Logical Fallacies in an excerpt from “The Lottery”

“They do say,” Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, “that over in the north village they’re talking of giving up the lottery.”

                Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Use to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody.”

                “Some places have already quit lotteries,” Mrs. Adams said.

                “Nothing but trouble in that,” Old Man Warner said stoutly. “Pack of young fools.”

Freud’s Influence on “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

        Sigmund Freud’s theories on sexual repression are quite prevalent in “A Rose for Emily”. Emily has been raised her entire life by a controlling, overprotective father who never let her pursue any suitors, running them off every time they came around to call on Miss Emily (151).  Her father has denied her of any normal interactions with the opposite sex, and as Freud theorizes, repression, especially sexual repression, can lead to mental illness or neurosis. Her actions after her father passes away, which the townspeople are hesitant to call “crazy” (151), are actually symptoms of her neurosis. Neurosis, according to Freud, is caused by two factors: 1) sexual repression and 2) childhood trauma (especially sexual abuse). This leads to the interpretation that her father had not only repressed her sexual growth, but sexually abused her. The townspeople claim “she would have to cling to that which had robbed her” (151), they were right; she clung to the man who robbed her of ever having a normal, functional sexual relationship for the rest of her life.