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 Recommended Reading
 The Lottery
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Rkmnapp unregistered Posts: |
posted 12-06-2004 10:02
 
I had never read the story “The Lottery” before this assignment, but I had heard that it was controversial. I guess that is why I was su****ious at first when the story started out in a wonderful town on a beautiful day. Shirley Jackson chose her words with caution and constructed her story in a sequence that led to expectation of a happy ending. Her initial words construct images of a nice town with happy, everyday people. She spends the first half of the story describing various villagers in typical, everyday situations. I quickly noticed that something was going to happen with the black box. Just the color “black”, as opposed to a happy yellow or a calming blue, gave me the chills. Every time the writer mentions the black box, in the beginning of the story, she quickly mentions some unrelated matter. That is, until the villagers start to become uneasy when the black box appears. When the purpose of the black box is introduced, Shirley’s words are vague, never mentioning the tragic background of the black box, only the traditional background. After I watched the video presentation of “The Lottery” I realized that Mrs. Hutchinson probably was stoned to death. The written story ends with out ever mentioning if Mrs. Hutchinson survived the stoning. Many of the villagers chose small, smooth stones. Little Davy was given a few pebbles. This can damage a person, but they might survive. In the video presentation, the villagers had huge stones. Davy was handed a big stone, not a few pebbles, as in the written story. I think this is why so many posts mentioned that the story ended too abruptly. I also think that is the reason why many people were outraged by this story. As a society, we feel that we would never take part in a barbaric ritual such as the lottery, but because the story ends abruptly, it forces us to participate by giving the story an ending. |
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