What is fairness?  Fairness is but a society based opinion.  What seems fair to one society may not seem fair to another.  Also, different people have different ideas of fairness.  Two stories that give excellent examples of what is and isn’t fair are, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson and The Lady, or the Tiger by Frank R. Stockton.  These two stories show a sociological view of fairness.

            In the story The Lottery, people perform a ritualistic killing to ensure that the corn crop grows properly.  The male head of each household draws, then the head of each family within that household.  Finally, when the lottery is narrowed down to a family, each member of the family draws their piece of paper.  This seems fair to the community because a person is chosen at random by them and not chosen by other members of the community.  When Mrs. Hutchinson draws her piece of paper, she sees the ideas as unfair.  She didn’t really seal her entire fate alone, her husband drew the piece of paper for her family and then she drew for herself. 

            In The Lady or the Tiger a trial is held in the King’s Arena.  The accused is sent to arena and made to choose between two doors.  One of these doors holds a fair maiden and the other, a ferocious tiger.  The wrong doer is faced with this decision as an entertaining and ‘fair’ way to determine guilt or innocence; the accused is said to determine their own fate based on guilt level.  This may seem fair to the public because the accused isn’t being judged by a bias party and the sentencing immediately follows the verdict, but the accused may hold a different idea of fairness in this case.  It is by chance that the accused is found guilty or not guilty and not on the reasons of fact and situation.

            “Fair is fair and just is just.”  If this is true, you must wonder:  How do we know what’s fair and just if it is so changing.  That is the whole point of both The Lottery and The Lady or the Tiger.  Fairness isn’t always as fair as it seems.