Analysis the Revelation, The Lottery, Harrison Bergeron, and Cathedral.
Harrison Bergeron, Revelation, The Lottery, and Cathedral all are allegories. They all use the literary elements of theme, irony, humor, and satire to show the reader the allegory. All these stories have similarities and differences.
Harrison Bergeron and Revelation share similar themes because they both deal with equality. The difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome is the theme in Harrison Bergeron. In the story all the characters are equal. Everything they do has an equal result (216). We are all equal in Gods eyes is the theme in Revelation (392). It does not matter what your social status is in this life because in the next life we all go to the same place. The main character in Revelation is also very prejudice. Cathedral is similar to Revelation because the theme also has to do with prejudice. In Cathedral the theme is art can be insight. The narrator in Cathedral is able gain insight into his own, and Roberts life through drawing a cathedral together (103).
Harrison Bergeron and Revelation also share similar irony. Both use irony in a humorous way to make the characters situations seem less bleak. While The Lottery and Cathedral use irony to emphasis the allegory in Harrison Bergeron, it is funny and ironic that George says he does not want to lighten the weight he wears because then everyone
would start cheating, and they would all go back to the dark ages. In Revelation the book the girl is reading and later throws at Mrs. Turpin is called human development. It is funny that she is hit with a book called human development because Mrs. Turpin thinks she is more developed then other people. In The Lottery the people stone the woman to death as if it is no big deal. The people act like stoning someone to death is something that happens every day. In Cathedral the narrator feels sorry for the blind mans wife because she could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one (96). It is the narrator that cannot understand his own wife not the blind man Robert. In the story he even says he does not understand his wifes poems.
All of the stories are satirizing the thing for which they are an allegory. Harrison Bergeron stands for capitalism versus socialism. If America becomes socialist peoples results will be the same. Society will be downgraded. Revelation stands for the Southern United States in which the social, racial, and religious status quo that had existed since before the Civil War was coming to a violent end (369). The Lottery stands for how desensitized to violence America has become. The characters dont seem to care that they kill a woman for no reason. Cathedral stands for a transitional moment in Carver's career (Henningfeld)
All the stories have similarities and differences. How the elements of theme, irony, humor, and satire are used show the reader the allegory.
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