The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

The Lottery was an interesting short story, seeming fun and light, but took a turn for the worst with a gruesome ending. I thought it was a great story of ritual within a small town, and the perseverance of the people to abide by things that were meaningful to their town in the past. When first reading The Lottery, I was captivated in suspense, wondering what prize this lottery would entail, and who would win, thinking it was a fun natured chance lottery. I had no idea that this lottery could possibly be a bad ritual, ending in a cruel torture and an inevitable death for the winner. I like Shirley Jackson’s way of tying you to the different people of the town, and making the reader be engaged in the suspense of the lottery. The text was easy to follow, and not until the family was picked did I notice the suspense and signs start to turn sour. After the chosen mother realized she was the one to win the lottery, I knew it meant she was the town’s sacrifice. The author tried to show a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence in the reader’s life. I think she made this point by explaining that the people of this town ritually killed an innocent person every year without stopping their everyday life or thinking about how wrong it was to kill some for no good reason.