Writing Journal : November 21

The Lottery is a short story written by Shirley Jackson and that caused a lot of controversial reactions after its first publication in the magazine The New Yorker on June 26, 1948. Some citizens wanted to know where they could go to see this ritual while others felt targeted by the accusations in the story. Americans being model citizens, they were very mad at reading about something so cruel. In resume, the story is about a small village having an annual lottery which is in fact a barbaric ritual consisting of picking out a family in the community and then choosing one of the family members. The person having chosen the piece of paper with the black ink spot is stoned to death by all the other villagers. The purpose of this sacrifice being to assure the people of a good harvest for the coming year.

After reading this story, we were shocked to see that human beings could actually be voluntarily so cruel with each other. There were no words to express our astonishment of realizing that an event like the one presented in The Lottery could actually be true, that similar things like this did really happened. The author said that she inspired herself from her own village and that the meaning of this story was to show people a dramatization of general inhumanity and pointless violence in their own lives. She really did accomplish her goal, people couldn’t be insensitive before such violence. It shows us how tradition and rituals that have been implanted and practiced for decades can be, with an outside vision, completely immoral, but for someone used to it, totally normal.

A part of the story that was quite shocking was when the gentle Mrs. Delacroix picked up a huge stone and said to her neighbor: "'Come on,' ... 'Hurry up.'" before heading off after the victim. It is hard to imagine how people can consciously kill a friend by throwing stones at that person. What's even more horrible is that the kids joined in this event with enthusiasm. This allows us to understand how education is an important part in one's life. Having been brought up in this environment, these villagers do not realize the barbarism of their annual lottery. It is a fact that shocks the reader even more: they are not conscious of their actions. For the students reading this story, it is clear how wrong these people are behaving, but how can they change if they do not know they should? I think, having realized this, it brings us to a new understanding of the world and shows us how a bad education can lead to a wrong way of living.

Finally, the short-story The Lottery, with all the controversy around it, has become a classic in American’s literature. With the message of human cruelty and unconscious violence caused by ancestral traditions, Shirley Jackson has touched a contentious topic in American’s culture and really made a change in people’s mind.


teammate: Camille Michon
word count: 500