'The Lottery' is a short story by Shirley Jackson (December 14, 1916 - August 8, 1965), was first published in June 26, 1948 in a magazine called The New Yorker. It is a short story set in a small village in New England, or early America. On every June 27th, an annual lottery takes place in this town around 10:00 am ~ 12:00 pm. Every man who is the head of house draws for the whole family. When a black dot is drawn by the head, everyone in that family draws once more to see who in the family will receive the dot in the end. Someone in the village must have a black dot. This time it was the Hutchinsons. The Hutchinsons draw once more in cold sweat, nervous about who will get the dot. When everyone finds out it was Tessie Hutchinson, wife of Bill Hutchinson, drew the final dot, they each grab a stone the village children had collected before the lottery and calmly stone her to death.
If I were the author, I would call this story 'The Cursed Dot' or 'The Sacrifice' because the black dot means death to the person who ends up drawing it. The person is being stoned to death as a sacrifice to the gods, for a good harvest. I thought that the person with the dot would be killed or have a tragic ending because when Bill Hutchinson drew the dot, Tessie got mad and started to protest about the lottery. This was actually quite ironic, as at first, everyone seemed happy and actually wanted to 'win' the lottery. But when I wasn't given the end of the story, I got really curious and wanted to find out. I kept asking questions and felt some tension being created. And when Ms. Peters showed us the black box, I was immediately curious. When I saw the papers with a black dot, or just blank, I thought we were actually having a lottery like they did in the story and predicted that if the dot means something good in the story, it would probably mean something good for us too. But reading Tessie Hutchinson's reaction to the dot, I predicted that it wouldn't be a good thing so I was sort of relieved when I picked out a blank paper. When the mystery papers were given out, I asked questions like 'What is this?' and when I saw a black dot on somebody else's paper but not mine, I thought 'What can that black dot be? Is it something good or bad?' I thought that it would probably be homework inside and nothing much other than that. I also tried to peek inside but found it hard and gave up. So I followed only half of the instructions as I opened it up at the time we were told to open it. But when I looked inside and read the ending, I was shocked. The fate of Tessie was so brutal and it was a direct opposite of what the story started out as. It was all warm and fuzzy in the beginning, but it had such a dark and brutal ending! I really wondered whether this story was based on a true story or is purely fictional. So I looked it up. It shocked me when I found out that it had some truth in it. My predictions were actually partially correct. Tessie was killed but I had never thought that she would be stoned with the stones collected in the beginning by her on neighbors and family. I thought she would just be killed quickly and less brutally, or even sent away to another place as a sacrifice. And when I found out that my predictions were half correct, I was appalled and felt pity for Tessie. But I would've had a better prediction if there were some images or visuals to the story. I really think that visuals do take a great part in understanding literature. I think the author leaved these voids in the story to create tension and make the readers ask questions. Also, when voids are created, it makes the reader feel tension and want to read more. And as they say curiosity kills the cat, the reader is hit with a brutal ending; a sudden attack from the author. The void created through text clues and foreshadowing plus the void added when there was no title, delayed ending, mystery lottery papers was quite big and full of suspense. I could really feel the power of the void by this activity through not knowing the ending of the story for a long period of time. Throughout the day, I kept wondering about the ending and found myself picturing many different types of endings that could've happened, which just added to my curiosity. It had really kept me in tension and suspense for a very long time and I could hardly concentrate on other things in my day. I never knew that a void could keep one in tension for a prolonged amount of time and I feel like I've discovered something new after this activity.
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