Stefano MartinezProf. Amber WolakEnglish 1B13 March 2014Prompt #7It is known that many literary works have words that surround a certain topic such as gender, politics, and experiences. But some works enter a more personal level such as religion. Shirley Jackson's “The Lottery” and Salman Rushdie's “Imagine There's No Heaven” talk about the strength of the relationship between individuality and religion. These two authors wrote their stories based on how an individual's life, choices, and beliefs can or may be altered by the religion around them. As you read these stories, you might notice that they have a lot in common, but there are many differences as to what the stories are actually about. These two authors expressed the relationship between individuals and religion through similarities, differences and resolutions. Like many literary works, there may be traces of similar attributes that can be compared to other people's work. In “The Lottery” and “Imagine There's No Heaven,” both spoke of a similarity in the relationship between individuals and religion. In “The Lottery,” Shirley Jackson is about a small, peaceful community that goes about their day like normal people. But it's not normal. They have a certain “religion” where every year they participate in what is called “the lottery”. They ask everyone to take a slip of paper from a black box and whoever receives the slip of paper with the black spot is stoned to death or "sacrificed" to the Gods to give them a good harvest for the next year. In "Imagine There's No Heaven," a man writes a letter to the six billionth person to be born about how the w...... middle of paper ...... in life. Express your freedom. In conclusion, these two short stories written by Shirley Jackson and Salman Rushdie expressed the idea of ​​how rebellion and conformity influenced the relationship between religion and individuals through the characters who expressed their feelings towards things that did not seem to go well in the their company. Through the similarities, differences, and solutions that these two stories share, the real message can only be summed up in one way: Don't be afraid to express your true feelings and don't let things like religion take over your entire life. life. Things like spiritual guidance can really impact an individual's behavior and some of their lives, as we saw in Jackson's “The Lottery.” Through these stories we now know that the relationship between religion and individuals can in some cases be very strong.