Reading Journal 3 (The lottery)

For my third reading journal I chose to write about the short story called 'the lottery'. This story is set in an unknown time period but probably sometime between the 1600's and 1800's in a small European village. The story is focused on one event, called the lottery. Everyone in town is gathered the the town square for this annual event although the author does not tell us what the event consists of. There is some introduction as the author introduces the main characters, which consist of families in the town.

Once everyone arrives at the square, the lottery begins. One person from each household goes up to the podium and retrieves a piece of paper from a box. Once everyone has their piece of paper, they open them. One person is found to have a piece of paper with the dreaded 'black spot' on it. This turns out to be Mr. Bill Henderson. Everyone in the Henderson family must now choose pieces of paper from the box (with the spot back in it). After doing this, it is found that Bill's wife Tessie has the black spot. She cries and shrieks that there was a mistake and that this was unfair but to no avail. The people then drift to the outside of the square and everyone picks up a rock that had been stockpiled earlier, except for Tessie. She is forced to stand in the middle of the square and every person in the town, including her own family (and little children) viciously pummel her with rocks until she is dead. This is not written explicitly but it is implied. This concludes the story.

Personally I found this to be a horrible and despicable story, to think that children would murder their own mother, as would her husband and her friends, all with no purpose except that it happens every year, is disgusting and appalling.

The author is successful in setting up the story, but near the beginning it talks about the boys gathering and stockpiling the rocks in the town square, so it is somewhat obvious what the outcome will be. However, I am sorry for reading this story, writing by such a disgusting person as this author who appears to boarder on psychopathy. In my opinion if the author had wanted to convey a message that people will mindlessly pursue tradition as far as they must, or that mob mentality is a very strong power, they went much too far and no sane person would have thought up this story as an example. Once again I wish I had not read this story as it disturbed me and angered me beyond belief.