“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson is a short story full of dramatic twists and turns. It begins with a sweet day, and continues onto making the readers believe there is an exciting and pleasurable tradition going on. After reading deeper, we discover this tradition is something people seem to be wary about, but don’t discover why until the ending. Shock is everything we experience once the short story is over because all along, the so called lottery, wasn’t a chance these people wanted to get or it would result as a terrible death. The author created this story in a way that allows us readers to interpret it in many different ways though. My overall understanding of Jackson’s piece was that the world is a cruel place we live in and nothing can be done for that matter. We see the harshness throughout the characters, actions, and the outcomes.
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The villagers are doing this ritual that they aren’t even sure of what the meaning behind it is: “…So much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded… (136)”, but the villagers continue to move along with keeping it. In some attempts to getting rid of the tradition, the villagers would mention how the northern village was talking about giving up the lottery and other who already had. Although, the eldest man in the village in particular, would always shoot these conversations down accusing them of being a “pack of crazy fools (138)”. Hence, as the places who quit the lottery would give them hope, no one did anything to stop it in this particular community. This shows that these people are cowards. They are scared of what could happen to them and the others for rebelling against the lottery since it has been going on for too long for any of them to remember. The characters
The villagers are doing this ritual that they aren’t even sure of what the meaning behind it is: “…So much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded… (136)”, but the villagers continue to move along with keeping it. In some attempts to getting rid of the tradition, the villagers would mention how the northern village was talking about giving up the lottery and other who already had. Although, the eldest man in the village in particular, would always shoot these conversations down accusing them of being a “pack of crazy fools (138)”. Hence, as the places who quit the lottery would give them hope, no one did anything to stop it in this particular community. This shows that these people are cowards. They are scared of what could happen to them and the others for rebelling against the lottery since it has been going on for too long for any of them to remember. The characters