The Nature of Evil

In the past, and even in today’s world, evil is associated with the unknown. People don’t like change and therefore any fluctuations from whatever society deems ‘the norm’ are considered different and therefore evil.
We can see examples of this in Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Evil is interpreted as a deviation from the norm in this story because the town is extremely adamant about keeping up their ancient traditions. One such tradition is the annual stoning of a member of the community. Obviously this is a horrible, cruel and undeserving murder. However, when faced with the prospect of changing their ways, the towns’ people refuse to even consider the idea. A town’s man named Mr. Adams remarks to his friend, Old Man Warner, that the northern village has begun to cease the mindless murders. To this statement Old Man Warner replies, “Nothing but trouble in that,” and calls the northern villagers a, “Pack of young fools.” From this line we can see that the majority of the town considers change to be foolish, and to some extent, even evil.
Evil is interpreted as a deviation from the norm in the short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” too. In this story we are presented with a family that consists of three young children, a husband and wife, and a grandmother. The two older children are bratty and disrespectful, the husband does not honor the wishes of his mother, nor does he respect her opinion, and the wife is ghost-like in the fact that she hardly speaks at all. In an ideal society children should be well-behaved and elders are respected and defended. Because of this family’s ill-tempered mannerisms they suffer cruel deaths at the hands of a criminal, named the ‘Misfit.’ The Misfit does not fit into society’s mold either, since he is a law-breaking scoundrel. The only one through-out the entire story that fits society’s norms, and is therefore not portrayed as evil, is the grandmother. If the family had listened to the grandmother’s warnings in the first place, like a good family in society would have, they would have been able to avoid their untimely deaths. Unfortunately in this story evil prevails in the fact that the family doesn’t conform to a more socially acceptable manner.
I also saw evil in both of these stories when it was stated that children are not exempt from the murderous rages of evil people. In "The Lottery" Mrs. Hutchinson was the unlucky soul who was selected, at random, to be stoned. However, it could have just as easily been one of her three young children who selected the 'short stick.' I don't think it would have mattered to the town's people if a child had been selected. They still would have stoned them to death. In "A Good Man is Hard to Find," we also see children being subjected to harm. The Misfit has no problem shooting the two young children and the baby to death. He also murders the wife. Although it is unacceptable to murder anyone, murdering women and children are absolutely outrageous.