Conformity, perhaps the most cumbersome of all social pressures, appears many times throughout Literature. For instance, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” the element of conformity appears, as an excuse for the main character to engage in conduct that he realizes is wrong. In Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” conformity appears in a very different aspect. In this story, we venture into a seemingly average village to learn how the pressure to conform can …showed first 75 words of 827 total…

…showed last 75 words of 827 total…never be afraid to do what we know is right, no matter how much adversity we face. I think that Nathaniel Hawthorne, Shirley Jackson, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman would all have us see the power that conformity can impose upon our lives and have us realize that conformity is not an excuse for cowardice. In the end, we are all responsible for our own actions regardless of the support, or even the participation of others.