Writing About The Lottery [Categories: Life Choice, Course Reading, Making Connections]: Please complete the following:
Although this story is called “The Lottery” it is not at all the lottery you would think. In this story a town gathers every year and draws papers from an old worn out black box. The men or head of the family are the ones to pick. All the papers are blank except for one. One paper has a black dot on it, and if your family gets that paper you are the “winners”. The family with the black dot paper then redraws to see who in their family is the unlucky recipient. The person who picks the black dot paper then has stones thrown at them until they die. Literary Analysis: In the text “The Lottery” there a couple of themes throughout. One being hierarchy. This is shown through the men picking the papers, Mr. Summers reading the list, and the older townspeople’s input on the lottery. Another being what we talked about in the class the theme of choice or lack of. A motif in this short story is the black box and the tradition it showed. Argumentation: A tradition in America that I feel can be considered close to the lottery tradition is the way American’s binge drink. In America it is usually encouraged to drink as fast, and as much as you can. Bring sports into the mix and it seems to get worse, and on many occasions violent. A similarity I see between this and the lottery is the lack of empathy for other people and their lives. In the link I put below a Phillies fan is sentenced to 7-14 years for killing someone and seriously injuring another. This man who was only nineteen ran over two women while driving under the influence. Another incident I found were a group of eagles fans knocking out a giants’ fan. They were on the El taunting him repeatedly. This just shows how much of an impact the love for sports people have. Put drinking in the mix and things can get much worse. We do not even see this complete disregard for people’s lives when it comes to defending our teams but as talked about in class today it also comes with hazing in college. There have been several cases over the past couple of years where college students have been forced to drink massive amounts. In these cases, the kids are either injured by others or cannot control themselves and end up hurting themselves. Narration: A cultural tradition I as well as many women my age have broken away from is being the stereotypical women. As most of us know women were always considered weaker. They were expected to be the perfect house wife, staying home cleaning, taking care of the kids, and making dinner. I have decided that is not the life I want and I want to earn for myself and be able to support myself. It is a big movement for women to be treated equally, and it has been a long time coming. Many strong women have paved the way to where we are now. In choosing to break away from this tradition I am not saying women who stay home are weaker. My mom was a stay at home mom throughout my life and trust me it can be tough. Keeping up with four girls was definitely not always easy for her but she made it work. Although my dad worked he was always involved with us and helped with anything he could. I understand some women would just like to stay home but I feel as though we are becoming more and more independent and like to earn for ourselves. I love this movement and the empowerment of women.
5 Comments
Sabatino
9/22/2017 04:30:09 am
Thank you for sharing this informative and thoughtful post.
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Isatu Njie
9/25/2017 06:09:06 pm
I like how you included how violate the drinking could be and I totally agree because if people could drink any how it could cause a lot of harm
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Inayah
9/25/2017 06:35:21 pm
I never knew about that story with the phillies fan. It was really interesting. Also i loved your narrative about the stereotypical woman.
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Emily Kershaw
9/26/2017 06:36:05 pm
I enjoyed how you made a connection with many different instances to support your argument about just how dangerous binge drinking can become. I had not heard of either of these stories before and I am just so shocked that it can come to that. I know Phillies & Eagles fans are nuts, but I did not think it was that bad.
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10/2/2017 07:20:13 pm
I just want to say I love reading your blogs! You describe everything so well and your writing is wonderful!
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Erica O'Brien
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