An Interesting Prize

            The prize of the lottery in short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is very strange. I had never read any story similar to this one in my life. This story did not have a happy ending. It was creepy and peculiar. I found this story shocking to an extent level because of the prize the winner of the lottery received, the reaction of the people, and the many years this custom has lasted.
            When I first read the title of this story, my first thoughts were of someone who was in desperate need of money, and then suddenly won the lottery and changed his/her, life for the good and forever. I realized that I was wrong about this though, when found out what the prize of the lottery was. Everyone got to choose a piece of paper and whoever got the black dot was the winner. The prize was getting stoned to death.
            The reaction of the townspeople to this kind of event is very shocking. Even though they know the person getting stoned very well, they still proceed to harm them. I cannot imagine myself and my family stoning to death one of our neighbors, or worse, our neighbors stoning one of us.
            As I read further into the story, I began to wonder more and more how was it possible that this custom was still alive after this many years. No one wants to win a lottery in which the prize is death; so why continue it? Most of the time, the people of this town did not put thereselves into the winners shoes. They were so used to this custom, that they thought of it as only a matter of throwing rocks.
          Overall, this story is like none other. It is very wicked and deplorable. The people of this town stone their own neighbors, friends, and even family to death. They act as though this is not a horrible act. They act with no remorse whatsoever. Not only is the prize of the lottery awful, but the reaction of the townspeople is horrible and the time this custom has lasted is impacting. It is unbelievable that this custom was still alive in this story because of the grisly and unusual prize.

Works Cited

Jackson, Shirley. “The lottery”. An Introduction to Reading and Writing. New York. Pearson Education. 2009. Print.

           

The Lottery

           "The Lottery" is the short story that impacted me the most. When I saw the title of this short story, I immediately thought it would be a story about someone winning the lottery and their life being happy forever after. I was very shocked when I realized that the prize of this particular lottery was getting stoned to death. This made absolutely no sense. Why would anyone invent such a strange custom? I can not imagine being a part of this horrible act. While reading this story, I wondered many times how this custom had lasted for so many years! After analyzing this situation, I have come to the conclusion that this is a type of control over the population. The reason that no one wants to do anything about this horrible situation is because they do not want to be singled out and they are aftraid to go against the flow. Many times we are the same way. When we see something wrong we are afraid to fix it because we do not want to go against the flow.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

            "The Parable of the Prodigal Son" from the book of Luke in the bible is my favorite short story. I like this story becasue it has to do with God and his infinite love for each and everyone of us. In this story, the father represents God and the son represents us. Even though we sin in many ways, God is willing to forgive us if we repent and come back to him. This story not only shows us that God will forgive us and others, but also that we shoudl be happy and not mad when one of our brothers is trying to redeem their mistakes. The brother of the lost son is angry because the father has not only firgiven his brother, but is also making a celebration in his honor. In the same way, many times we criticise our brothers when they are trying to redeem theri ways. For example; when we see someone at church that we know does bad things such as drinking and smoking, we often time think "this personis such a hypocrite because they are bad and they come to church". Instead of being happy that they are trying to redeem their past, we are many times judgemental towards others like the brother of the prodigal son in this story.