Abstract: It is June 27th which is the day of the lottery. Many other towns around the area also have their own lottery. Some towns though have given up the lottery which people in the town view as crazy. It was held in the town square and led by Mr. Summers. Everyone seems on edge before and during it like they aren't looking forward to it. One woman, Mrs. Hutchinson, forgot it was lottery day, but she quickly ran to the square. To start the lottery, each man or head of household would be called by Mr. Summers and he would then come up and pick out a piece of paper. It used to be wood chips, but they changed it over the years. Each man then went back to where he was standing before they opened it. Then Mr. Summers gave them permission to open their pieces of paper. When they open it, they all wonder who got the piece of paper with the black dot on it. The man who got it was Mr. Hutchinson. His wife keeps on saying how it wasn't fair though because he wasn't given enough time to choose his piece of paper. He was then asked if there were any other households in the Hutchinsons, but there was only one them, his family. Then everyone in the family including Bill, his wife Tessie, and their three kids drew out pieces of paper. They then did the same process. When they opened the piece of paper, Tessie was the one with the black dot. The villagers then preformed the ritual. They went to the stack of stones previously stacked by the boys. They grabbed the stones and then threw them at Tessie and killed her while she yelled that it wasn't fair.
Response: This story was very disturbing. It's sick how at the end Tessie's own child throws the stones at her. It's ironic how the story was titled "The Lottery" because I associate winning the lottery as something good when in this story it is something bad. The people of the town are barbaric. They stone someone because they think it will bring a good harvest. It is ironic how one man said if they didn't stone someone they should just go back to living in caves when what they are doing is like cavemen. The black box I believe symbolizes death. It holds someone's fate in it which is to die. This is also like the black dot the paper. The simple black dot symbolizes your death. Their names also go along well with this story like Graves and Harry Jones. Harry Jones could be like an ape man which is barbaric, and Graves for the death of the person who gets stoned and then put into their grave. Dunbar also seems like a name for some barbaric person because it sounds like dumb. This story also depicts men as being the strong ones and leaders of the households. The men are the one that go up and pick a piece of paper while the woman watch. The author also depicts Tessie as a weak female who whines because she does not believe the lottery was fair. She is also the one ultimately sacrificed for the community. What did the writer want to portray through this piece? Did she want to portray how society was barbaric? It was written around the civil rights era, so she could have wrote it to try to convey society through it. By the lottery, she could have meant that it was just by chance that black people were slaves and it could have easily been the other way around. Society treated black people barbarically during this time period and not just literally threw stones at them but they also symbolically threw stones at them by degrading and disrespecting them.
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