Jacob Layton
Eng-102
April Dolata
October 15, 2014
Short Story Paper
The villagers of a small town gather together in the town square on June 27 for the town lottery. Every year on June 27 the lottery is held and everyone must be in attendance if they are physically capable. In other towns, the lottery takes longer, but there are only 300 people in this village, so the lottery takes only two hours. Village children, who have just finished school for the summer, run around collecting stones. They put the stones in their pockets and make a pile in the square. The men gather talking and joking quietly. Their wives soon followed gossiping amongst one another. Parents call their children over, and families stand together awaiting the tradition …show more content…
The lottery has been taking place in the village for as long as anyone can remember. It is a tradition, an annual ritual that no one has thought to question. It is so much a part of the town’s culture, in fact, that it is even accompanied by an old saying: “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon,” (250). The villagers are fully loyal to it, or, at least, they tell themselves that they are, despite the fact that many parts of the lottery have changed or faded away over the years. Nevertheless, the lottery continues, simply because there has always been a lottery and no one challenges it. The result of this tradition is that everyone becomes a part to murder on an annual basis. The lottery is an extreme example of what can happen when traditions are not questioned or addressed critically by new …show more content…
The other women arrive at the square calmly, chatting with one another and then standing properly by their husbands. Tessie, however, arrives flustered and out of breath. The crowd must part for her to reach her family, and she and her husband endure good-natured teasing as she makes her way to them. On a day when the villagers’ soul focus is the lottery, this break of propriety seems inappropriate and wrong. Everyone comes to the lottery, and everyone comes on time. The only person absent is a man whose leg is broken. Perhaps because she is a free spirit, Tessie is the only villager to protest against the lottery. When the Hutchinson family draws the marked paper, she exclaims, “It wasn’t fair!” (251). This protest continues as she is selected and then stoned to death, but instead of listening to her, the villagers ignorantly pretend not to hear her. Even Bill, her husband, tells her to “shut up,” (251). It’s unknown whether Tessie would have protested the fairness of the lottery if her family had not been selected, but this is an irrelevant point. Whatever her motivation was for speaking out, she was effectively silenced. “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones,” (249). The
Eng-102
April Dolata
October 15, 2014
Short Story Paper
The villagers of a small town gather together in the town square on June 27 for the town lottery. Every year on June 27 the lottery is held and everyone must be in attendance if they are physically capable. In other towns, the lottery takes longer, but there are only 300 people in this village, so the lottery takes only two hours. Village children, who have just finished school for the summer, run around collecting stones. They put the stones in their pockets and make a pile in the square. The men gather talking and joking quietly. Their wives soon followed gossiping amongst one another. Parents call their children over, and families stand together awaiting the tradition …show more content…
The lottery has been taking place in the village for as long as anyone can remember. It is a tradition, an annual ritual that no one has thought to question. It is so much a part of the town’s culture, in fact, that it is even accompanied by an old saying: “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon,” (250). The villagers are fully loyal to it, or, at least, they tell themselves that they are, despite the fact that many parts of the lottery have changed or faded away over the years. Nevertheless, the lottery continues, simply because there has always been a lottery and no one challenges it. The result of this tradition is that everyone becomes a part to murder on an annual basis. The lottery is an extreme example of what can happen when traditions are not questioned or addressed critically by new …show more content…
The other women arrive at the square calmly, chatting with one another and then standing properly by their husbands. Tessie, however, arrives flustered and out of breath. The crowd must part for her to reach her family, and she and her husband endure good-natured teasing as she makes her way to them. On a day when the villagers’ soul focus is the lottery, this break of propriety seems inappropriate and wrong. Everyone comes to the lottery, and everyone comes on time. The only person absent is a man whose leg is broken. Perhaps because she is a free spirit, Tessie is the only villager to protest against the lottery. When the Hutchinson family draws the marked paper, she exclaims, “It wasn’t fair!” (251). This protest continues as she is selected and then stoned to death, but instead of listening to her, the villagers ignorantly pretend not to hear her. Even Bill, her husband, tells her to “shut up,” (251). It’s unknown whether Tessie would have protested the fairness of the lottery if her family had not been selected, but this is an irrelevant point. Whatever her motivation was for speaking out, she was effectively silenced. “Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones,” (249). The