Category: Others

I’m going to be writing about The Lottery, a story by Shirley Jackson. So, the story starts out cheerful. The kids are playing with rocks, people are talking, parents arrive. Then the lottery starts. I’m guessing the lottery was an old tradition and every year they had to do it. Once the lottery starts, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves, the mailman start the lottery. Mr. Summers pulls out a small black box with papers inside. One of the paper is different from the rest. The person who chooses that paper wins the lottery. Mr. Summers stirs and mixes up the papers, and invites everybody to pick a paper from the box, eyes closed. Then they go back to where they were standing before. They were not allowed to peek at the papers until they were told so. And then this guy named Bill drew the winning lottery card. Then his wife starts complaining. And then they drew again. And then Tessie drew the winning lottery card. What was the prize? The prize was to get stoned to death. And that is what they did.

I think you should try a bit of everything but narrow down to your strengths and focus on those once you know them. This is because you must know your strengths first. Once you know them, you must play to them because if will be more beneficial and you are generally better at it. In general you should try everything until you know what are your strengths.
First, you must find your strengths. This is very self-explanatory. Try a bit of everything to find what you enjoy and are good at. This will make later work much easier because you know what you want to do. You must find what you enjoy and excel in to make later life much easier.
Next, you must play to your strengths. This is so the things you do are much easier. If your brain understands and is well-suited to a motor skill, learning it will be much easier. When you play to your strengths it is much easier to learn and enjoy things.
In conclusion, you should find what your strengths are and play to them. This will make learning easier and more enjoyable. When you learn motor skills, your brain may be more or less suited to do it. Figure out what your brain is good at and do it.

When I first read this short story I thought it was pretty interesting and fun. The short story is called “The Lottery” written by Shirley Jackson. When I thought about the name I was determined that the story would be about someone winning or participating in a lottery. When I finished it I was shocked to see what I found out.

This all starts in a little village with kids and parents. There are some of the kids by themselves and putting pebbles in their pockets. When more people sell them. They thought that doing that was the right thing. Then i thought to myself why would they even put pebbles in their pockets? Why? I kept reading and at the end I found out.

The whole reason why it is called “The Lottery” is because there is a tradition for winning the “Lottery”, but winning it didn’t really do anything because she got in some trouble. I never really thought is her dying but that is the whole part of the tradition

If you still remember, in the second paragraph when I was talking about how kids were putting pebbles in their pockets? Well this tradition is very weird because they used the rocks she had and started throwing them on Ms.Hutchinson soon after it is still a tradition so many people in that village die which is very scary. O-o

So in this short story “The Lottery” my thoughts are it was a very interesting story but it had some “Drama” to it. Which I like so there is a little “Plot Twist”. So this essay was based on my thoughts in the short story “The Lottery”.

If you are in the village that this story takes place, you may be in trouble. The people who live there have a chance of dying at the lottery. Some adults may not like this even though it is a tradition that they have had for more than 70 years, because it can be a bit harsh on people. But other adults may think it is fair since it has been a tradition and should always be a tradition. Most children think it is fun to stone someone to death because they don’t understand the risk that they are taking. I think it is not fair because I don’t think to kill a person every year is not fair. So what do you think? Fair or not fair?

In the short story the Lottery every year there is a lottery that sacrifices one person every year. I think that this lottery is wrong and it should be removed. It is very wrong to kill a person even if it is the tradition.

First of all, nobody wants to be killed for tradition. These people are just relying on luck so that they can live another day. They have to hope that they aren’t chosen. If the people are chosen they are constantly hit with stones until they die. It is very cruel and nobody should have to experience that pain.

But we have to look through the elders’ eyes. They don’t think that there is anything wrong with the tradition because they grew up with it. They see it as a happy event and don’t see anything wrong with this sacrifice. They just think that every year it’s the same old tradition sacrificing one person every time and they honestly just don’t see anything wrong with this tradition.

Then you have the little children who think that this absolutely terrible and that they shouldn’t have to sacrifice someone every year just because of tradition. They have to be forced to come because they are very reluctant to go. I think that the children can’t have somebody there one day and then the next they are just gone. They have a different view of the lottery and eventually when it will be the young generation and their children then the tradition will be gone.

I honestly have to agree with the newer generation because why do you have to kill somebody every year. I do understand that all of it is just a tradition, but still, why would this have to be a thing. I don’t think that there should be a lottery anymore.

Red herring is the concept of finding fake clues that mislead you. The opposite of that is Checkhov’s Gun. This is a concept in literature that states that “every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed.”

Checkhov’s Gun is essentially just foreshadowing but it also drives the story. For example, in The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, it’s about a tradition that is is having a lottery to see who gets stoned to death. The children had “stuffed [their] pockets full of stones [and] eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square.”(Jackson) This is foreshadowing what will happen towards to end of the book. However, if a reader was reading this story for the first time, he/she probably won’t care much about the stones and continue reading. The stones could also not even be important to the story. However, with Checkhov’s Gun, these stones need to have a purpose in the story, not just be a random object.

Another story that follows the Checkhov’s Gun concept is The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan. This story is about a girl who’s mother died but is trying to find what her mom is showing her when she turned into a “red-crowned crane, but with a long, feathery tail … [and] every feather was a different shade of red, sharp and gleaming.”(Pan) The appearance of her mother as a bird could just be random and unimportant, but this story follows the Checkhov’s Gun concept and the scarlet bird is constantly a big part of the book.

With Checkhov’s Gun, everything in a piece of literature is there for a reason, all seemingly important things will be explored further.

I think the lottery in “The Lottery”  is not a good tradition because the town stones one innocent person every year.  One’s fate is decided on the piece of paper that they draw.  If one draws his or her own name, they will be stoned by the townsfolk, including their children.  Imagine being murdered by your own family and friends! I strongly think that this “lottery” should not be allowed because it is an unfair way to decide if one lives or not.  One must be very unlucky to be stoned, for I think it is devastating for one to see their loved ones kill them.  Also, if the town kills one person every year, they may have less and less people in their town until only one person is left.  I think this because if they kill someone who still hasn’t had any daughters or sons, they may kill a whole generation.  Next, I think killing one for no specific reason is totally absurd.  It’s as if one is killing their friend just because they lost a bet or etc.

Do NOT participate in the lottery Shirley Jackson wrote about. Do NOT participate in the lottery Shirley Jackson wrote about because it’s pretty brutal having kids throw stones at their mother or father and killing them with the stones as a sacrifice so they would have good farmland and not go back living in the caves again.

Also, Nobody would want their own children throwing stones at them trying to kill them. It’s like torture. It may even be torture! What’s worse is that their children don’t know what their doing is wrong and are being brainwashed to think like 😜”YAY! Every year, were gonna kill someone by pelting stones at them. I am sooo happy to do this. YAAAAY!”😜

Lastly, who would believe if we don’t kill someone by pelting them with stones, 😧”POOOOF!”😧 We would all have bad farmland and suddenly appear and start living in caves. And even if we do appear in a cave, we can just walk out and start farming again. These are some of the reasons why you should NOT participate in the lottery.

In the short story, the Lottery, it tells how the people of a village stone someone to death every year. It is tradition that comes once every year. The winner of the lottery is the that ends up dying. The theme is that you can not blindly follow traditions.
It takes place in a small town in contemporary America. Most of the villages have banned the lottery, but one village in the north still does it. Every year, on June of July 27th a person takes out a slip of paper. The local children prepare stones for them all, even the toddlers. The person with the name on the paper gets stoned.
In my opinion, I think the theme is you cannot blindly follow traditions without knowing the consequences. In this case, even the children are getting the stones and killing their parents. The story also tells of mob psychology. People today act cruelly just because there is a big mob doing it. When the people go stone someone, most do it because everyone else is doing it. Would you jump off a cliff if your friend did it? Also, it shows people being bad because of a group being bad.
Therefore, this is what I think of the short story, The Lottery.

Black hole, the place where time disappears,

The place of lost ambitions, hopelessness, and despair. 

“The Ocean of Dark” is what they call it, 

A blanket of blackness covered the stars. 

You drift away faster and faster into the void,

Neither it’s ground nor is it the sky.

It is a pitchblack paradise, where all things were sucked in,

Tik tok, tik tok, one can’t even realize the time.

The one thing that allow humanity to discovers this whirlpool is curiosity,

I feel my soul flowing in the river of stars.

The light shattering the sky, piercing the horizon,

While the endless abyss brings darkness to your eyes.