The-Lottery---摸彩书评知识分享

The Lottery
商英132班莫雨清We all know “lottery” which is typically thought of as something good because it usually involves getting something such as money or prizes. But the book《The Lottery》written by Shirley Jackson gave us a new definition of this word and it turned out to be a cruel and horrible one.
The author, Shirley Jackson,was an influential American writer. Her works have received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. Her most stories’ themes are evil which include the abnormal psychology or supernatural powers and the best story is "The Lottery" , ironically giving the lottery a bad meaning.
The story contrasts details of contemporary small town American life with an annual ritual know as “the lottery”.On 27 June, 300 residents in this village assembled together with strange and nervous mood. Mr.Summers conducted the lottery, carrying a box wooden box with slips of paper.
In the first round of the lottery, the head of each family draws a small slip of paper; Bill Hutchinson gets the one slip with a black spot, meaning that his family has been chosen. In the next round, each Hutchinson family member draws a slip, and Bill’s wife Tessie got the marked slip.
In keeping with tradition, Tessie who protesting about the fairness of the lottery was stoned to death by others.
The author’s writing techniques are very exquisite.
At the beginning, the happy children make readers feel comfortable and think that the story is a happy and easy one. We are led to believe everything is fine because we do not really know what anyone is thinking. But it turned out to be a cruel and horrible one that the conflict is resolved with Tessie being stoned to death. However, there are several foreshadows. The first clue is stone which was mentioned for many times. Children had stuffed pockets full of stones to hurt people in the end. The second one is name. Mr.Graves’ name is simply a foreshadow of the grave situation to come; the name Warmer can be seen as a literal warning against ceasing the tradition of the lottery.
Another feature in this story is the irony. In this lottery it was not what they win but what they lost, the winner even had to die. So the title is the first great irony. The situation which was going to happen was so awful that cannot truly be forgotten. But Mrs. Hutchinson was jokingly saying yo Mrs. Delacroix “Clean forget what day it was”. At the end of the story, Mrs.Hutchinson was upset because of the way she was chosen rather than the doom. She shouted out “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right”. The situation is extremely ironic to the story.
In this story, people are not willing to reject outdated traditions, ideas, rules, laws, and practices. The villagers continued the lottery year after year because they thought they had always done it this way. Why should change now? Society wrongfully designates scapegoats to bear the sins of the community. They naively thought the sacrifice of one person can lead to great harvest. Following the crowd can have disastrous consequences. Although some villagers raised questions about the lottery, they all went along with it in the end. Thus, they became unthinking members of a herd, forfeiting their individuality and sending Tessie Hutchinson to her death.
In real life, sometimes we sho uld keep our own minds and don’t follow the herd blindly because the untested life is not worth living.。