Author: JacquelineL

The Lottery is a story about a small town and their yearly ritual. Their “ritual” includes of drawing papers out from a vintage black box. Each man of the families would pick a slip of paper out from the box and the family with the black spot on their slip would be “chosen”. Then, each family member would draw again and the member with the black spot would be stoned to death by all the villagers.

As a reader of The Lottery, I presumed that whoever won the lottery would be given a sum of cash, as that’s what a lottery in our time period is. My opinion on this short story is,” I was taken aback on how the lottery was not just a raffle for cash, but a raffle to be stoned to death”. I personally do recommend this story to others, as it seems all sweet and innocent but in the end there is a very interesting plot twist. The theme of the story is sometimes, people take myths to another level. This is the theme, because in The Lottery, the villagers believed stoning someone would ensure them good crops.

The story starts of on a nice summer day, with the townspeople arriving at the town square to join in on the lottery. Mr. Summers brings in a black box with sheets of papers inside of them. When the lottery is about to start, Mrs. Hutchinson arrives late because she apparently forgot what day it was. The villagers laughed over her silly mistake and the lottery began. As Mr. Summers called out each family name, the man of each family began arriving to pick up a slip from the box. Once all had their slips, they soon discovered that Bill Hutchinson had drawn the black spot. Tessie soon became defensive and angry on how her husband did not have enough time to draw the slip. The members of Bill’s family, Bill, Bill Jr., Nancy, Dave, and Tessie soon drew slips from the box. All of the family slowly opened their slips, and eventually they discovered Tessie had the black spot. The villagers moved around Tessie and stoned her to death. In conclusion, many people will believe in traditions even though it may be unmoral.

The Ransom of The Red Chief is a short story about how two men want to earn some money, so they kidnap a boy to get a ransom. The characters in this story include of Sam and Bill, two “criminals”, Johnny, the 10 year old boy who is kidnapped, and Ebenezer, the father of Johnny. I personally think the main theme of the story is to not try to find the easy way to success, or to get money. This is the theme, because when Bill and Sam attempted to earn money by kidnapping a boy, it resulted in getting their plan backfired, as they kidnapped a little rascal who was too much of a pain to keep with them. The story starts off with Bill and Sam kidnapping Johnny, and driving him off to a cave. The two criminals soon begin to learn that Johnny is quite annoying and bratty. Johnny forces they two men, especially Bill, to play games with him. While they play his games, Johnny has a fun time hurting Bill which frustrates Bill. Later on in the story, Sam leaves Johnny with Bill so they can send off a ransom letter to Ebenezer. As Bill endures Johnny , he eventually gets sick of Johnny and sends him back home. When Sam returns from sending off the letter, Bill finds that Johnny had followed him back to the cave. The climax of the story starts when they receive their letter back from Ebenezer offering them a deal. The deal consists of them returning Johnny back to Ebenezer while also paying him 250 dollars to have Johnny off their shoulders. In the end, Johnny is returned and the two men find that their plan had been backfired. I recommend this short story because it is quite funny and has a exciting plot twist and lesson learned.