What does one think of when they hear the word "Lottery"? They think of money, or the winning of it, of course!
So what would one expect to read about in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson? The winning of money, or the consequences there of, and that's what I expected when I started reading. Unfortunately I'd been warned prior to reading this that this story was "Messed up", and that I also had small expectations that it would be a chainsaw massacre, more or less by the end of the story. Sadly I wasn't to far off, but I am getting ahead of myself now.
The story starts off happy enough, children finishing with school for the year, men and women gathering and talking. Then the black box is brought into the story, the embodiment of the lottery. Everyone is marry, they laugh, they jest, all is well. But then things take a queer turn. The Huchinson family is chosen, which is a bit odd in lottery terms, and they seem upset about it, Tessie even says it's unfair. It starts to make one wonder what everyone is trying to win.
Tickets are re-distributed to the family, and people start saying they hope it's not little Nancy. The family is on edge. The tickets are opened, and it appears that Mrs. Hutchinson won! She is then stoned to death by the people of the village, revealing the sickness that was hiding behind the curtain the whole time, that the village partakes in a ritual once a month of killing a random person. I agree with my friends, this story is "messed up".
