"Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box they still remembered to use stones" When I finally got to the end of this story and I realized what the lottery signified I was shocked. This particular sentence is the sentence that I read and realized what the lottery was about and what it meant. The words that stuck out to me and made me horrified and feel bad for the woman was they still remembered to use stones because at this point I realized that the stones symbolized the fact that the woman was about to be stoned to death.
I think that this sentence is important to the story because without it you wouldn't understand the meaning of the lottery. Throughout the story they talk about how all the families gather and pick slips of paper and how the little boys collect stones and stack them, but if this sentence wasn't present we wouldn't know why the little boys were collecting the stones. This sentence in a way shows us the meaning of the lottery and the horrible end that is about to come to the one unfortunate person of the town.
I guess the thing that interests me the most about the story and this sentence in general is why this community is still killing people. My biggest question about this story and this sentence is that shouldn't they kill the whole family instead of just one person if they are killing people? Also is the reason they stone the person to death a sign of there sympathy? or the fact they want it to last a long time and be painful for the person? Also my other question is what is the point of the lottery? Is it to control the number in the population?
Maybe what the author was getting at is that the theme and symbolism of this story is that the woman who eventually gets stoned in the beginning shows up late to the lottery and her family just happens to get chosen to see which one of them will die and then it just happens to be her slip that has the black dot on it. In a way this could be luck or it could be the authors way of showing us how we need to keep an eye on this character.
I didn't really enjoy this story because I had more questions than answers when I finished it.
ReplyDeleteI didn't understand the purpose of the stoning. The people in the town were following their ancestor's rituals without purpose. The best I could get from it was that it is dangerous to follow rituals that don't make sense.
Some of the people mention that other towns have stopped the lottery but they seem to be in a minority.
I thought the story was absurd!
Honestly I was more confused by the other story we had to choose from for me that story seemed to jump around too much for my taste.
ReplyDeleteI actually enjoyed the second story even though I ended with lots of questions, and I liked it because it was absurd.
In my opinion/ what I got from reading the story and talking to my father I realized that the reasoning for the stoning was because the town needed to select one person as a human sacrifice for their crops to grow. Other towns had stopped this because they saw the practice to be illogical. The author was using symbolism of this town to show that society may have evolved in many various areas we still cling to some old practices that at one point in history were deemed useful. Hope that helps. I agree that the ending was absurd though. I couldn't believe that being stoned to death was the result of "winning the lottery"
ReplyDeleteI believe that in the era of the story, when people were stoned to death it was a cruel punishment of slow death. I realize that the townspeople were doing this because of their cultural beliefs but it is certainly a hard one to understand. "Winning the Lottery" is not always a lucky thing!
ReplyDeleteThe story makes much more sense now that you say that, one person was sacrifriced for their crops. I didn't get that the first time I read the story. The whole time I've been wondering why they event participate in the ritual and now I know.
ReplyDeleteI understand it now after going back to reread it to really truely grasp the meaning behind it and I can see now why they stoned a person but it is still cruel. If I lived in that town I wouldnt want to win the lottery.
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