The effort to survive and see another day has been a problem since the first humans walked the Earth. There are many obstacles that make daily life a difficult struggle and many reasons why some fail to meet the expectations of that struggle. Some of the reasons why people fail to thrive in life are vividly described in the three short stories "The Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benét, "How to Light a Fire" by Jack London and "The Lottery » by Shirley Jackson. The author of each story cleverly leaves clues in the text as to why the characters and civilizations are heading toward their doom. Their flaws that led to their fate lie in their knowledge of hatred, ignorance, and tradition. To begin with, “The Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benét expresses the fall of a civilization rather than a person. The story is about a boy who goes to New York after the nuclear war and sees the aftermath of the Great Fire, which refers to a nuclear bomb or missile. Benét writes: “It was fire falling from the sky and a poisonous mist” (116). The author is trying to imply that a bomb has been dropped. To build a doomsday bomb requires knowledge of hatred and science, which led to the death of most of the world's civilization. Furthermore, Benét also implies that this civilization fell because of the knowledge of hatred when he writes: “When the gods make war on the gods, they use weapons that we do not know” (116). The author expresses to the reader that this past civilization must have had knowledge, because it knew how to use unknown weapons, made only for destruction. It is the knowledge of hatred that led to the majority of the world's deaths in the epic story "The Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benét. Then the short story "How to Build...... middle of paper .... ....fall the whole village into the nightmare world of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." The timeless battle for the reward of survival has continued throughout the ages. Unfortunately, this battle is not always won because of flaws such as knowledge of hatred, ignorance and tradition. Some souls will not taste the satisfaction of gaining another day to live. These stories seem to relate to the simple soldier who struggles every day with the awareness of hatred towards his opponent, the ignorance of stooping to the primitive solution of combat and following the tradition of the battle for honor. Like the peoples and civilizations in these stories, the soldier continues to fight in the hope of survival. However, post-nuclear New York, the traveling man, the lady who was stoned, and the common soldier all know that some souls will not taste the satisfaction of living another day..