Why Is The Lottery By Shirley Jackson Controversial

525 Words3 Pages

Most people do not think of small towns to be safe and very calm, but this is not the case sometimes. Shirley Jackson in her time wrote a story about a town doing something terrible. Which then became controversial with one of the most hated stories of its time. Although it was a hated story, it shed light on small towns everywhere, and people thought that just maybe a small town can be as dangerous as Jackson depicted it. “The Lottery” was the title, and as said, very controversial in its wake. However, it should not have been as controversial as it was, because Jackson was only putting the views she had of society into the story. Shirley Jackson's view of society was very interesting to say the least, but what led her to see it in such a way? When the story was published, people were not as open as to think of the worst, especially of a small town doing such a thing. When people read the story they made it personal, many groups thought that Jackson honestly believed that …show more content…

Although the story at this time was very unexpected, because the ending involved the stoning of a woman that was a mother and had a husband. Yet the people still continued with stoning the poor woman. It was simply painting the picture though of something that could very well happen. People are naive to think that evil things can not happen in such a small town, but as Jackson always liked to demonstrate, evil can happen anywhere with anyone. Continuing with Jackson's writing, she always wanted to show that people in general have an essence of evil to do bad things. Which didn’t exactly sit right with people at the time. Even though Jackson's career was a success, “The Lottery'' was one of the most hated stories from her. A possible reason for that is that it hit close to home to many people, and simply rubbed them the wrong way. Ultimately all people have their own opinions, and that’s what got