The Lottery

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" concerns itself with the concept that it can be acceptable to require the individual to sacrifice for the greater good. The townspeople in "The Lottery" believe that they need to sacrifice one random person per year in order to grow good crops. This is evidenced when Old Man Warner reminds Mr. Adams of the saying "Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon." Whether this sacrifice was necessary or not, I will never know. However, there is one sacrifice that people make almost daily that could be argued as very necessary, depending on who you are. A sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly are both necessary in the game of baseball. Obviously, the game is not as serious as a stoning, but a player still must sacrifice him or herself as an out in order to get a runner in scoring position.