The Lottery is a story that focuses in a small town and how they gather for the traditional lottery drawing. As you read this story in bewilderment you begin to understand how important this lottery is and how no one is allowed to be home when this take place unless you have a good excuse. Each person who is head of their family draws a paper and then everyone opens their's up at the same time, in which they see who has the black dot on their paper, The Hutchinson's had it. Then at once the family goes to the front to see who in the family will draw the next black do, it was Tessie, the wife. After that the story ends with Tessie being hit with stones till her death.
Response
“The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson was story that completely plays with your mind the whole time you’re reading. I read this story thinking it must be about people buying tickets to win money because that’s how I’d define lottery. It seems as though Shirley wasn’t thinking the same thing as I was. As the story continues Shirley explains how all the people in the town must gather for this event. Although she still doesn’t tell us what’s going on and what this lottery is for. The reason for her doing this is so she can keep her readers in suspense just like the people in the story who are in the lottery. They are waiting to see who will be put to their death, which at the time you wouldn’t know if you were a first time reader of this story.
The lottery consists of each head person of a family to come up to the front and draw a strip of paper out of a black wooden box. At the time of my reading I didn’t think anything about the symbolism of the box until I finished the story. The color and composition of that box screams the thought of death. The black immediately infers death, while the wooden composition suggests what a coffin would be made of, not to mention that it’s a box just like the shape of a coffin. Throughout this story I think Shirley is trying to give the readers hints on what is about to happen. She wants your mind to think and be so intrigued that you can’t stop reading, which is what the people in this story are doing with the lottery.
I see that the people are brainwashed to think this is a great thing and that no community can live without the lottery. I don’t understand how people are content with one random killing ever year, and it’s not just some person, it’s a person of their community. The community seems like cult in which once you’re sucked in you can’t get out, and you wouldn’t dare speak out against it. Tessie Hutchinson tried speaking out that it wasn’t fair, and she’s the one who ends up getting killed.
This book makes you see how brainwashing can hurt people. You are in control of your own mind, but as soon as you let someone else take hold of it you put your life in danger. This is what the people of this small community are doing. They are letting their past take control of their future, which maybe they don’t have control of. It may be their instinct to think that the lottery is something that must be done because they’ve never seen anything different. It’s as though no one in the community has a superego because they don’t think for themselves or express their own thoughts. They only are worried about the lottery and they show no emotion at all. When Tessie draws the black dot she doesn’t do anything at all, but just stands there waiting for her death. Why doesn’t she show any emotion? Is it because she was taught to not show emotion or that she has no emotion because this is the typical scene of this community?
Also you think that her family would show emotion, but they don’t at all. You think that her husband might say he drew the black dot and risk his life for his wife, but he doesn’t. It also says in the book that they have three children. Wouldn’t the children be sad and maybe run towards their mother to say their last good-bye? No emotions are ever shown throughout this whole story. I think that’s a little odd out of 300 some people, no one shows any emotion. This makes me think that everyone had to brainwashed and thought that randomly killing someone was okay.
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