Name: George Youssef
Course Title: ENG 1010
Instructor: Gina Tabasso
Date: 3/18/2015
“The Lottery”
The widely criticized short story of the twentieth century by Shirley Jackson represents shocking human social behaviors and communal attributes. The story hints at the archetypal phe-nomenon named “scapegoat” which explains the behavioral patterns of a community pertaining to otherwise unjustifiable rituals in the events of troubling economical or global conditions. The story is set in an unspecified village outside of New England and was published in the New Yorker in 1948, generating an outrage of critic from its readers and “many cancelled subscrip-tions” (Lethem, “Monstrous Acts and little Murders”). The plot of the story which seems sim-plistic at first divulges itself into what can only be described as horrific reality of community cul-tures and bland blindness to justice following a murderous ritual.…show more content… The villagers have gathered around to take part in the lottery which takes place each year on June 27. The town has a population of only above 300; lottery takes not more than 2 hours and the villagers make it to their normal routines easily. The villagers ready for the lottery have clustered up in the town square and their activities are nothing but ordinary, children playing and gathering stones, men talking about crops and taxes, women gos-siping amongst each other before taking their places beside their husbands as the ceremony
the first two years after the virus quarantined in an airport with his mother before leaving to join the religious sect he now leads. Tyler’s mother, Elizabeth, indoctrinated him to a life of spirituality; as such, he spent his childhood reading the Book of Revelations to an airplane full of dead travelers (Mandel 259-61). This places him in direct conflict with Kristen, who wants nothing more than to stay