Essay #2

For the short fiction essay I am pretty sure I'm going to answer prompt #1, "Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' and Franz Kafka's 'In the Penal Colony' both deal with a gruesome tradition that is seemingly unnecessary and unjustifiable. Compare these two traditions, paying particular attention to the language and imagery used to describe each." Although I haven't read "In the Penal Colony" I think it will be easiest to compare the stories using language and imagery better than I could compare stories using the other elements of short fiction. Because I haven't read the second story I don't have an argument yet, but it will be something about how both stories use imagery to describe traditions that are outdated. I'll also probably go into the idea of continuing things that are unnecessary just because they are tradition.