Amy & David Character Analysis

As people get older some change and some stay the same. In "And Summer Is Gone", a short story by Susie Kretschmer, David and Amy have been friends since David moved to her town when he was 12. They are very different. David is calm, introvert, artistic and slightly mundane and she is shallow, insecure, popular,and easily subject to peer pressure. Throughout the story David stays the same, yet the only quality about Amy that stays the same is popular.

At the age of 12 David enjoys painting and continues to do so throughout the years. He won the local art exhibit "for the second year in a row" (20). Throughout school he excels in academics and plans a future by "dreaming of college" (19). He remains secluded and does his own thing, which makes him happy. This boy is a loner but he doesn't mind because he makes friends when he wants to, such as the guys from his swim team he'd "met freshman year" (19).As a child David paints about Aztecs and Mayans; he still does this, and he wins art exhibitions with the paintings. David is a calm person and doesn't let things get to him. When Amy leaves he says "I cried within" (27) and he met her eyes with a "level calm stare" (23).

When Amy was 12 she's outgoing, smart, and adventurous. Now she has conformed to the popular group. She continued to make friends and "in August she went away to camp" (15). Whereas David doesn't date she would "date 10 guys a month" (20). She unhesitatingly will do things to fit in. When at the art exhibition with her friends she willfully chimes in by saying "yeah, I know" (26) after her friends bash the art piece David had painted. Amy's grades slip, she used to get A's but now "she [is] getting B's and C's" (18).

Amy has always been popular and always will be, but everything else about her has changed. The child she was is now gone. David has been artistic and true to himself and always will be "for [he] has kept who [he] is." (27). There are people who will change and people who will stay the same and true to themselves, some people can stay friends through this and some people cannot. Sadly for David and Amy this is the case.

The Lottery Literary Essay

Traditions are often continued without reason or thought; it's irrational. In "The Lottery", a short story by Shirley Jackson, there is a town who perfectly depicts that. Year after year the town's people hold a lottery where they draw to find out which household wins the honour of being stoned to death. They then select a member from that household and stone them without thinking anything of it; the entire town takes part including the children. Pieces of the story prove that the tradition will continue for some time, although it will eventually fade.

There is evidence that it will continue to occur for a few years after. The biggest piece of proof is that the town just does this over and over without thinking much of it. They even plan the event so that the people can "get home for noon dinner" (147). The people clearly don't believe that it is a horrible act, for even the children are "stuff[ing] their pockets full of stones" (147). Further more, people continue the tradition blindly. They have lost knowledge of when and why it started. They have even lost much of the original paraphernalia.

Clearly the tradition will continue, but it will eventually come to an end. In previous lotteries people just owned up to it and were stoned; now Tessie claims that Bill didn't get enough "time to choose the paper he wanted" (154). The people speak of other towns that have "already quit lotteries" (152). The lotteries are now more tense and edgy, whereas they used to be...honourable, more or less.


For now the lottery will continue, although in later days this tradition will cease to exist. The duration of time the lottery will continue to be held is entirely up to the people holding it. Perhaps it will stop in 2 years, maybe 15, maybe 100. But it will eventually end.