The Lottery

1. I found this short story very intriguing however extremely messed up. I read it before in high school. In high school I found it extremely weird which obviously has not changed but I also was nervous reading it because I thought it would give people the curiosity to possibly perform somewhat of the same kind of thing today. I also found the title odd for this story, being that today we think of the lottery being something good where some individual will collect lots of money and the rest of us dream about someday achieving the same, in this case, its a matter of life or death. I literally got chills down my spin from reading this story, I find it absolutely disgusting.
2. While reading The Lottery, the author foreshadowed the ending through the constant reflection of the stones. For instance, a mother telling her son after he was called that he can now run to the stones. The reader visualized that something must be going on with the stones, however the reader is uncertain. Once Tessie begins stating that it was unfair that her husband was picked, the reader begins to correlate the two and begins assuming something bad is about to happen. While trying to figure out what the author is hoping the reader would gain from this story, is quite a difficult task. Individually, you have to look beyond the text to understand what lessons may be presented. Jackson may be trying to make the point that we as individuals may do these "rituals" because our religions tell them to do so, not in the point of human sacrifices but outdated traditions or rituals. This maybe the point in which she is trying to make, that we have to modernize our beliefs so that we blend more with one another. A hint that was made from this conclusion was found in the comparison of other towns around them in which the lotteries no longer exist. Again this was quite difficult to derive, but individually one feels that there is a religious connotation.