprisoned for a reason he does not remember. It was in the best way to keep up his reputation as a killer, to go ahead and kill the entire family, and in this way in his mind he is saving them from sinning again. These stories were of manupalation of the mind. Jackson used two main characters to make the people go along and continue the lottery. The people of the village had been so brainwashed by Mr.
