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A lotto good read

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“The Lottery” is a powerful work of literature about the lotto and the best short story I ever read. When first published in the “New Yorker” in 1948, it engendered an enormous amount of hate mail; some readers actually canceled their subscriptions. Although now commonly regarded as a masterpiece of short fiction, Jackson’s macabre work is still so greatly abhorred by some contemporary readers that they have attempted to get it banned from their local libraries. Indeed, a relacement copy I donatated just quietly disappeared from mine. Why?

The few readers I have polled were quick to label the story “terrible” but seemed strangely reluctant to pinpoint their objections; so I can only surmise.

I believe the story makes people nervous because they perceive that the community in which the lottery was held is really not all too different from their own. I think Jackson drives home the point that we, too, live in a society rife with superstition and ignorance — a culture in which ancient traditions are unquestioningly accepted and virtually anyone can suddenly find themselves chosen as a sacrificial offering to an unseen god. When readers see themselves in the role of the ill-fated Mrs. Hutchinson, besieged by a mindless mob of true-believers, they are justifiably terrified. Or could it be that some readers are troubled because they sense in themselves a strong impulse to pick up a stone?

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