Lottery

After ready " The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson I was very disturbed. I had to read Jackson's bio and cultural context to fully understand her short story. It's hard to understand how a ritual like this one could be held year after year. I do know that we are people of tradition and seem to make it hard to let go of tradition wether it is a good one or bad one. It was hard to think of a modern day counterpart such as this. I find that beauty pagents do resemble this ritual. Maybe not in such a evil way but a demeaning way.

In "The Lottery" Jackson sure had me in suspense in what the lottery really was going to be. She goes on to explain how the whole town shows up with "the children assmble first....(par. 2) and then "the men began to gather....(par.3) and finally with the house wives arriving and sharing bits of gossip. Jackson does mention in the second paragraph how the boys bring pockets of stones and having piles of them around. I felt the suspense rise as they read each household name aloud still not knowing exactly what the outcome of the lottery was going to be. When they reached the winner or should I say the one who picked the black dot I then realized she was to be stoned.

In America and around the world we have a beauty pageant every year. Women trying to be the most beautiful person out there and going through the competition only to find out that you might not be the winner. In this case if you are not the winner you are the one who has been stoned, not with rocks but the hurtful thoughts that you were not the best out there.