Response To Shirley Jackson's The Lottery

436 Words2 Pages

You’d think a lottery would be gleeful and involve money, right? Well, not in this case. “The Lottery” is a short story written by Shirley Jackson. This story starts out light hearted and delightful, yet the ending is wicked and nefarious. At the beginning of the story it describes the day as ¨clear and sunny… the fresh warmth of a full-summer day;..¨ and at that point tells about the preparation for the lottery, and, soon after that, the dark ending. This whole story proves that conformity could make a person scared of change. In the story, it explains that there had been other parts of the Lottery that had been allowed to slide, after a great deal of arguing and discussions. As the text says, there had been a recital performed by the official of the Lottery. It also states that it was a “perfunctory, tuneless, chant that had been rattled off duly each year.” the people who lived in the small village where the lottery took place also believed that the official of the lottery used to “stand just so while he sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people…” the text also states that there was a ritual salute that the lottery official did you greet each person who drew from the box, but now, only a wave or a “how do you do?” would suffice. There may have been some changes, …show more content…

The texts states that they were “...quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around.”. One would think that they were a euphoric kind of nervous. When Mr. Summers, the official of the lottery, started calling names, everybody was a little hesitant to go up and draw from the box. If it was a enjoyable event, the villagers would probably want to get up to the box faster. After they picked their paper, they weren't allowed to look at it until everybody had gone. The men, who always picked for their families, would not look down at their hands and just stood quietly away from their