CoffeeHouse #2 -Greg Levius

Out of all the short stories I’ve read I enjoyed “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson the most. The reason why is because at the beginning of the story the author sets up the story as it being a happy and joyful setting but it ends up not being. Shirley Jackson used really expressive and descriptive words to describe the day of the Lottery. “The flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was rich and green”, but eventually the story takes a shocking turn. As soon as you hear lottery you would think its a raffle or some sort of contest. The venue was packed with different families with their kids and everyone rushing to finish their breakfast to be at the Lottery. To myself, I envisioned and a good amount of people being their to hopefully be the lucky ones to win a prize, but it was actually people just wanting to see who gets stoned to death. You wouldn’t expect it to be that with the way some of the people there wanted to speed up the process just to get along with their day. I think just the way the author makes the story from a happy sunny day in the summer, to the reaction of Tessie actually “winning” the Lottery which is getting stoned to death by the remaining families and her own family members really stood out to me.