"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson is a classic example of the senselessness of following tradition simply because "it's the way it's always been done." It also asks readers to consider the "groupthink" phenomenon, which is a psychological event when a group of people reach a consensus without critical reasoning or evaluation of the consequences or alternatives.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is eerily similar to "The Lottery." The plot of the novel centers on a dystopian future society in which books are criminalized and the "firemen" are tasked with burning any literature they find. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who at first staunchly believes in the righteousness of his job, but then begins to realize that censoring information results in the intellectual vacuity and overall decline of humanity. With the help of a former English professor, Montag connects with the exiles of society, people who...
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have memorized entire books so that if and when society is born anew, they can pass on the literature that has been destroyed. When war breaks out, Montag and his newfound friends survive a nuclear bombing and return to the demolished city to begin rebuilding it as a place that loves and embraces books. As in "The Lottery," the people inFahrenheit 451 believe that books are dangerous simply because it's what they've always been told and don't question its truth. An important difference, however, is that the villagers in "The Lottery" perpetuate their tradition, killing Mrs. Hutchinson, while Guy Montag survives his society's reckoning and the book ends with the hope that the rebuilt city will have no vestige of its censoring of knowledge.
Much WWII literature is also similar to "The Lottery." As Hitler steadily gains power and indoctrinates people with the idea that the Aryan "race" is superior and that other groups of people must be exterminated, he sparks the fire for the "groupthink" that will eventually erupt into WWII and the Holocaust. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, the character of Werner in All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and Maus by Art Spiegelman are all books that reckon with the Holocaust and the dangers of conformity.