Lottery Essay, Research Paper
The Lottery
The story takes place in a small town with a population of about three hundred. They are all gathering for a lottery in the Town Square. The lottery has been a tradition since the beginning of the town?s history. Some parts of the ritual had been forgotten and they even lost the original black ballot box. But just the same they still have the lottery year after year.
The townspeople are gathering in the Town Square waiting for the rest of the residents. Before the lottery may commence the conductor checks to see if there is a representative from every family. Once everyone shows up to the lottery starts. The lottery conductor Mr. Summers reads the official rules or which everyone has heard time and time again. Then the conductor begins to call names on at a time beginning with ?A?. Once everyone gets a ticket Mr. Summers orders everyone to be quiet. Then everybody is told to check his or her tickets at the same time. Out of the silence Mr. Hutchinson raises his hand and claims he has the special ticket. The Hutchinson Family has been chosen.
Mrs. Hutchinson screams out, ?It?s unfair he was rushed. It?s unfair.? Mr. Summers exclaimed sorry those are the rules. So Five more tickets were added to the black box. One ticket for each member of the family. Mr. Summers then ordered everyone in the family starting with the youngest of the Hutchinson to then pick a ticket out of the box. One by one each person chose a ticket while the rest of the townspeople waited in silence. Now Mr. Summers started to ask each Hutchinson to show their ticket. First the children from youngest to the oldest. None of them had the chosen ticket. Next was Mr. Hutchinson as he looked at his ticket nervously. It wasn?t him either. The only other possibility was Mrs. Hutchinson. Mr. Summers asked her to raise the ticket and show everybody as she shouting, ?It?s not fair. It?s not fair.? Claiming her husband was rushed and he didn?t get to pick the ticket he wanted. At this moment everyone began to gather stones. ?It isn?t fair. It isn?t fair.? Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and they were upon her. She was the next stoning victim.
The townspeople had done the lottery every year. Still, for some reason they had forgotten most of the ritual and didn?t every have the correct black box. As the story came to a conclusion they still remembered to finish the ritual with stoning the person to death.