We see this all over the world in different countries: ethnic and cultural groups, and religions. People blindly follow tradition and this is shown in two short stories: “The Lottery” and “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” Both stories contain characters that never question tradition until something really bad happens around them or to them. As seen in these short stories and in the real world traditions hold much power over people, enough power to make people not think twice before acting even if they know the consequences aren’t good. In both stories, they begin in places that open up as “peaceful towns or villages” where nothing bad ever happens. The people are also carefree and never worry what the next day has in store. But as each story progresses the towns start to show their true colors and certain crises emerge. In “The Lottery” people end up getting stoned once a year and in “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” a little boy is held in a basement for his whole life to suffer until he dies. In both stories no one ever questions why these things happen; they just allow them to happen. For example in “The Lottery” Old Man Warner states after Mr. Adams remark about the north village giving up the lottery, “Pack of crazy foolsListening to young folks they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves there’s always been a lottery.”(Jackson, 266). This shows that even though other people are figuring out that the tradition is bad older people tend to not tamper with it because they don’t believe that changing tradition is good. Old Man Warner also says, “Used to be a saying about, ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’” This implies that if they break tradition they won’t have food to eat come harvest time. Throughout the lottery tradition is considered very important and changing could definitely have negative effects. Similar problems occur in “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas.”