Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and Ursula Le Guin's Those Who Walk Away from Omelas have long been considered some of the greatest short stories of the twentieth century. For many years they have been compared and contrasted due to the presence of a great common theme: happiness in a community due to a single scapegoat, be it the same person or a different one from time to time. Even if we can look at the main idea of ​​the story and simply say that both Jackson and Le Guin are giving us the same main message, the authors' approach to scapegoating thinking, the reactions of the fictional populations, and the conclusion we should identify in each story are quite distinct. These are the aspects I will analyze. To begin with, we must immediately realize that these are actually two different stories. However similar the main ideas are, we must take other elements into account. After a quick read of both stories, an idea immediately comes to mind: how do people react to these atrocities, or even how do they react as a whole? I am speaking, obviously, of guilt or, to a certain extent, responsibility. It is not difficult to see that in the case of nameless villagers practicing lottery, guilt is very rare, but not entirely non-existent. One of the instances where we realize that some of the villagers might be having second thoughts about the lottery is a few hours before the drawing, when Mr. Adams tells old Warner "that in the village to the north they are talking about giving up the lottery" (Jackson 3). But we are immediately slapped by the old man, who assures us that the lottery is the only civilized way to proceed since it has always been... half paper... to do let's think about our daily activities, if we enjoy some things at the expense of others. We need look no further than our clothes which may be made in countries where workers are paid 50 cents an hour to produce clothes sold for $80, or African cities which are being destroyed and the population exploited. to extract diamonds or gold that our fellow citizens happily attach to their necks and wrists. We cannot leave, however; we cannot escape them like the people of Omelas. It is the same situation everywhere in the world. Works Cited Jackson, Shirley. “The Lottery”. The New Yorker June 26, 1948. Le Guin, Ursula. "Those who turn away from Omelas." The Twelve Quarters of the Wind: Short Stories. 1st ed. Somewhere: Harper & Row, 1975. Quotes by Vladimir Lenin. April 30th 2010.