The two stories "The Tempest" and "The Lottery" both do a great job of highlighting the human nature of desperation. Although they show different forms of desperation, it is a clear theme for both of them. In “The Storm” Kate Chopin writes about the human need for comfort. While the storm rages outside, the housewife Calixta is very worried about her husband and her son. Calixta is so worried that she needs comfort, she gets comfort from the closest person willing to comfort her. That happens to be the guy she's had past relationships with. Calixta is so desperate for comfort that she runs to Alcee and for a moment her feelings for him return. If the story ended right there, it wouldn't show the full extent of the desperation. When the storm passes and the family returns together Chopin writes "So the storm passes and everyone was happy" (paragraph 40). Shirley Jackson writes about the same theme just in a different sense. “The Lottery” has two types of desperation, one is how desperate the townspeople are for their crops. the inhabitants of the town questioned the tradition, probably since the beginning of the Lottery. The people of the town knew that it worked somehow, so they kept it up. The people of the town knew they needed the crops to live and continue to prosper, but at the same time they had always been taught that the Lottery was the way things were done. The second sense of desperation comes from the fact that people knew the lottery was wrong. Those who understood it were too desperate to adapt. They realized that going against tradition would have consequences