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Essay 1

Naitza M. Santiago Sánchez

Professor Erica Sigmann Baker

English 2312

February 17, 2010

The story ³The Lottery´ by Shirley Jackson is presented to the reader with a confusing

and intense reunion at a small town to draw the lottery which consists of throwing stones at the

³winner´. Every villager has to be present to form part of the lottery even though it is an act of

savagery and cruelty. This action may be a tradition adopted by other countries as the story was

written in 1984. The menace that this chance game represents to the people keeps the level of

tension and doubt high in the atmosphere and this social conflict of who will be the unlucky one

is the principal argument of the story.

At first, the meeting is presented as a traditional, important, and inoffensive one keeping

the reader unfocused and away from what is the real plot in it. . Every family starts reuniting

and waiting anxiously while the activity takes place. After the greetings and informal gossip,

³there was a great deal of fussing when the conductor declared the lottery open.´ Specifically,

the official ritual began when Mrs. Hutchinson arrived, as if they were waiting for her. The

official conductor starts checking if everybody is present or replaced, so the lottery could start

properly in alphabetical order.

From this point forward, the tension start for all the villagers, making the atmosphere

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very heavy. As the villagers stood nervously waiting to be called they started to encourage the

called ones with phrases charged with spirit. Following the rules, no one could open the slip to

find out who was the unfortunate one until everybody had drawn. Then, ³for a minute, no one

moved, and then, all the slips of paper were opened.´ Every one exposed their fear and the

tension was reflected in their faces.

As the villagers noticed the marked slip of paper that the head of the Hutchinson family

had, the tension was still floating very intensely in the air. The second official procedure started

taking place to decide which member of the family would be the unlucky one. After drawing

again, the tension ends in sudden silence: Mrs. Hutchinson had the black spot in her slip. They

decided to ³finish quickly´ now that the tension was not present, so every villager, men, women,

and children, picked up their stones, and while Mrs. Hutchinson understands that ³it isn¶t fair´,

the first stone arrived at her head.

³The Lottery´ presents the reader with a cruel tradition of a little town in which the

villagers are very worried about the results of the lottery. This lottery is a menace for them

because the ³winner´ is going to be stoned for no valuable reason, just as a tradition. After each

villager is present, the drawing began, keeping the tension and the doubt up high in the

atmosphere because it could be  one. Even though the Hutchinson¶s resulted as ³winner´ of

the lottery, the tension keeps floating around, but when Mrs. Hutchinson draw and she is now the

only winner, this doubt disappears completely. Now the fear and the doubt turns into a

necessary and immediate response to solve the problem: stone the inoffensive woman even

though it is unfair.

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