The Lottery
Kristen
English II CP
D MOD
9/12/13
“The Lottery” and Its Traditions In the short story “The Lottery” (1948) Shirley Jackson has a way of telling the story how it is. When you read the title, your mind sets on a positive thought. Funny, how your thoughts can affect how things really turn out to be. “The morning of June 27th” is a very important part, as it sets the mood for the story. Each year the small town has a gathering in a square with a heap of festivities and fun stuff going on. Traditions take a significant part in people’s lives, but now they’re not like they used to be.
Apparently, the tradition of a lottery simply means killing one person each year? I didn’t think of that until the plot took a twist because, once you hear the title you automatically think it’s a valuable, positive story. Traditional reasons for using stoning as a punishment changed after the town used to do a song, do a dance and actually use the original black box. These traditions all declined as time went on and each year it was being less and less cared about. Isn’t that what traditions are for? To take part in something that you treasure and keep the same throughout each year?
Slowly these rituals have become corrupted and obsolete. First off, the lottery used to take the whole day and be an involving factor in peoples’ lives. Now, its takes about two hours and people are home before you know it. The men and women joined together for the lottery aren’t even that friendly towards one another. The women are having fun being social and all about, talking amongst each other , as the men are sort of shying away not willing to say much. It’s like as if they would rather not even be there.
By telling that no one is showing much care for these rituals: “Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's being done.” The black box is a very important piece to the puzzle as it holds the slips of paper read
English II CP
D MOD
9/12/13
“The Lottery” and Its Traditions In the short story “The Lottery” (1948) Shirley Jackson has a way of telling the story how it is. When you read the title, your mind sets on a positive thought. Funny, how your thoughts can affect how things really turn out to be. “The morning of June 27th” is a very important part, as it sets the mood for the story. Each year the small town has a gathering in a square with a heap of festivities and fun stuff going on. Traditions take a significant part in people’s lives, but now they’re not like they used to be.
Apparently, the tradition of a lottery simply means killing one person each year? I didn’t think of that until the plot took a twist because, once you hear the title you automatically think it’s a valuable, positive story. Traditional reasons for using stoning as a punishment changed after the town used to do a song, do a dance and actually use the original black box. These traditions all declined as time went on and each year it was being less and less cared about. Isn’t that what traditions are for? To take part in something that you treasure and keep the same throughout each year?
Slowly these rituals have become corrupted and obsolete. First off, the lottery used to take the whole day and be an involving factor in peoples’ lives. Now, its takes about two hours and people are home before you know it. The men and women joined together for the lottery aren’t even that friendly towards one another. The women are having fun being social and all about, talking amongst each other , as the men are sort of shying away not willing to say much. It’s like as if they would rather not even be there.
By telling that no one is showing much care for these rituals: “Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's being done.” The black box is a very important piece to the puzzle as it holds the slips of paper read