𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 village does 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 stuff

So I recently have been trying to find some inspiration for my short story and I tumbled upon “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. Let me tell you I was extremely surprised about the contents of the book. At first I through it was going to be about a lottery, as the title indicates, and I was TOTALLY WRONG. So in this blog im going to go over the summarization of the book and why it caught me off guard!

So the story starts on a clear and sunny day during june in a village with about 300 people. The begging shows the people gathering in the town square around a black box and a pile of stones. Particularly children would try and attempt to find round stones to use. Then the men and the rest of the family gather. After everybody arrives the a head of every family would draw a piece of paper from the black box. The “winner’s” paper was marked with a black dot and they would then declare to the rest of the town that they received that paper. Now here comes the 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 part, whoever the winner is, they are beat to death with the smooth rocks by the rest of the town… Now the reason that they did this was similar to Aztec sacrifices, they understood that the killing of human could benefit crop return, with the common saying in the town being “Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.”.

Now that probably caught you off guard at the end, which is totally understandable, nowadays we understand a lottery as something positive, wether it be for money or valuable experiences. But “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson takes advantage of this and surprises the reader with a unique and scary end. In addition, it is not revealed until the end of the malicious intent of the lottery, furthermore creating a surprise. 

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson was an emotional rollercoaster for me and I am happy that I found it! Sorry for the spoiler but I would still HIGHLY RECOMMEND reading it! Thank you so much for spending your team reading my blog and leave a comment down below!

Luka