Why kill ? - The Lottery Discussion

[–] nihilistwonder 18 years ago

Sacrifice to ensure the coming harvest--- which is an ancient practice, but the commission of the killing in the story seems unique compared to the usual methods, such as stabbing upon an altar. The story mentions that other nearby towns had ceased their own similar lotteries, but one gets the impression that this was a poor village, probably plagued with poor harvests, and thus the people were too desperate and superstitious to give up the custom just yet.

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[–] lordofthelake 17 years ago

It just occurred to me that this film was maybe the prime inspiration for The Wicker Man (1973) and Harvest Home (book 1973), that also deal with pagan human sacrifices.

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[–] francienol 17 years ago

Shirley Jackson's story was published in 1948, so I saw it as an allegory concerning WWII--people killing for no reason, without shame or conscience. The harvest was human life, in the same way the Nazi's "harvested" Jews and anyone else that did not fit the Aryan look.

"Anyone who tells a lie has not a pure heart, and cannot make a good soup." Ludwig Van Beethoven

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[–] kelli-7 15 years ago

it has to do with mob mentality. the fact that they forgot the original purpose of the ritual, but remembered the stones tells me that they were so swept up in the killing, nothing else mattered. Did you notice the look of glee on Tessie's face when she showed up late? she was excited at the prospect of killing. Yet when she "won", she didn't protest dying, she protested the picking!

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[–] kincaid67a 15 years ago

People didn't question WHY they killed. That was the point of the story.

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[–] LadyVirgoxoxo 15 years ago

Yeah I didn't know anything had to do with a harvest or whatever. I watched this today in my English class and I thought that this was a Puritan society? At least thats where my teacher made us put it under in our binder. Also my teacher said that the lesson of this story was why do we have traditions that we don't even know where they came from? We just do them. Like why do you make cranberry juice for Thanksgiving if no one in your family likes it? Because you do it every year. I thought that was the lesson of the story.

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[–] ecjones1951 14 years ago

Old Man Warner explains "lottery in June, corn be heavy soon."

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[–] lucymaxx 14 years ago

The people of the town randomly choose a scapegoat - a person who has done nothing wrong that can be sacrificed for the "greater good". If you look up this version of The Lottery on YouTube, there is also an accompanying 10 minute clip of a discussion given by a USC professor about the story that's pretty interesting.

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[–] richard.fuller1 11 years ago

The purpose of the story, as a teacher explained it, was not letting go of tradition.

We read the story first and I envisioned it as colonial figures, then we watched this program and it looked bizarre updated. Very effective.

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[–] 11 years ago

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